Other even more closely related species produce male offspring that tend to be infertile, while the female offspring tend to be fertile.) (There are some closely related species that produce offspring which are not fertile, as mules. One definition of species, especially among animals is that members of the same species can naturally mate and produce viable offspring that are fully fertile. The concept of species is, of course, a human idea imposed upon the natural world. Yet the Christian and Jewish religions do actually share much in common- including the scriptures known as the Old Testament. He may just not have been aware of how far back and how deep of a tradition this idea really was.įiled Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: etymology, historical, human, latin, pie, proto-indo-europeanĪn interesting post, Jake. I believe Prof Uhl was trying to get us as humans to realize how related and interconnected we all are to the planet and the ground we walk on. Their etymologies are closely related, both originating from the idea that they are intimately part of dirt, of earth. The actual historical connotations and ideas around humans already place us as one with and a part of the earth. It is no coincidence that he is named Adam, from the Hebrew adamah, meaning ground. This association of mankind as a “being of earth” is widespread, even the biblical story of the origins of man have life being breathed into a pile of dust. Earth here referring to the ground, dirt, etc. This word is an alteration of *dʰéǵʰōm and was used to refer to us, it’s literal meaning is near earthling or being of the earth. Humanus and homo actually entered from another P.I.E. *dʰéǵʰōm was taken directly into Latin as the word humus, referring strictly to dirt and soil. Originally adjective form of the Latin “homo”, it entered English through French. Quick overview of the etymology of “human”. word *dʰéǵʰōm meant earth, soil, and is where the Latin homo, humanus, and humus all have their origins. Homo Sapiens), come from an extinct, 6000-year-old language called Proto-Indo-European or P.I.E. The two words, along with other Latin terms such as homo (e.g. It is true that they are related terms however. The Latin humus and humanus (from which we get out modern human) were completely separate terms in Latin, one was not based at all off the other. He goes on to argue that our connection to soil is intimate, that the Latin word for soil “humus” comes from the word “human”. It is not some meaningless term, and its actual origin puts it in a much closer relationship to human. This claim is dubious, the word earth originates from a Proto-Germanic word meaning dirt, ground, or soil. A recreation of the image Uhl was going for in his “Eairth” description The air in E airth expresses the fact they we all live in the atmosphere and that it flows through all of us, with a lowercase “i” in the middle indicative of we, humans. “Eairth”, supposedly is a much more human term for our planet. Uhl’s claim (viewable here along with the rest of the lecture) is that “the earth” is a distancing term to refer to the planet buy, offering the solution of “Eairth”. The true historical context and etymology of the terms are equally, if not more valid for the point he was making. This struck me as quite odd, the message that Uhl was going for was one of inclusivity and interconnectedness, yet his explanation of the etymology he offered was completely false. He made an incorrect association between the origins of the words “Earth”, “Human” and their etymologies. I was sitting in my Environmental Science class, known colloquially as BiSci 3, when Prof Uhl was asking us to think about our relations as humans to soil and to the earth.
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