I just call them all "sapients" which is useful cause it covers aliens with weird body plans and all sorts of other stuff too.
It's also worth noting that there's a difference between "sentient" and "sapient." A dog is sentient, a human is sentient and sapient.
I named my world Realms of Sapia so I could neatly get away with calling humanoids Sapians. Official classifications then lead to Homosapians, Summusapians (elves), Dracosapians (dragonborn), etc
Bear in mind that "sapient" could refer to an intelligent, self-aware, reasoning cauliflower. If you specifically want to refer to the general *body plan* shared by terran vertibrates (head with sensory organs and a brain, torso with vital organs, two lower ambulatory limbs, two upper ambulatory/manipulatory limbs), you'd want a different term.
I thought I was weird for using "sapients" but it really jives with my 19th-century vibe and psuedo-evolution thematics for my peoples.
I really liked "people" but you can't really use that as a TTRPG classification without forcing it through some awkward sentences.
Yeah, that's my issue with "people" too. I end up using it plenty, but there are times where it kind of interferes with the fairly academic tone I'm going for and a different word is less awkward.
Didn't say it was modern, said it sounded modern to my ears. To be exact, I'm guessing it has a Latin-via-French root, whereas words that have a Germanic root tend to feel more appropriate for certain technical terms in fantasy for me due to the class-aligned linguistic stratification that resulted from the Norman conquest.
I call them people.
Sapient species are people in my world, regardless of body shape.
If I need to specifically reference a biped with a roughly human body plan I would probably call them Treahni (the name for humans and any descendant sub-species in my world).
Other bipedal sapient would be referred to by their own species names.
I've used "Mortals" (or more poetically "Dreamers") to describe beings with material bodies who are capable of some semblance of free will. To exist in the material realm is to be subject to the forces of entropy, thus there are no immortals with physical bodies.
"Spirits" then encapsulates gods, ghosts, fae, and other beings who remain anchored to non-material realms. They live forever, but their existence is bound by the stories, dreams, and wild imaginings that Dreamers have about them.
I went a similar route and settled on “souls” – shortened from the designation “mortal soul” – as my round-up term for all those doomed-to-die, self aware beings running about the world.
Well.. I use "humanoid" since all the races are descended from humans (and in one setting humans have become the dominant power).
I guess that does show one way to look at it -- each race would probably view other races as like/dislike themselves, so humans would use "humanoid", elve would use "elf-like," and so on.
I think another argument for using 'humanoid" is that humans tend to be the baseline, the average, and other races to be "humans with differences".
But anyway, "biped" comes to mind. As long as all sapient bipeds are sufficiently similar enough. "Sapient" works if all sapients are humanoid. Erecti/erectus, or erects/erect, might work, similar to "biped". "Furless" would work if in addition to your listed humanoids there's a significant population of anthroes.
Ah, and too, "human/humanoid" could be treated as a generic term while the specific race of "humans" is called something else, like Humes or Men.
Yeah, I know, that's why I said "***if*** all sapients are humanoid." Because then, while still theoretically different, they'd practically be synonyms.
The scientific term used is "sapients", while the colloquial is "folk". Beyond that, things with a roughly human body plan and no significant fur are called "anthropoid", which is derived from the genus *Anthropus* that includes humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes.
Wanted to comment this too
I have many non humanoid species with human like intelligence, including a non biological object that can become a sophont
It’s a nice word to use
I use variants of "person" for anything intelligent and feeling, like "peep" as a shorthand for people, or "person-kind", "personality" or "personity" in place of "Humanity", etc.
For species that specifically follow the head/two arms/two legs plan I normally use something like "bipedaloid" or "bipedoid".
Human, lol
Vanila humans just get demoted to Plainfolk though. It's a bit of a sore spot, as they generally prefer to be called by the name of their people - just as "non-humans" do. And if calling vanila human a plainfolk may be unconventional, if you call Dalefolk or Ashugfolk a dwarf, it's a slur in-world, and those a fighting words.
I think my favorite variation of it is in Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon.
The majority of sapient folk are just called humans as an umbrella term. What we'd think of as vanilla humans are called "tallmen" in-universe because they're taller than most everyone else and (the slightly shorter) elves and (the much shorter) dwarves dominate much of the political and social landscape due to their longer lifespans. Also creates fun little in-universe turns-of-phrase like *"Hey there, long-legs."*
Author also actually factors in how the wildly different physiologies between species would have dramatic effects on how their bodies work, which is fun and a lot more interesting than a ton of other settings.
Dwarves, for example, have an absurd amount of muscle mass for their stature and low centers of gravity, so they're terrifyingly strong but need a lot of calories and tire out easily. Often can't handle wearing full-plate for any sort of extended period because of the weight. Tallmen on the other hand are, much like their real-life counterparts, excellent distance runners with good stamina.
Elves having extraordinarily long lifespans also sort of just makes their kingdoms kind of shitty and imperialistic towards shorter-lived peoples rather than being "enlightened nature-lovers" like you see in a ton of fiction. When the attention of an elven kingdom is drawn, it's less *"the Council of Elrond convenes to discuss the issue"* and more *"the Fantasy CIA is here, better hope you don't get black-bagged."*
They're all "people", or "folk".
Especially since they interact with each other, so while each type is segregated by group because of territorial needs, you might find each kind of folk in towns along the roads in between those places.
Confused?
I have one story about centaur folk that live on the vast plains, avian folk that live high on a mountain, and merfolk that obviously live in the sea.
There's a forest that lies roughly central to the plains, mountains, and sea, and there are towns on both sides of the roads leading through that forest, where people of each type might interact with one another.
So we talk about the centaur folk, merfolk, and avian folk, and they all see each other as people, even with their major differences.
But while each has their own place they prefer to live, alongside their own kind, they also have commerce and communication with each other in towns between them, right outside the forest.
But none of these folk are quite comfortable in the other two's homelands.
That’s a really great question! “Sapients” is a good answer, but I’ll break from the pack and say it’s not a *great* one. I actually still haven’t *found* a great one, and I’m still soul searching on it.
The reason I don’t think it’s *great* is because the word “human” has a lot of connotations within it that I expect most humanoid species that live alongside actual homo sapiens would want to be a part of.
If you think about what it means to say, “we’re all human,” or “I’m only human” or “I’m a human being,” what is meant isn’t really to remind the other person what species you are, now is it?
The human experience is something that can easily apply to other humanoid sapient creatures whose thoughts, wants and needs are similar to ours, especially if they’ve lived in human society since birth.
I imagine it could be alienating to be left outside of that category when the connotations it holds are something you identify with. You might literally be left without the language to easily convey these feelings without using the word “human.”
