names for the human species

In addition to the generally accepted taxonomic name ''Homo sapiens'' (Latin: "sapient human", Linnaeus 1758), other Latin-based names for the human species have been created to refer to various aspects of the human character.

The common name of the human species in English is historically ''man'' (from Germanic), often replaced by the Latinate ''human'' (since the 16th century).

In the world's languages

The Indo-European languages have a number of inherited terms for mankind.
The etymon of ''man'' is found in the Germanic languages, and is cognate with ''Manu'', the name of the human progenitor in Hindu mythology, and found in Indic terms for "man" (''manuṣya, manush, manava'' etc.).

Latin ''homo'' is derived from an Indo-European root '' dʰǵʰm-'' "earth", as it were "earthling". It has cognates in Baltic (Old Prussian ''zmūi''), Germanic (Gothic ''guma'') and Celtic (Old Irish ''duine'').
This is comparable to the explanation given in the Genesis narrative to the Hebrew '' Adam'' (אָדָם) "man", derived from a word for "red, reddish-brown". Etymologically, it may be an ethnic or racial classification (after "reddish" skin colour contrasting with both "white" and "black"), but Genesis takes it to refer to the reddish colour of earth, as in the narrative the first man is formed from earth.

Other Indo-European languages name man for his mortality, ''*mr̥tós'' meaning "mortal", so in Armenian ''mard'', Persian ''mard'', Sanskrit ''marta'' and Greek βροτός meaning "mortal; human".
This is comparable to the Semitic word for "man", represented by Arabic ''insan'' (cognate with Hebrew '' ʼenōš'' ), from a root for "sick, mortal".
The Arabic word has been influential in the Islamic world, and was adopted in many Turkic languages. The native Turkic word is ''kiši''.

Greek (''anthropos'') is of uncertain, possibly pre-Greek origin.
Slavic ''čelověkъ'' also is of uncertain etymology.

The Chinese character used in East Asian languages is 人, originating as a pictogram of a human being. The reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese word is /ni �. A Proto-Sino-Tibetan '' r-mi(j)-n'' gives rise to Old Chinese /*miŋ/, modern Chinese 民 ''mín'' "people" and to Tibetan མི ''mi'' "person, human being".

In some tribal or band societies,
the local endonym is indistinguishable from the word for "men, human beings".
Examples include
Ainu: '' ainu'',
Inuktitut: ''inuk'',
Bantu: ''bantu'',
naq, khoe-khoe (etc.),
possibly in Uralic: Hungarian '' magyar'', Mansi ''mäńćī, mańśi'', from a Proto-Ugric ''*mańć-'' "man, person".

In philosophy

The mixture of serious and tongue-in-cheek self-designation originates with Plato, who on one hand
defined man as it were taxonomically as "featherless biped" and on the other as ', as "political" or "state-building animal" (Aristotle's term, based on Plato's '' Statesman'').

Harking back to Plato's ' are a number of later descriptions of man as an animal with a certain characteristic.
Notably '' animal rationabile'' "animal capable of rationality", a term used in medieval scholasticism (with reference to Aristotle), and also used by Carl von Linné (1760) and Immanuel Kant (1798).
Based on the same pattern is ''animal sociale'' or "social animal"
''animal laborans'' "laboring animal" ( Hannah Arendt 1958) and
'' animal symbolicum'' "symbolizing animal" (Ernst Cassirer 1944).

Taxonomy

The binomial name ''Homo sapiens'' was coined by Carl Linnaeus (1758).
Names for other human species were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century (''Homo neanderthalensis'' 1864, '' Homo erectus'' 1892).

There is no consensus on the taxonomic delineation between human species, human subspecies and the human races. On the one hand, there is the proposal that '' H. sapiens idaltu'' (2003) is not distinctive enough to warrant classification as a subspecies. On the other, there is the position that genetic variation in the extant human population is large enough to justify its division into several subspecies.
Linneaeus (1758) proposed division into five subspecies, ''H. sapiens europaeus'' alongside ''H. s. afer'', ''H. s. americanus'' and ''H. s. asiaticus'' for Europeans, Africans, Americans and Asians. This convention remained commonly observed until the mid-20th century, sometimes with variations or additions such as ''H. s. tasmanianus'' for Australians.
The conventional division of extant human populations into taxonomic subspecies was gradually abandoned beginning in the 1970s.
Similarly, there are proposals to classify Neanderthals and ''Homo rhodesiensis'' as subspecies of ''H. sapiens'', although it remains more common to treat these last two as separate species within the genus ''Homo'' rather than as subspecies within ''H. sapiens''.

List of binomial names

The following names mimick binomial nomenclature, mostly consisting of ''Homo'' followed by a Latin adjective characterizing human nature.
Most of them were coined since the mid 20th century in imitation of ''Homo sapiens'' in order to make some philosophical point (either serious or ironic), but some go back to the 18th to 19th century, as in ''Homo aestheticus'' vs. ''Homo oeconomicus''; ''Homo loquens'' is a serious suggestion by Herder, taking the human species as defined by the use of language;Compare ''alalus'' "incapable of speech" as the species name given to Java Man fossil, at the time (1895) taken to reflect a pre-human stage of "ape-man" (''Pithecanthropus'').
Herder's ''Homo loquens'' was parodied by Henri Bergson (1943) as ''Homo loquax'' i.e. Man as chattering or overly talkative.
''Homo creator'' is medieval, coined by Nicolaus Cusanus in reference to man as ''imago Dei''.

In fiction

In fiction, specifically science fiction and fantasy, occasionally names for the human species are introduced reflecting the fictional situation of humans existing alongside other, non-human civilizations.
In science fiction, Earthling (also "Terran", "Earther", and "Gaian") is frequently used, as it were naming humanity by its planet of origin. Incidentally, this situation parallels the naming motive of ancient terms for humanity, including "human" (''homo'', ''humanus'') itself, derived from a word for "earth" to contrast humans as earth-bound with celestial beings (i.e. deities) in mythology.

See also

*Cultural universal
*Human self-reflection
*Übermensch

References

{{reflist, 20em

Further reading

* Luigi Romeo, ''Ecce Homo!: A Lexicon of Man'', John Benjamins Publishing, 1979.

Humans
Human species