The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #96032   Message #1873220
Posted By: Wolfgang
31-Oct-06 - 02:49 PM
Thread Name: BS: New name for our planet?
Subject: RE: BS: New name for our planet?
Ebbie, yes (from Google pictures, which is my trick when I don't know the language).

It seems that for two very large language families Earth and earth are the same words.

(1) In the romanic languages (Latin, Italina, French, and possibly all the others like Spanish etc) Terra and terra use the same word.

(2) In all the Norse and German languages too both words are the same (and come from a God(ess?) for earth. The old Norse word is Jörd which can be found in all modern Norse languages and, of course, both Erde and Earth are just distant variants of "Jörd". The first vowel sound of "earth" is nearly identical with the first vowel in Jörd

Wolfgang