section_path: History of study/Before Darwin
section_name: Before Darwin
paragraph_text: Before Darwin
  
  The name Homo of the biological genus to which humans belong is Latin for 'human'. It was chosen originally by Carl Linnaeus in his classification system. The English word human is from the Latin humanus, the adjectival form of homo. The Latin homo derives from the Indo-European root * dhghem, or 'earth'. Linnaeus and other scientists of his time also considered the great apes to be the closest relatives of humans based on morphological and anatomical similarities.