# Who named our planet "earth", and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 26, 2001, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843 "2001-07-26T11:12:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Arjue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/278dde/32.png) [@Arjue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjue)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/1 "2001-07-26T11:12:37Z")
I’ve been thinking of this one for a while, and I have no idea. Can anybody help? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/2 "2001-07-26T11:41:57Z")
For a similar problem look [here](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mearth.html) (although the Swedish word mentioned is downright silly in this context). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/3 "2001-07-26T11:47:22Z")
\*The old Anglo-Saxons called the earth _eorthe_, meaning the ground, soil, earth. The Goths called it _airþa_ and the Norsemen called it _jorð_. These all derive from Common Germanic \*_erthô_. Germanic added a dental suffix _-th_, but other Indo-European languages don’t: Welsh _ero_ ‘field’, Greek _eras_ ‘earth’, and perhaps Armenian _erkas_. Old High German also has the form _ero_. These are from the Proto-Indo-European extended forms \ ***er-t-, \*er-w-** , from the root \ ***er-** ‘earth, ground’. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/4 "2001-07-26T11:58:48Z")
SDSTAFF Jill used a computer translator, but she should know how unreliable those gadgets are. You still have to check the results using a human brain. Maybe she was pressed for time that day. French for the planet Earth is _terre_. The adjective _mondial_ refers to ‘world(wide)’, e.g. _la guerre mondiale_, the World War. The Russian word, transliterated from Cyrillic, which Jill’s software does not support, is _zemlia_. When you translate ‘earth’ you have to know if you mean ‘soil, ground’ or ‘the world’. English uses the same word for both, but other languages use different words. The Malay (Indonesian) word _dunia_ means ‘world’, and their word for ‘earth’ is _tanah_. In Finnish, _maa_ is ‘earth’ and ‘the world’ is _maailma_, a compound: ‘earth-air’. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/5 "2001-07-26T12:17:34Z")
and Eskomos (Initu?) have about 20 words for snow 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/6 "2001-07-26T12:32:46Z")
Perhaps I should point out that the word that SDSTAFF Jill had found in Swedish, _mull_, could be translated as earth (the common or garden variety, nowadays used almost only in funeral services), but The Earth is **Jorden** in Swedish. ---
**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/7 "2001-07-26T14:14:45Z")
I believe (or prefer to believe) that the original poster rather wanted to know whether or not the planet we inhibit is called the equivalent of ‘soil’ in other languages. This is indeed a rather interesting question. Why would one call the planet ‘soil’ even though the amount of fertile top-soil on our planet is so much lower than the amount of water or rock? I beg to disagree with **Jomo** , as i all languages I speak, there is a word that means both _soil_ and _the-planet-we-live-on_. If I’m allowed to present my opinion, I’d guess that it’s because the people who invented the ancestors of our languages were farmers, and the most substantial substance underneath them would indeed be soil. Over the eons the sense of this ‘terra firma’ evolved to include not only the dirt used to grow potatoes, but extended to include everything under the firmament. Later the astronomers on their hand restricted the meaning to the now familiar ‘the-planet-we-live-on’ sense one finds in dictionaries. It would be interesting to try to follow this shift of meanings over the ages, but unfortunatelly my copy of OED is on loan, and I dread that this shift occured in those horrible days when they not only didn’t have the Internet, but they didn’t even have any writing. I appreciate the findings of **Jomo** , and it does indeed seem as if the two meanings _planet_ and _soil_ have a long history together in the indo-european history. Are there cultures where agriculture hasn’t been as important as in the indo-european history? If so, maybe they might call the planet something else. Assuming that the planet sense has evolved slowly, maybe it would still mean something else as well. Maybe to some mountain dwellers somewhere the indigenous word for mountain got stuck as a label for the whole boulder? **Jomo** , does _dunia_ in Malay have any other connotations? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/8 "2001-07-26T15:51:19Z")
On Venus it is referred to as “ze erz.” I know this from watching “Queen of Outer Space,” in which Zsa Zsa Gabor says, “ze schpacemen are here from ze erz, dahling.” ---
**Author:** ![KeithB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@KeithB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithB)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/9 "2001-07-26T19:24:55Z")
There is a SF short story based on this: Some guy bets another that the Earth (our Earth) is the prettiest planet, and that every species knows it. Bet accepted, Mr. Guy goes up to an alien and asks: “Hey, Alien is earth the prettiest planet?” in the alien language. The alien answers yes and the guy wins the bet. However, he played on the fact that when the alien heard “earth” he would think it referred to the alien’s planet, not Earth. I believe it might have been Heinlein in “The Green Hills of Earth.” ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/10 "2001-07-26T21:07:48Z")
