HUMAN: Ideas Behind Etymology Andrey Kozhevnikov / Lingua Art Project This short article opens a series at the cross point of history, linguistics, and culture. We research the origin of popular words and expressions, and cover relevant areas of literature and philosophy. All of us are human, which raises the question of the origin of the word. In this article we discuss the origin of the word in English and related European languages, as well as list its cognates and cite similar lexical developments in some other cultures. Decalcomania — René Magritte (1966) 1. Origin of ‘HUMAN’ and ‘HOMO’ The word was first attested in English in the middle of the 15 th century in the form of ‘humain, humaigne’, borrowed from 12-century French (‘umain’), ultimately from Latin (‘’humanus) and ‘homo’ (i.e. ‘man’, ‘person’) 1 . Today it is widely used to refer to different species of the genus Homo ( Homo erectus, Homo habilis etc.) 2 . Those include ‘Homo sapiens’, the only extant member of the Homo genus. The term was coined in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, a renowned Swedish zoology and botany pioneer. The word ‘Homo’ comes from Proto-Italic *hemō. It goes further back to the Proto-Indo- European* root *ǵʰm̥ mṓ , alternatively *(dh)ghomon- , which means ‘earthling’, as opposed to the gods. It is derived from *dʰéǵʰōm (“earth”), a word that boasts a considerable number of descendants across languages and cultures 3 . Notably, ‘Homo’ is cognate with Latin ‘humus’, i.e. ‘earth, ground’. To cite an example, it can be found in the medieval academic commercium song ‘De Brevitate Vitae’, commonly referred to as ‘Gaudeamus igitur’ by its first line. The lyrics apparently originate from a 13 th -century Latin manuscript (1287). 1 Online Etymology Dictionary / Etymonline.com 2 A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary. revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis, and. Charles Short, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879. 3 Vadella, J. (2017), Origins of ‘Human’, Joseph Vadella. Linguistics: Historic and Modern. Pennsylvania State University