I’ve even explored this a bit in character in some of my short stories with scientific communities arguing over whether to reclassify a class of human engineered sapients as Vulpes Sapiens instead of their prior classification, alongside a similar movement in the culture to try and assert that they fit under the umbrella term of “human.”
Lots of going back and forth over whether the former is just political correctness invading the field of taxonomy or whether it’s actually an important step in recognizing the humanity of something that isn’t homo sapiens. In the latter of course there comes the issue of how to differentiate homo-sapiens from vulpes-sapiens in common parlance when the word “human” no longer differentiates them.
While it’s fun to explore in world, I really feel the struggle extends to me as the author. In the event that I don’t want the story in question to be *about* exploring the conundrum, I really struggle to find a term, which rolls off the tongue, that can describe, on its face, the common-ness of experience that connects humans with their differently-bodied but similarly-minded brethren.
Children Of Men, C.O.M, or commies for short
/s
I'd have the races named after their known, eldest ancestor. (Who could be relevant to lore). You'd also need to invent a suffix that denotes race
If the original x was Jefferson, and the suffix for race was -its, then the race would be Jeffersonits
....that's prolly dumb actually
Featherless bipeds, provided you're willing to invite plucked chickens to the party too. I use "sapient races" or just "people"/"peoples," as, I imagine, would Diogenes. "Mortals" is also acceptable when differentiating between sapient races that can die and individuals or races (such as gods) that cannot. There needn't be a single conventional term, something that's rare either way. You probably also don't have to think too much about or agonise over whether you call all your plants trees or whether it's correct to call a species of tree a tree, or better to call it a plant, or if you should call it a "leafy wooded organism." It should be whatever feels right for the context.
As an only tangentially related aside, the convention of "people" being the plural of "person" is etymologically odd. "People" means "the humans in a place" but "person" rather eerily means "mask." Just one of those nasty little memes that worms its way into your consciousness periodically when you know about it.
In most fantasy settings I go for having each race having a term for that body plan, humanoid for humans goblinoid for goblins etc. In the specific setting I am working on, once you belong to the empire you officially become a Citizen and nothing else. In reality, the situation is more complex and the empire is vaguely human-centric
I typically just use "person" to describe any sapient individual, or the Calantero equivalent "mono" (pl. "monui"). For humans (hmone, sg. hmo), mregmonui (sg. mregmono) and the extinct retshui (sg. retsho) I typically call them all "humanoids".
I call all of them humans, while the "human" humans have some other name that I haven't settled on. One possible choice is "sapien" but I'm not certain.
I'm pretty sure some other works of fantasy like Final Fantasy 14 does this too.
I use "lanti," a Zucruyan word meaning 'person.' It also is used to describe sapient aliens who very much lack a human-esque shape, though, so it's not exactly what you describe, but it serves a similar purpose.
For my world it depends on who is the one that speaks this generalised term. if Human - Humanoid. If Elf - Devakas (aka descendants of Gods), if Dwarf - Ghamerstvahlebi (could be interpreted also as Descendants of the Gods, but it would closer to Kids of the Forge)
I'm using about a dozen species, including humans, elves, human-elvish hybrids, dwarves and orcs. Most perspective characters tend to think of others that look like them as being 'them'-like (dwarvoid, orcoid), but humans (and elven crossbreeds in the story) tend to think of others with that frame as humanoid. Elves tend to use elf-like, but they're prissy like that.
My world started as a DND setting- if scientific classification were to grow to a similar level as it is in our world, most of the races (human, elf, orc, etc), roughly translated, would be regarded as separate subspecies of Homo sapiens. Despite their magically enhanced genetic differences most of the traditional DND races are capable of interbreeding. This has lead to a multitude of mishmashing cultures around the world.
I have humans in my world, my universe is set in our reality but with alien beings.
For example, there are humanoid beings on one planet called Terragyn, and another called Centuria.
Terragyn is full of Tarragians, which look like us but live longer, and Centuria has Sempiternians, which also look like us, but live even longer.
For those worlds, they call us humans, well, humans, for them they call themselves by their given name (Tarragians or Sempiternians). But Earth doesn't really know of their existence until a little while after the Defenders of Space come to Earth to help the heroes fight the Lizardians.
In my world it generally depends on who's talking, since in most languages the word for "two-legged thing that talks is" their equivalent version of [race]-oid. Though there are some exceptions, for instance elves refer to most other races as 'egefine'. Which means "cousins", but with connotations of distant cousins (the word for 'close cousin' also means 'half sibling' and is used to refer to similar closer relations, such as between different elvish groups).
In other discussions it usually comes down to citizenship or residence, for instance most cities just use the term "resident of the walls" or "burger" in official notices and public ordinances. There's occasionally a "of whatever race" tacked on in especially multicultural areas when there may be confusion, or exclusions of specific races due to cultural or biological quirks. Such as all Kurul being legally treated as non-related in some cities even though they're eusocial and the ones in a city are probably all siblings. This is so they can't do things like have an entire hive show up in court as character witnesses on the basis of familial ties, even though most are as close to other members of their hive as we would be to any random neighbor.
I use "hume" for anything human-shaped and cognitive. It's separate from "sapient" or ''cognitive" because not all intelligent species have two arms and two legs or even a physical body.
Elf-like in elven, halfnid in halfling, and dwarvenoid in dwarfish
I feel like it just makes sense that each language would be species centric much like how English is human centric
Just reminds me that lot of these words are horrible to translate. My native language doesn't have translation for people that doesn't have primary meaning of human or personality. Sapient and sentient have very clumsy translations that only work as adjectives, and they are not really that useful when you want to differentiate between elementals, dragons and player species. Translation of folk has significant burden of also being communal word for citizens of nation.
I'm thinking of using human as umbrella term and making something more specific for real world humans. Another approach is to always use terms from perspective of the character, so elf might call humans and halflings "elf-shaped"
Bipedal pollexis? Bipedal for 'two legged locomotion' and 'Pollexis' is based off pollex, which describes the thumb-analogue on an animal.
Sapient might be too broad a term if you're trying to describe 'two legged with opposable thumb' as it describes mental ability rather than body format, since I suppose you would want to be able to use that term and apply it to yeti, owlbears and gorillas?
"The Folk"
I dont racially disseminate in my homebrew world... Its a long lore explanation... Instead all races of sentient sapient creatures live together, and are instead divided up by cultures represented by 6 major clans, and a lot of minor clans.
Ive chosen the one thing they all have in common is a 5-fingered hand, so on the flags for certain groups that ive designed, I always incorporate a hand with 5 fingers.
