Shaman vs Wu - What's the difference?
shaman | wu |
A traditional (prescientific) faith healer.
A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a religious medium between the concrete and spirit worlds.
(historic) Suzhou, a city in southern Jiangsu province in China, whence:
# (historic) A county of imperial and Republican China around Suzhou.
# (historic) A commandery of imperial China around Suzhou.
A historic and cultural region of China around the mouth of the Yangtze River, whence:
# The family of Chinese languages spoken in that region, including Shanghainese and Suzhounese, the second-most spoken family after Mandarin.
# (historic) The kingdom ruled by the Ji family from Wuxi and then Suzhou during the Spring and Autumn period of China's Zhou dynasty.
# A common Chinese surname:
# (historic) The kingdom ruled by the Sun family from Ezhou and Nanjing during the Three Kingdoms interregnum following China's Han dynasty.
# (historic) The kingdom ruled by Li Zitong from Yangzhou and Hangzhou during the interregnum following China's Sui dynasty.
# (historic) The kingdom ruled by the Yang family from Yangzhou during the Ten Kingdoms interregnum following China's Tang dynasty.
# (historic) The kingdom ruled by the Qian family from Hangzhou and Shaoxing during the Ten Kingdoms interregnum following China's Tang dynasty.
As nouns the difference between shaman and wu
is that shaman is a traditional (prescientific) faith healer while wu is (historic) a chinese shaman or shamaness.shaman
English
(wikipedia shaman)Noun
(en noun)Usage notes
* The plural form is (shamans), not shamen;1978', Carl B. Compton, ''The Interamerican'', volume 25,?3] (Instituto Interamericano, Denton, Texas) We learn from our readers: We have been wrong in writing the word “'''shamen'''” as a plural for “shaman”. The word probably comes from Russian and there is no plural except that made by adding an ‘s’ — e.g. Shamans.the etymologically-consistent plural form from the original Evenki is (term),'''2003''', Howard Isaac Aronson, Dee Ann Holisky, and Kevin Tuite, ''Current Trends in Caucasian, East European, and Inner Asian Linguistics'' — “Dialect Continua in Tungusic: Plural Morphology”, [http://books.google.com/books?id=REPC96ddSc0C&pg=PA103&dq=shaman+plural&lr=&num=100&as_brr=0&ei=M6bZR8eDJtC4igHPzKnVAQ&sig=I8R0SWIUh1gFGJIDmQFnJ62qYXI page 103] ([http://www.benjamins.com/ John Benjamin’s Publishing Company]; ISBN 1588114619) we note here that ''-sal'' tends to exist only as a residual plural marker in -l/-r dialects. For example, in Standard Evenki, as in the Evenki dialects of the Amur basin and the Vivin dialect, use of ''-sal'' is limited to a small number of nouns (e.g. ''bajan'' “rich person”, pl. ''bajasal''; ''?ami:'', “female reindeer”, pl. ''?ami:sal'' or ''?ami:s?l''; ''a?lan'' “field”, pl. ''a?lasal''; ''sama:n'' “shaman”, pl. '''''sama:sal'''''). but this form sees no use in English; the plural form shamans is, however, universally accepted.'''2005''', Peter Metcalf, ''Anthropology: The Basics'', box 7.3: “Shamanism”, [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yAYaiGedL_4C&pg=PA132&dq=shamen+plural&ei=9kPRSKymHJ7QigGyztnmAw&sig=ACfU3U0e-abwShaVZyKNBbrSUNQ-aQ71Rw page 132] ([http://www.routledge.com/ Routledge; ISBN 0415331196) Note that the plural of shaman is ' shamans , not shamen.
