A lot of people did.
It’s called “Maa” in Finnish, “Erde” in German", “Земля” in Ukrainian, etc. Each of those means “dirt” as well.
I guess if we were to go to some other planet and find sapient locals there, they’d probably call their planet something that translates to “dirt” or “ground” or something similar.
I went to Wiktionary and checked some 15 languages from across the… Earth. And each but one that had an etymology mentioned, said it comes from their word for land or dirt. In Georgian this planet is called Motherdirt, which I found funny. In Arabic, however, our planet is called “The lower place”, as opposed to the “The upper place”, which means heaven. So, there’s at least one language that has elected to do it differently. And there was very scarce data for various indigenous American languages, so I couldn’t find much about them. In Taos, spoken in Mexico, their word for Earth translates to “land”. The Greenlandic name for our planet does mean land, as well. And their language came from North America, so the only North American samples I could get are “Earth” as well. And Japanese, Sumerian, Coptic, you name it, it’s always the same: Either “land” or “dirt”.
Which one? I guess to the list of “Dirt”, because it’s an Indo-European language, so I’d assume it does things the same way as any other Indo-European language would.
A lot of people did.
It’s called “Maa” in Finnish, “Erde” in German", “Земля” in Ukrainian, etc. Each of those means “dirt” as well.
I guess if we were to go to some other planet and find sapient locals there, they’d probably call their planet something that translates to “dirt” or “ground” or something similar.
I went to Wiktionary and checked some 15 languages from across the… Earth. And each but one that had an etymology mentioned, said it comes from their word for land or dirt. In Georgian this planet is called Motherdirt, which I found funny. In Arabic, however, our planet is called “The lower place”, as opposed to the “The upper place”, which means heaven. So, there’s at least one language that has elected to do it differently. And there was very scarce data for various indigenous American languages, so I couldn’t find much about them. In Taos, spoken in Mexico, their word for Earth translates to “land”. The Greenlandic name for our planet does mean land, as well. And their language came from North America, so the only North American samples I could get are “Earth” as well. And Japanese, Sumerian, Coptic, you name it, it’s always the same: Either “land” or “dirt”.
Tbf, a few Native American cultures use variations of Turtle Island which reference the creation story of living on the back of a giant turtle
Thanks, that’s awesome to know! But even there we then have the … island. Basically “land” again :)
Didn’t expect to find Pratchett connections in native American culture…
In Hungarian it’s both land and dirt
Adding Sanskrit to the list
Which one? I guess to the list of “Dirt”, because it’s an Indo-European language, so I’d assume it does things the same way as any other Indo-European language would.