I’m wondering whether the researcher missed the question…the meaning I took from the question was whether the name used within other cultures (and their languages) for our planet is semantically rooted (hoho) in the idea of earth (dirt, ground, etc.). Of course, I suppose a culture would have to have to have a concept of planethood first, or, more loosely, a concept for “world,” “floating turtle-back”, or even “reality.”
Something I’ve wondered myself…
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, mvsmith, glad to have you with us.
When you start a new topic, it is helpful to others if you provide a link to the column or Staff Report upon which you are commenting. There’s a lot of them out there, and it can be somewhat confusing, so providing a link helps keeps us all on the same page.
In this instance, the Staff Report is Do other languages call Earth “Earth”?
There’s also some interesting prior comments on the Message Boards, which you could find if the search mechanism took less than an hour.
Here’s the earlier comments on the Message Boards: Foreign-language names for our planet