Nov 25, 2022
The mer prefix in mermaid comes from the Old English mere meaning lake or small body of water, which shares the same Proto-Indo-European root as the Latin mare meaning sea, which gives us maritime and marine.
The word Earth comes from the Old English eorþe which means dirt, ground, dry land, the surface upon which we walk (compare to modern Germanic languages; Danish jorden, Dutch aarde, German Erde, Icelandic jörð, Norwegian and Swedish jord)
It's entirely possible that mermaids would refer to surface dwellers as something along the lines of yormaids, ertmaids, or ardmaids, assuming they spoke human languages which underwent identical linguistic shifts.
Ardfolk, ardpeople, ardmaids, ardmen, they who walk upon the land above