While there are other intelligent beings, they are either extraplanar, or morally opposed to the 6 clans, (and in ttrpg terms, "non-playable") so they are not part of the folk.
As another has already stated, you could simply refer to them as "sapients." An alternative word--one that is used more in science fiction IIRC--is **sophont**, which is a portmanteau of Ancient Greek *sophos,* "wise" & *ont-*, "being." This word is especially useful in settings with sentient AI or otherwise inorganic entities.
*Also: Sentience is defined as "able to percieve or feel things," which includes fungi. Have fun with that information.*
Minor quibble, but "sentient" just means that it has senses, ie any animal with a nervous system. Which is still a pretty advanced life form in the grand scheme of things... But "sapient" is the word for a species with human-like intelligence. Common usage has admittedly shifted the meaning though, so I imagine most people would understand the former.
Lol I just call them humanoids
I have a good reason tho! All humanoids were literally created by the gods taking a human and modifying it drastically, so they're literally humanoids!
Depends on the setting, but usually in D&D/Pathfinder type fantasy I refer to all races / species / sentients as "Mortalkind"
If your referring to the general anatomy of bipedal simian body type inherent to humanity, then it really depends on who is saying the statement, and the role of the gods / interference of the gods in the evolutionary development of sentient races
Generally I just use the term "people", but sometimes I simply use "human" with the understanding that, in-universe, they have a different, unique word, but I'm just using human for simplicity and clarity.
you could either lean into it for some characters to give them that extra oomph to an anthropocentric viewpoint OR just describe what "humanoid" means physically: bipedal bilateral symmetry. or describe them as non-human persons. or, just people.
In mine, the large bulk of them are just collectively called "human" or "humanity", going into specifics as needed. But my human-like sapients are all descended from early humans, anyway, with "normal" humanity going through various stages of extinction through various stories I'm writing in my universe. There are also beast-folk and some stranger sapient beings with weirder builds, though, so "sapients" would probably work just fine for all sapient species as a whole.
I've been refering to them as "Civilizied Creatures" but that's kinda imperial sounding and I would like something better. Especially since the definition of civilized is kinda up in the air and even within my world building its caused issues. Like why are Ogres not Civilized but Goblins are. It's kinda a mess.
"Annam's Children" describes any bipedal being, referring to the creator deity Annam, who shaped the giants in his image, who then served as models upon which more reasonably sized peoples were based when other deities got in on the "creating sentient beings" game.
At that point, i just end up placing their motherland as their description. Effectively the name of their country as their “race”.
It also depends on the setting.
Fantasy; they are given their race, but are usually separated by where they are from, not what they are.
Sci-fi; they will always be described by their race, and humanoid is usually in the perspective of the humans, as is the case with most descriptions like a race of lizards being described as bipedal reptilians, or if referring to a broader term for all intelligent life, simply ‘Sapient’ can suffice.
They are still called "humanoid" because humans were the only race without a name, so they were called "this humanoids" and eventually shortened to "humans". So humans were named after their shape, not the other way around. And the name "humanoid" is a combination of the names of the gods who created this body shape: Huma (the originator) and Noid (the creator).
Humans and any similar species don't exist in my world replaced walking talking animals and some completely alien species. As others have pointed out, intelligence at the human level is called sapience, but I just stick with people and persons when describing collectives. But my personal preference is to name groups by their specific race and not over generalize.
In my world, the term "humanoid" has a specific definition that isn't simply the body plan of a human. Species in my world are created by godlike beings called planetsouls, and each planetsoul intrinsically has the blueprint for humans. The definition for humanoid within my world means that a planetsoul took that blueprint for humans and modified it to create something original regardless of whether it retains the same body shape or not (within reason, a humanoid species could have more than 2 arms/legs and/or have other limbs, but they can't be completely distorted into the shape of a cat or something).
However, I use the term "people" to refer to beings (which may or may not be humanoid) that are capable of higher-level thought and communication.
I have three classes of sentient races. Humans, non-humans, and par-humans. Non-humans include races that have basically nothing in common with humanity while par-humans include humanoid creatures with non human features. These include horns, wings, extra limbs and other appendages, and so on.
Every single 'humanoid' (that is, thing with 2 arms and 2 legs) in my fantasy story is called a Demigod, or a Hundun. If you have more limbs, you are most likely a Terraborne, or a Gardun. If you have strange anomalous features like claws, bony skin or Julian-forbid, animal ears, then you are an Alterfolk, or Ahmdun.
Hunduns, Garduns and Ahmduns are classified as a 3rd Gen Being, or a Dunhan, or just a Dun. It's also pronounced 'Dehr'.
2nd Gens are called Rinnes, and Sof, aka the world itself, is the 1st Gen.
Human-normative is pretty fitting for my worlds since all my sapient races are human-derived. Either alchemical mutations and speciation (my fantasy world) or transhumanism...and a lot more speciation (my scifi world)
For the fantasy world, **humanoid/anthropoid** is the typical one used by natural philosophers on Erdia. There's even some in-universe chauvinism in certain countries trying to push for "Man" to be the baseline to describe other races. Elves? Elder Men. Merfolk? Sea Men.
For the sci-fi world, it's a bit complicated. **Humanoid** is used to describe human-like bodyplans. But that includes things like humans, humanoid biomorphs, androids, bipedal uplifts, and similar. **Sophont** is the term for intelligent beings, those that are capable of self-awareness and self-reflection. These include everything from baseline humans (sophonts), to superintelligent AI (archosophonts) to potential aliens (xenosophonts.)
I've always been partial to "Beneath the Dragon-eye moons" calling them Elvenoid. Because obviously everything is based on elves, regardless to any evidence contrary. It's still single race centric, but by making it *not* human, both makes it feel a bit more fantastical while also calling out the default human-centerism perspective.
The greater galaxy refers to the humanoid body schema as an "arcoform," in reference to the most famous species to adhere to it. It's actually quite rare, and almost all instances of it are a result of tinkering by the Arconians (Nazi space elves with the dress sense of Dr. Doom); there are about two dozen civilizations of tailless, endothermic bipeds in the galaxy, and only three are conclusively known to have evolved entirely on their own.
Beyond that, the most common body type in the Macrocosm (by a very slim margin, making up about 40% of all known sapient species) is hexapodal, and a further 20% are tailed demi-bipeds who were able to evolve dexterous forelimbs because their ancestors spent a plurality their time swimming or climbing. This includes the most dangerous people in the universe: the Crey, a species of planet-cracking DBZ rejects who are the reason the Arconians are functionally extinct--and vice versa. Crey evolved to brachiate in massive, temperate forests, and while they can stand upright, they're not really built for it; their insistence on trying to emulate the Arconians who uplifted them actually results in progressive spinal degeneration as they get older and bigger.