Actually the short story in question is “Lulungomeena” by Gordon R. Dickson. In the native tongue of the protaganist, Lulungomeena means “home” so yes, indeed, Home is the most beautiful place in the Universe. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2001, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/11 "2001-07-26T21:39:30Z")
Dunya is an Arabic loan word. I don’t know the etymology, although I am sure JM can track it down throught he root dal noun ya. However, I am fairly certain it has no soil connection. My sense is the word carries metaphysical connotations. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2001, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/12 "2001-07-27T00:24:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > \*\*Dunya is an Arabic loan word. I don’t know the etymology, although I am sure JM can track it down throught he root dal noun ya. \*\* The root _dâl-nûn-yâ’_ is for not only nouns, as you implied, but for verbs and adjectives as well. It means both ‘near’ and ‘low’, like the fruit on the lower branches of a tree which you can easily reach up and pick. The cosmic tree is a symbol in many cultures. The “Near East” in Arabic is called \*al-Sharq al-Adná from the same root. > [@](#): > > \*\* > However, I am fairly certain it has no soil connection. My sense is the word carries metaphysical connotations.\*\* You’re right about that. The idea is of this life contrasted with _al-âkhirah_, the Afterlife. Originally the meaning of this term was eschatological, but moderns use it to mean the globe of the world. Early peoples didn’t really deal with the concept of the Earth as a planet out in space. Earth meant the ground. When you’re looking up at the stars your feet are on the ground. The earth. It took the Copernican model to establish this here place as a planet like other planets. So when English speakers needed to file this planet along with the others, they called it what they had been used to calling it pre-Copernicus. When I was looking up the words for fire, water, air, and earth in many languages I kept finding words for ‘world’ when I was really looking for earth in the sense of soil or land. I think that’s a modern confusion caused by languages casting about for a name to call the Copernican Planet Earth. English settled on the word for soil, but other languages seem to have equated it with “world,” even if the latter is originally a metaphysical concept. ---
**Author:** ![urban1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d07c76/32.png) [@urban1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2001, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/13 "2001-07-27T02:27:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eve \* > \*\*On Venus it is referred to as “ze erz.” I know this from watching “Queen of Outer Space,” in which Zsa Zsa Gabor says, “ze schpacemen are here from ze erz, dahling.” \*\* STOP THAT!!! I have Pepsi all over my monitor. 😃 **[sub]Note to self: do not read the Straight Dope message boards while drinking[/sub]** ---
**Author:** ![KeithB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@KeithB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithB)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/14 "2001-07-27T15:00:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sewalk \* > \*\*Actually the short story in question is “Lulungomeena” by Gordon R. Dickson. In the native tongue of the protaganist, Lulungomeena means “home” so yes, indeed, Home is the most beautiful place in the Universe. \*\* Thanks for the correction. Still does not ring a bell, though. I hate being 40! ---
**Author:** ![Neurodoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/848f3c/32.png) [@Neurodoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurodoc)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2001, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/15 "2001-07-28T05:21:09Z")
The Old English (West Saxon) word, “eorthe” refers to the soil, the gritty dirt itself, and by extension this has come to mean our planet. The English word is rooted strongly in the word for dirt itself. The sound of “eorthe,” at least to my ear at least, conveys the essense of soil. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2001, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/16 "2001-07-28T20:31:52Z")
We chatted about Jill’s column when it first came out: [Foreign-language names for our planet](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=2569). * * * The poster formerly known as **jti**. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2001, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/17 "2001-07-28T21:02:05Z")
Well, they wouldn’t let God take it home from the hospital unless there was a name on the birth certificate, so he was really pressed for time, and “earth” was the best he could think of. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gozu\_Tashoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2001, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-named-our-planet-earth-and-why/73843/18 "2001-07-29T08:01:47Z")
Well, then, that begs the question - couldn’t He come up with a better name for the moon besides ‘the moon’?