# Do other languages call Earth earth (non-answer) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [February 15, 2018, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858 "2018-02-15T03:54:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/1 "2018-02-15T03:54:29Z")
Column: [Do other languages call Earth “Earth”? - The Straight Dope](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1459/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth/) Was Cecil in a grouchy mood? It’s pretty clear what the question meant but Cecil instead answers the question in a very literal way, which plainly no-one would ask. I’ll start the ball rolling: In chinese there’s a word for “world” (shijie) and a word for “earth” (diqiu). (Probably it’s like this with most languages…we have to be sure we’re picking the equivalent word; the word they’d use when describing the earth as a planet). So the word for earth, “diqiu”, includes two characters, the first meaning land or soil, and the second meaning ball or globe. So I would could that as a “yes” for Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/2 "2018-02-15T04:19:31Z")
That was not Cecil who answered the question. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/3 "2018-02-15T04:29:34Z")
Ah. Then everywhere I said “Cecil” I meant “SDStaff Jillgat”. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/4 "2018-02-15T04:32:53Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > That was not Cecil who answered the question. True, but this was back when the Staff Reports were trying to mimic Cecil’s style. And I agree it was a bad answer. That said, it wasn’t the best defined question, either. You’d have to spend time guessing what qualifies as being the same word “Earth.” My best guess would be “Do they have a word for the planet that matches a term for dirt that comes out of the ground?” But it could also be “Do they have a word for the land that matches the dirt?” Or “Do they have a word for the planet that is the same as the word for the ground?” And, even if I try all three, I’m not sure the Chinese word counts, since it seems to add another wrinkle: “what if it just contains the word for one of those other things?” Does that still count? As such, I can see why, if you’re going to answer it at all, you might just give the flip, snarky answer. Otherwise you’d need to ask for a lot more clarification. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/5 "2018-02-15T05:03:16Z")
Jiillgat’s “knucklehead” comment and the first sentence was a Cecil-style joke based on deliberately interpreting the question in a silly way, right? No implication that the question was _really_ a dumb question. But then… seemed like a bit of an odd digression as though the joke wasn’t a joke, kind of confusing. I’d certainly have taken it to be asking if other languages used a word that meant something like “soil” for the planet as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/6 "2018-02-15T05:03:45Z")
@ BigT I dunno… I think it’s pretty common to have columns that say “I assume you mean \ therefore here’s \”, and also include a couple sentences at the end covering other potential interpretations. Assuming the OP did just ask that single sentence question and there was no further elaboration, then yes it’s a bad question. But Cecil (and SDStaff) are used to catching such low throws. (and indeed if there is no possibility of writing a non-obvious, non-literal column, what’s the point of answering this particular question?) ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/7 "2018-02-15T05:09:46Z")
It’s actually an interesting question, I think. I’d also like to know about how aliens describe their home planet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/8 "2018-02-15T05:27:53Z")
[Wiktionary has a nice list](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Planets). Clicking through the names, the majority do appear to be just the terms for “dirt”, “ground”, etc. Certainly all the “earth” or “terra” sounding ones come from one of these (with different origins in Proto-Indo-European). ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/9 "2018-02-15T08:00:56Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I’d certainly have taken it to be asking if other languages used a word that meant something like “soil” for the planet as a whole. I wouldn’t, because in the question, _Earth_ is capitalized in both instances. For the question to have meant that, it should have been: Do other countries call the The Earth _earth_?Because the questioner didn’t take that measure, it seems clear to me that **Jillgat** interpreted the question in a reasonable way. ---
**Author:** ![Mattmobile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dec6dc/32.png) [@Mattmobile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mattmobile)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/10 "2018-02-15T11:49:59Z")
This might be a better answer to the question: [https://www.reddit.com/r/etymologymaps/comments/793vl7/etymology\_map\_of\_the\_name\_for\_the\_earth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/etymologymaps/comments/793vl7/etymology_map_of_the_name_for_the_earth/) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/11 "2018-02-15T15:45:21Z")
It was either a literally written question that she answered or a poorly written question that was hard to interpret, that she attempted to answer via a weak method, i.e. babelfish. It did allow a snarky response to mimic Cecil’s style and, thus, made a decent target for the early Staff Reports, which weren’t necessarily exhaustive in their approach. I mean, I would have at least tried several words like “Earth”, “dirt”, “world”, and “planet” and compared the results. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/12 "2018-02-15T15:58:16Z")
Science fiction authors have played with the concept, such as in LeGuin’s “The Word for World is Forest”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/13 "2018-02-16T04:50:21Z")
And _world_ is problematic to begin with. Its root meaning is not “Earth”, but “universe” (and also, “era”, or “age”, as in “World without end”). But European culture was so used to the idea that Europe, Asia, and Africa _were_ the World that we got the “New World” from Columbus and “other Worlds” when it became clear that five of the seven planets (specifically, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn) were “worlds” like Earth. C. S. Lewis dedicates an entire chapter to this in his magisterial _Studies in Words_. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/14 "2018-02-17T15:49:00Z")
Oh, no doubt. The point of including “world” is to make comparisons against some sometimes synonym for planet. But I recognize it has a different root. Thus, it makes something to juxtapose, to make sure you are looking up the word for the name of the planet, not a word for the universe. I know my proposed method is flawed, but I think it gives an improvement over just babelfishing “earth”. We’ve dissected that list before, but just from memory, French “mondiale” is the word for world, not Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/15 "2018-02-17T15:53:58Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > We’ve dissected that list before, but just from memory, French “mondiale” is the word for world, not Earth. And specifically the adjective. The noun is _monde_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/16 "2018-02-18T02:54:01Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And specifically the adjective. The noun is _monde_. Thought so, but my French is just barely enough to order a turkey sandwich at a Québec Timmy’s. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/17 "2018-02-21T18:58:40Z")
Right, and of course calling Earth a “planet” is similarly confusing. The root for planet is just “wanderer”, which referred to a couple of weird stars that didn’t stay in one place. Is this ground we walk on a wandering star? It’s only when we realized that those wandering stars orbited the Sun and not the Earth, and they were really balls of rock and dirt and ice and gas and liquid, and that the Earth went around the Sun, and that the Earth was really a ball of rock and dirt and ice and gas and liquid that the Earth was the same sort of thing as the planets, and therefore the Earth was also a planet. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/18 "2018-02-22T04:01:02Z")
…and the Sun and the Moon, on the other hand, were not. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/19 "2018-02-22T05:42:38Z")
Right but these are actually good side questions. For example, the word for “planet” in Chinese is 行星, which means “moving/walking star”. I think it’s likely that the origin of the words for “world”, “Earth” and “planet” have similar origins for many languages (“universe/everything”, “soil/land” and “moving star” respectively). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858/20 "2018-02-22T16:36:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **John W. Kennedy** : > > But European culture was so used to the idea that Europe, Asia, and Africa were the World that we got the “New World” from Columbus and “other Worlds” when it became clear that five of the seven planets (specifically, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn) were “worlds” like Earth. Four of the seven: Mercury, Venus, Luna, and Mars. Jupiter and Saturn are a very different sort of object, in many ways more like Sol than like Earth. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-call-earth-earth-non-answer/808858.md?page=2)