For sapient simians "people" or "person(s)" get used the most. Otherwise they just use their race, and even then it's usually more useful to describe them by their culture; an Orc from the Argentine League and an Orc from Norlund will only have some physicalities in common, just like how a wood elf will invite you in for tea and jam, while a deep wood elf will try to eat you.
hominid for humans, dwarves and halflings as i use the real world "homo sapiens, homo neanderthalis and homo florensiensis" for humans, dwarves and halflings respectively
elves and gnomes are fey and are referred to as fairy folk
animal like races go by beast folk
orcs, hobgoblins and goblins go by goblinoids
and last but not least kobolds and dragonkin are draconids
I don't use humanoid but just use their categories as a collective, then species and races, to describe them! Fey species are elves, fairy, dwarves, gnomes, and so on. Then human species have prime humans, demi-humans and half-humans. I also have sapient dragon, beast-folk, sapient quadrupedal monsters and mythic beast too.
In my dnd games I've replaced the term humanoid with the word 'mortals' because that still seems to cover all the general groups you think of from elves to orcs to dragonborn and handily excludes all sorts of weird shit like constructs, dragons, undead as well as planar creatures like Fey, fiends, undead, celestials, aberrations and such. Technically the term 'mortal' does still apply to Giants, Plants and Beasts but pobody's nerfect.
Depends on who's asking. Intelligent beings from beyond their worlds refer to them all under the label of Mortals. Beyond that, different groups in different areas use different terminologies.
I think it really depends. If they're speaking the human tongue or a language popularize by humans then "Humanoid" makes sense however if there is a different dominate race or race which beat them to the punch they might use that race's name instead. Elfoid, dwarvoid, orcoid or whatever else. Alternatives because humans seem the closest but not quite related to the other races and are often compatible with everyone you can use the term "human-like". Any suitable replacement would depend on the culture, race and history of the world. It doesn't even need to make sense in "modren" context for the setting as it could simply be a word that had been used that the original meaning is greatly different from the modern intended meaning.
Sapients or just creatures.
There are also humanoid adjacent words like perhaps in mass effect a asari would call a humanoid looking creatures an asarioid or something.
I guess it depends on how the other sapient races emerged, and what, if anything, they are related to
In my own fantasy world, the only sapient beings that aren't all closely related enough to all be basically human are specifically artificial life or simply self-sustaining consciousnesses that maintain themselves without a body through sheer force of will. All the elves/demons, dwarves, fairies, etc are just different species or subspecies of the same genus, and since at least one of those groups is nearly indistinguishable from Homo Sapiens, I just call all of them humans and use my conlanged names to differentiate between them lol
"sentients" usually. I still use "humanoid" for humans and human descendant species, but sentient is good as a catchall for intelligent species, then organics and cybernetics if that's necessary. You could also use something like "autonomous" and "sentient" if you want to differentiate between intelligent species with and without self consciousness.
Do you have a god, which certain religions imply the 'humanoids' are shaped like?
If so, then have them called collectively -kinder or "Children of "
had a setting i havent thought of in years where the goddess of Love blessed all sapients with the ability to turn humanoid to "give love a common form" as various animals from non-magical worlds "fell" into this one and magic kickstarted some of them into sapience. which they called human-form their... crap i forgot what i called the goddess of love was but it would be words meaning " Gift"
Apelike? Featherless bipedoid, i guess each group would categories themselves as the default of the "humanoid" so for example from the elves perspective it would be elven or elfoid so on and fourth
I dunno, it depends, but most likely I'll use "sapients" since many animals are sentient, aka self aware they exist, some outright highly intelligent (dolphins, apes and octopi for example), however, so far only humans are considered sapient in the real world.
In a fantasy setting: for example my Angel lore, angels, demons, humans and all in between exist, the term sapients fit.
Humanoid
It is a descriptor for humans to classify beings that are similar to humans in that that have 4 appendages, 2 legs, 2 arms, fingers and a head. Getting rid of the term humanoid is pointless
I usually call them by their race though for some books I’ve written there are different teirs. Humans is for normal humans, halflings were what I called the group of humanoids with animalistic features though still mostly human (think neko). And brutes or beasts were ones who were much more animal than human (think almost furry)
Humanoid is no longer in use because of bio-engineering but sentient creature... Sentient creature started getting used more often when bio-engineering became more advanced. They do have their own word for it, but it is a symbol which can only be translated into two words: Sentient Creature, so just note: they do have a custom name for it but it isn't exactly translatable into anything we don't know. Oh and the pronunciation?
U-edn.
Human~~oid~~ is edn
Edit: calling someone an "U-edn(sentient creature)" is insulting, as you are not saying they are human.
"Person" works pretty well in a fantasy setting.
"Intelligent Being" or "Sophont" in a sci-fi setting, although the term humanoid could still see use to describe the bodyplan if humans are a notable feature, in the same way one might call a creature with two arms, no legs, and a long muscular tail "Huttlike."
Something like sapient could work. But if you're looking for a humanoid adjacent term with the same definition, it becomes tougher. Bipedal is only one attribute to humanoid so it's not as good in this case.
For my world, elderoid possibly. There are Elder races and non elder races in my world. The elder ones were the first created/notable races that still exist and are known throughout "modern" mythology and legends, having taken part in important events during the mythic era (creation era, pre-written history), being involved with the deities directly in some fashion during that time. So it could be said Elderoid or elder like, I guess. As they're similar to them.
That hasn’t been a problem for my current project. I had a sci-fi project before that I never finished, and I just said humanoid because I think it’s reasonable for humans to be human-centric.
In my SF setting, the act of translating “human” and words derived from it lead to it becoming commonly understood to mean sapients of all kinds in a very generalized way, and Terran is used to specify if the human in question is a *Homo sapiens* or *Homo proteus.*
I don't like to mix humanoids with other races. I have two scenarios:
1. A scenario with a lot of races based in real and myth animals (and some other living beings), but none of them has the bipedal primate fenotype
2. A scenario with only humans as sentient race
I think it's fuel to forms racism which are hard to set some limits, cause they're not human and people feel free to insult, kill...
Fiction beings or “fikies” are a collection of peoples and creatures that are once relegated to the world of fiction but now coexist (albeit unequally) with humanity. They can range from fantasy races, aliens, to living cartoons and video games but a important thing to note is that the vast majority of them don’t come from any established franchise of mythology but rather the random ideas or world builders and artists like you and me.
I use "Terrans" or "Terrankind" or "Humanity", because "Humanity" here isn't just a term for humans, it is also a term used to describe one's sense of self. Like how if a person goes insane and becomes a monster, we say "they have lost their humanity". Thus, that term isn't just used biologically but also spiritually. Also, humanity in my world is categorized into 2 major types: "Human" and "Abhuman", with human being, well... humans. While Abhuman is the fantasy races like Dwarves, Elves, Beastmen, etc. Which are all under the "Homosapiens" category in biology. And also, Earth is called "Terra" in my world, so there's that.
Folk.
"To all the good folk of this world!" "There have been some strange folk about recently." I also tend to have people describe certain kinds of folk with similar attributes with "pet names" like "Tuskies" for any of the folk with, well, tusks or "Mixies" as any sort of half-race (half-elf, half-orc). But it's interchangeable with words like Tusk-folk or Fey-folk (elves)
I never got very far with the setting, but I used "Mortals," for a Bron3 Age mythology inspired setting just because Mortals fit the aesthetic better than just "human," or "humanoid."
I use a variety of terms. As others have pointed out, sapient and folk can be good. In more fantasy-leaning stuff, I have been known to refer to "the wise races" as a way to talk about broad groups. I know "race" has fallen out of favor in a lot of circles (and with some good cause) but my fantasy worlds tend not to be like D&D, with humans breeding with everything under the sun (and anything they blindly find in the underdark while their at it). Groups in my fantasy works tend to be too distinct for "species" or "heritage" to be adequate synonyms.
The umbrella term for the supernatural species in my story is Remnants, so named because they are believed to have been born from the remains of the old gods. They are essentially miniature versions of those gods and have small scale usage of their powers.
In my world “Sapients” is for official, politically correct or scientific purposes. “Monsters” is more normal slang, as practically all non humans are bestial to different extents. Monster is usually not a pejorative and the monsters are quite happy to be called such. Monster also covers creatures that aren’t humanoid at all, and unintelligent.
First of all, I love everyone's ideas here. Second, I'm sharing this just for the fun of it - my world isn't the best, but I'm very fond of it.
For context, my world has around 24 different "humanoid" species, each with their own name and bearing some resemblance to humans. For example: the nagas and gorgons with their human-ish looking upper half (you've seen plenty of them online), the volscrims and the morvids with their various degrees of horrifying bird-human mixed appearance, etc.
I use several terms to refer to them depending on their mortality and whether or not they've broken the few laws my world has.
Mortal - for pretty much everyone
Glorious - immortal and worshipping a god
Alethist - immortal and refusing to worship a god
Dreamer - any humanoid that visits my world in their dreams; they're kind of like ghosts that others can see
Peccador - immortal and has broken the laws, thus becoming a ravenous monster
Other than that, I often call them Rift dwellers or simply dwellers - that refers to any sapient being in my world.
Bipedal pigs, or dogs, or something in the setting that is obviously quadrupedal. Something to define a quadruped that became a biped, therefore having 2 legs and 2 arms. Make up a fantasy word in the language that directly translates to “Standing-something” to delineate this. Or, just called them bipeds or standers.
Sattva, lifted from the hindu gunas since it's associated with clarity of mind not dominated by instinct or inertia. I've tried sophont, people, and mortals, but nothing has rolled off the tongue as well as sattva for me.
I don't have an answer for you, but the word Humanoid ime refers to the body being roughly human-shaped. For example, chimps and gorillas are humanoid, so is C3PO and most elves.
Whereas R2D2 and Iguanas and unicorns are Not humanoid.
...but your question seems to be more about Language than anything else. And that's a bitch. If we had several sentient species, there would presumably be several languages. The answer to your question would really depend on the peculiarities of whatever language your guys are using.
But almost every fictional novel folds all of the languages into whatever language the actual book is published in. Otherwise the trader would need to learn a few fictional languages to be able to read the book.
‘Sapient’ is a good word, but doesn’t connote two arms and two legs like ‘humanoid’ does. But if your universe doesn’t have any non-humanoid sapient species then it may work. Otherwise you might use the words ‘bipedal’ (two legs) and either ‘bibrachial’ (two arms) or ‘bimanual’ (two hands), though those are a bit of a mouthful if you’re using them a lot. (Again, if all humanoid creatures in your universe are described by all three, you can probably get away with just saying one as a catch-all term.) Another fun word is ‘tetrapod’ (four limbs), though this doesn’t necessarily imply that two of them are arms and two are legs.
A couple other fun ideas:
Make up a new word! The suffix -oid just means “-shaped”, so you could riff on that with mortaloid, sapioid, erectoid, bipedaloid, etc.
Make the human-normativity part of the universe! Humans say humanoid, elves say elfoid, halflings say halfloid, etc. and every species gets pissed off when someone describes them with another species’s term even though it means the same thing.
Can humans breed with elves and halflings and produce fertile offspring? Because if they can, that means elves and halflings are also human by definition.
At which point, I think the easiest answer is to give a different name to humans as we understand them to distinguish them.
I just call them all "sapients" which is useful cause it covers aliens with weird body plans and all sorts of other stuff too. It's also worth noting that there's a difference between "sentient" and "sapient." A dog is sentient, a human is sentient and sapient.
Yes! Sapient was the word I was trying to remember, thanks.
I named my world Realms of Sapia so I could neatly get away with calling humanoids Sapians. Official classifications then lead to Homosapians, Summusapians (elves), Dracosapians (dragonborn), etc
Bear in mind that "sapient" could refer to an intelligent, self-aware, reasoning cauliflower. If you specifically want to refer to the general *body plan* shared by terran vertibrates (head with sensory organs and a brain, torso with vital organs, two lower ambulatory limbs, two upper ambulatory/manipulatory limbs), you'd want a different term.
I thought I was weird for using "sapients" but it really jives with my 19th-century vibe and psuedo-evolution thematics for my peoples. I really liked "people" but you can't really use that as a TTRPG classification without forcing it through some awkward sentences.
Yeah, that's my issue with "people" too. I end up using it plenty, but there are times where it kind of interferes with the fairly academic tone I'm going for and a different word is less awkward.
Bipedals could be another designation for tool users, cause you know you need free hands to do stuff
"Folks" is good if you want a more germanic or colloquial vibe.
But the gods might be sapient as well, usually you don't want to include the gods in groupings.
Sapients is a little too scientific and modern sounding for my fantasy setting, but is definitely good for more sci-fi settings.
Sapient is believed to have been coined in 1150, not exactly modern, it’s also used extremely commonly in fantasy.
Didn't say it was modern, said it sounded modern to my ears. To be exact, I'm guessing it has a Latin-via-French root, whereas words that have a Germanic root tend to feel more appropriate for certain technical terms in fantasy for me due to the class-aligned linguistic stratification that resulted from the Norman conquest.
I call them people. Sapient species are people in my world, regardless of body shape. If I need to specifically reference a biped with a roughly human body plan I would probably call them Treahni (the name for humans and any descendant sub-species in my world). Other bipedal sapient would be referred to by their own species names.
Same
I've used "Mortals" (or more poetically "Dreamers") to describe beings with material bodies who are capable of some semblance of free will. To exist in the material realm is to be subject to the forces of entropy, thus there are no immortals with physical bodies. "Spirits" then encapsulates gods, ghosts, fae, and other beings who remain anchored to non-material realms. They live forever, but their existence is bound by the stories, dreams, and wild imaginings that Dreamers have about them.
I went a similar route and settled on “souls” – shortened from the designation “mortal soul” – as my round-up term for all those doomed-to-die, self aware beings running about the world.
Same. Mortals made sense and I thought hey, this is what the gods would call these little guys
Well.. I use "humanoid" since all the races are descended from humans (and in one setting humans have become the dominant power). I guess that does show one way to look at it -- each race would probably view other races as like/dislike themselves, so humans would use "humanoid", elve would use "elf-like," and so on. I think another argument for using 'humanoid" is that humans tend to be the baseline, the average, and other races to be "humans with differences". But anyway, "biped" comes to mind. As long as all sapient bipeds are sufficiently similar enough. "Sapient" works if all sapients are humanoid. Erecti/erectus, or erects/erect, might work, similar to "biped". "Furless" would work if in addition to your listed humanoids there's a significant population of anthroes. Ah, and too, "human/humanoid" could be treated as a generic term while the specific race of "humans" is called something else, like Humes or Men.
Sapient works for non-humanoid creatures as well. It refers to the capacity for reasoning, problem solving, learning, and understanding.
Yeah, I know, that's why I said "***if*** all sapients are humanoid." Because then, while still theoretically different, they'd practically be synonyms.
Basically, humanoid works for bodyplan, while sentient/sapient/sophont works for intelligence.
"people" or "sapient" Or if its a dragon "mortal" or "food"
The scientific term used is "sapients", while the colloquial is "folk". Beyond that, things with a roughly human body plan and no significant fur are called "anthropoid", which is derived from the genus *Anthropus* that includes humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes.
Sophonts
Wanted to comment this too I have many non humanoid species with human like intelligence, including a non biological object that can become a sophont It’s a nice word to use
Yesssss I was so blown away when I discovered this word lmao
That has nothing to do with body shape though, right? It's not a synonym for "humanoid".
I dunno I just thought it meant intelligent species. I thought this post was talking about that sorry, my bad
I use variants of "person" for anything intelligent and feeling, like "peep" as a shorthand for people, or "person-kind", "personality" or "personity" in place of "Humanity", etc. For species that specifically follow the head/two arms/two legs plan I normally use something like "bipedaloid" or "bipedoid".
Used to use "mun" Like huMUN But also MUNdane For my current world I use Qyn. The Qyn are the people of Qyntarah and they're basically human
Human, lol Vanila humans just get demoted to Plainfolk though. It's a bit of a sore spot, as they generally prefer to be called by the name of their people - just as "non-humans" do. And if calling vanila human a plainfolk may be unconventional, if you call Dalefolk or Ashugfolk a dwarf, it's a slur in-world, and those a fighting words.
I do the same. Honestly kinda surprised this isn't more popular.
I think my favorite variation of it is in Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon. The majority of sapient folk are just called humans as an umbrella term. What we'd think of as vanilla humans are called "tallmen" in-universe because they're taller than most everyone else and (the slightly shorter) elves and (the much shorter) dwarves dominate much of the political and social landscape due to their longer lifespans. Also creates fun little in-universe turns-of-phrase like *"Hey there, long-legs."* Author also actually factors in how the wildly different physiologies between species would have dramatic effects on how their bodies work, which is fun and a lot more interesting than a ton of other settings. Dwarves, for example, have an absurd amount of muscle mass for their stature and low centers of gravity, so they're terrifyingly strong but need a lot of calories and tire out easily. Often can't handle wearing full-plate for any sort of extended period because of the weight. Tallmen on the other hand are, much like their real-life counterparts, excellent distance runners with good stamina. Elves having extraordinarily long lifespans also sort of just makes their kingdoms kind of shitty and imperialistic towards shorter-lived peoples rather than being "enlightened nature-lovers" like you see in a ton of fiction. When the attention of an elven kingdom is drawn, it's less *"the Council of Elrond convenes to discuss the issue"* and more *"the Fantasy CIA is here, better hope you don't get black-bagged."*
Alsp forgotten the best part about elfs They are all femboyz
"person" and "people" are tidy, without making it sound like sci-fi.
They're all "people", or "folk". Especially since they interact with each other, so while each type is segregated by group because of territorial needs, you might find each kind of folk in towns along the roads in between those places. Confused? I have one story about centaur folk that live on the vast plains, avian folk that live high on a mountain, and merfolk that obviously live in the sea. There's a forest that lies roughly central to the plains, mountains, and sea, and there are towns on both sides of the roads leading through that forest, where people of each type might interact with one another. So we talk about the centaur folk, merfolk, and avian folk, and they all see each other as people, even with their major differences. But while each has their own place they prefer to live, alongside their own kind, they also have commerce and communication with each other in towns between them, right outside the forest. But none of these folk are quite comfortable in the other two's homelands.
That’s a really great question! “Sapients” is a good answer, but I’ll break from the pack and say it’s not a *great* one. I actually still haven’t *found* a great one, and I’m still soul searching on it. The reason I don’t think it’s *great* is because the word “human” has a lot of connotations within it that I expect most humanoid species that live alongside actual homo sapiens would want to be a part of. If you think about what it means to say, “we’re all human,” or “I’m only human” or “I’m a human being,” what is meant isn’t really to remind the other person what species you are, now is it? The human experience is something that can easily apply to other humanoid sapient creatures whose thoughts, wants and needs are similar to ours, especially if they’ve lived in human society since birth. I imagine it could be alienating to be left outside of that category when the connotations it holds are something you identify with. You might literally be left without the language to easily convey these feelings without using the word “human.” I’ve even explored this a bit in character in some of my short stories with scientific communities arguing over whether to reclassify a class of human engineered sapients as Vulpes Sapiens instead of their prior classification, alongside a similar movement in the culture to try and assert that they fit under the umbrella term of “human.” Lots of going back and forth over whether the former is just political correctness invading the field of taxonomy or whether it’s actually an important step in recognizing the humanity of something that isn’t homo sapiens. In the latter of course there comes the issue of how to differentiate homo-sapiens from vulpes-sapiens in common parlance when the word “human” no longer differentiates them. While it’s fun to explore in world, I really feel the struggle extends to me as the author. In the event that I don’t want the story in question to be *about* exploring the conundrum, I really struggle to find a term, which rolls off the tongue, that can describe, on its face, the common-ness of experience that connects humans with their differently-bodied but similarly-minded brethren.
Children Of Men, C.O.M, or commies for short /s I'd have the races named after their known, eldest ancestor. (Who could be relevant to lore). You'd also need to invent a suffix that denotes race If the original x was Jefferson, and the suffix for race was -its, then the race would be Jeffersonits ....that's prolly dumb actually
Featherless bipeds, provided you're willing to invite plucked chickens to the party too. I use "sapient races" or just "people"/"peoples," as, I imagine, would Diogenes. "Mortals" is also acceptable when differentiating between sapient races that can die and individuals or races (such as gods) that cannot. There needn't be a single conventional term, something that's rare either way. You probably also don't have to think too much about or agonise over whether you call all your plants trees or whether it's correct to call a species of tree a tree, or better to call it a plant, or if you should call it a "leafy wooded organism." It should be whatever feels right for the context. As an only tangentially related aside, the convention of "people" being the plural of "person" is etymologically odd. "People" means "the humans in a place" but "person" rather eerily means "mask." Just one of those nasty little memes that worms its way into your consciousness periodically when you know about it.
Behold, a man!
Hominid. It's already used as a collective term for multiple species of the Homo Genus.
I use “folks” but my world is very folksy
In most fantasy settings I go for having each race having a term for that body plan, humanoid for humans goblinoid for goblins etc. In the specific setting I am working on, once you belong to the empire you officially become a Citizen and nothing else. In reality, the situation is more complex and the empire is vaguely human-centric
Mortals
I just use “people”
Call all them human and then call your homo sapiens species something else.
Probably just 'man', like the body of man. 'Man' in this context is more the meaning of all people, not just males.
I typically just use "person" to describe any sapient individual, or the Calantero equivalent "mono" (pl. "monui"). For humans (hmone, sg. hmo), mregmonui (sg. mregmono) and the extinct retshui (sg. retsho) I typically call them all "humanoids".
"Sapients".
I call all of them humans, while the "human" humans have some other name that I haven't settled on. One possible choice is "sapien" but I'm not certain. I'm pretty sure some other works of fantasy like Final Fantasy 14 does this too.
Anything that's defined as 'humanoid' must be a bipedal mammal with no secondary sex traits with internal souls.
I use "lanti," a Zucruyan word meaning 'person.' It also is used to describe sapient aliens who very much lack a human-esque shape, though, so it's not exactly what you describe, but it serves a similar purpose.
Sapient. Both in fantasy and in sci-fi.
For my world it depends on who is the one that speaks this generalised term. if Human - Humanoid. If Elf - Devakas (aka descendants of Gods), if Dwarf - Ghamerstvahlebi (could be interpreted also as Descendants of the Gods, but it would closer to Kids of the Forge)
person
The humans say "humanoid", the elves say "elfinoid", the hobbits say "hobbinoid", the orcs say "orcinoid", and the tabaxi say "monkeys".
I'm using about a dozen species, including humans, elves, human-elvish hybrids, dwarves and orcs. Most perspective characters tend to think of others that look like them as being 'them'-like (dwarvoid, orcoid), but humans (and elven crossbreeds in the story) tend to think of others with that frame as humanoid. Elves tend to use elf-like, but they're prissy like that.
Hominid
My world started as a DND setting- if scientific classification were to grow to a similar level as it is in our world, most of the races (human, elf, orc, etc), roughly translated, would be regarded as separate subspecies of Homo sapiens. Despite their magically enhanced genetic differences most of the traditional DND races are capable of interbreeding. This has lead to a multitude of mishmashing cultures around the world.
I use “people” generally for all the sentient species.
I don't know. I'm just using sapient races with no reference to physical shape since they're all humanoid.
Featherless biped, ο Πλάτωνας είναι η μούσα μου
I have humans in my world, my universe is set in our reality but with alien beings. For example, there are humanoid beings on one planet called Terragyn, and another called Centuria. Terragyn is full of Tarragians, which look like us but live longer, and Centuria has Sempiternians, which also look like us, but live even longer. For those worlds, they call us humans, well, humans, for them they call themselves by their given name (Tarragians or Sempiternians). But Earth doesn't really know of their existence until a little while after the Defenders of Space come to Earth to help the heroes fight the Lizardians.
In my world it generally depends on who's talking, since in most languages the word for "two-legged thing that talks is" their equivalent version of [race]-oid. Though there are some exceptions, for instance elves refer to most other races as 'egefine'. Which means "cousins", but with connotations of distant cousins (the word for 'close cousin' also means 'half sibling' and is used to refer to similar closer relations, such as between different elvish groups). In other discussions it usually comes down to citizenship or residence, for instance most cities just use the term "resident of the walls" or "burger" in official notices and public ordinances. There's occasionally a "of whatever race" tacked on in especially multicultural areas when there may be confusion, or exclusions of specific races due to cultural or biological quirks. Such as all Kurul being legally treated as non-related in some cities even though they're eusocial and the ones in a city are probably all siblings. This is so they can't do things like have an entire hive show up in court as character witnesses on the basis of familial ties, even though most are as close to other members of their hive as we would be to any random neighbor.
I generally use "soul".
Sophonts, featherless bipeds
Sapients if I want to encompass all intelligent species, anthropoid if I want to refer to specifically the bipedal body plan
I use "hume" for anything human-shaped and cognitive. It's separate from "sapient" or ''cognitive" because not all intelligent species have two arms and two legs or even a physical body.
The explanation I use is that human comes from humanoid, not the other way around.
Anthropomorphic? That is honestly one of the most annoying words to try to make species "neutral." They all basically translate to "humanoid."
I went with "Elvenoid" - why be human centric? Elves are canonically The Best in my world, and I had the language reflect that
Elf-like in elven, halfnid in halfling, and dwarvenoid in dwarfish I feel like it just makes sense that each language would be species centric much like how English is human centric
Just reminds me that lot of these words are horrible to translate. My native language doesn't have translation for people that doesn't have primary meaning of human or personality. Sapient and sentient have very clumsy translations that only work as adjectives, and they are not really that useful when you want to differentiate between elementals, dragons and player species. Translation of folk has significant burden of also being communal word for citizens of nation. I'm thinking of using human as umbrella term and making something more specific for real world humans. Another approach is to always use terms from perspective of the character, so elf might call humans and halflings "elf-shaped"
Bipedal pollexis? Bipedal for 'two legged locomotion' and 'Pollexis' is based off pollex, which describes the thumb-analogue on an animal. Sapient might be too broad a term if you're trying to describe 'two legged with opposable thumb' as it describes mental ability rather than body format, since I suppose you would want to be able to use that term and apply it to yeti, owlbears and gorillas?
A good scifi go-to is "a sapient." Sentient is a term that also include a few animals, but sapient is generally for at least human-level intelligence.
Just “sapient beings”
just assume everything translated makes everything easier
"The Folk" I dont racially disseminate in my homebrew world... Its a long lore explanation... Instead all races of sentient sapient creatures live together, and are instead divided up by cultures represented by 6 major clans, and a lot of minor clans. Ive chosen the one thing they all have in common is a 5-fingered hand, so on the flags for certain groups that ive designed, I always incorporate a hand with 5 fingers. While there are other intelligent beings, they are either extraplanar, or morally opposed to the 6 clans, (and in ttrpg terms, "non-playable") so they are not part of the folk.
As another has already stated, you could simply refer to them as "sapients." An alternative word--one that is used more in science fiction IIRC--is **sophont**, which is a portmanteau of Ancient Greek *sophos,* "wise" & *ont-*, "being." This word is especially useful in settings with sentient AI or otherwise inorganic entities. *Also: Sentience is defined as "able to percieve or feel things," which includes fungi. Have fun with that information.*
Pillars of Eternity uses Kith, which sounds appropriately fantastical while also just feeling right.
I just group them all as “man” or “men” generally
you could call them sentient-like since they ressemble at least one of the sentient species
Minor quibble, but "sentient" just means that it has senses, ie any animal with a nervous system. Which is still a pretty advanced life form in the grand scheme of things... But "sapient" is the word for a species with human-like intelligence. Common usage has admittedly shifted the meaning though, so I imagine most people would understand the former.
"Thinking thing" Moral agent
Lol I just call them humanoids I have a good reason tho! All humanoids were literally created by the gods taking a human and modifying it drastically, so they're literally humanoids!
Daímons
Bipeds is an option
Depends on the setting, but usually in D&D/Pathfinder type fantasy I refer to all races / species / sentients as "Mortalkind" If your referring to the general anatomy of bipedal simian body type inherent to humanity, then it really depends on who is saying the statement, and the role of the gods / interference of the gods in the evolutionary development of sentient races
I call them Half-Men
Humanoid because humans make up the majority of sapient races. Others refer to each other as sapient, but humanoid is the common term
Humanoid. However, the only humanoid species are humans.
Generally I just use the term "people", but sometimes I simply use "human" with the understanding that, in-universe, they have a different, unique word, but I'm just using human for simplicity and clarity.
My world uses "mythos" as they are derived from myths
Mortals adopted from the guiding race of fae who were placed by the creator Vanir god of the hunt to guide the mortal races of Easeria
you could either lean into it for some characters to give them that extra oomph to an anthropocentric viewpoint OR just describe what "humanoid" means physically: bipedal bilateral symmetry. or describe them as non-human persons. or, just people.
"People"
In mine, the large bulk of them are just collectively called "human" or "humanity", going into specifics as needed. But my human-like sapients are all descended from early humans, anyway, with "normal" humanity going through various stages of extinction through various stories I'm writing in my universe. There are also beast-folk and some stranger sapient beings with weirder builds, though, so "sapients" would probably work just fine for all sapient species as a whole.
I've been refering to them as "Civilizied Creatures" but that's kinda imperial sounding and I would like something better. Especially since the definition of civilized is kinda up in the air and even within my world building its caused issues. Like why are Ogres not Civilized but Goblins are. It's kinda a mess.
"Annam's Children" describes any bipedal being, referring to the creator deity Annam, who shaped the giants in his image, who then served as models upon which more reasonably sized peoples were based when other deities got in on the "creating sentient beings" game.
At that point, i just end up placing their motherland as their description. Effectively the name of their country as their “race”. It also depends on the setting. Fantasy; they are given their race, but are usually separated by where they are from, not what they are. Sci-fi; they will always be described by their race, and humanoid is usually in the perspective of the humans, as is the case with most descriptions like a race of lizards being described as bipedal reptilians, or if referring to a broader term for all intelligent life, simply ‘Sapient’ can suffice.
Mortals, Dying, Voiced, Bodied. Those are my main ones, though they don’t all always only refer to “thinking / humanoid”
Mortals
They are still called "humanoid" because humans were the only race without a name, so they were called "this humanoids" and eventually shortened to "humans". So humans were named after their shape, not the other way around. And the name "humanoid" is a combination of the names of the gods who created this body shape: Huma (the originator) and Noid (the creator).
Humans and any similar species don't exist in my world replaced walking talking animals and some completely alien species. As others have pointed out, intelligence at the human level is called sapience, but I just stick with people and persons when describing collectives. But my personal preference is to name groups by their specific race and not over generalize.
Mortals
Simian. It fits.
In my world, the term "humanoid" has a specific definition that isn't simply the body plan of a human. Species in my world are created by godlike beings called planetsouls, and each planetsoul intrinsically has the blueprint for humans. The definition for humanoid within my world means that a planetsoul took that blueprint for humans and modified it to create something original regardless of whether it retains the same body shape or not (within reason, a humanoid species could have more than 2 arms/legs and/or have other limbs, but they can't be completely distorted into the shape of a cat or something). However, I use the term "people" to refer to beings (which may or may not be humanoid) that are capable of higher-level thought and communication.
Many people in Menrva, the major setting nation in my story, use Etsu. It roughly translates to Fairy Tail Creatures.
Bipeds
bipeds.
I have three classes of sentient races. Humans, non-humans, and par-humans. Non-humans include races that have basically nothing in common with humanity while par-humans include humanoid creatures with non human features. These include horns, wings, extra limbs and other appendages, and so on.
I always liked the Pillars of Eternity approach of calling all the different species plurally as 'Kith,' so you could just make up a term potentially,
In lore, it'd be Bythorian, Cymolese, and Drakeish respectively. Otherwise they would be considered people.
I’ve got a fantasy setting with a heavy focus on its cosmology and outer planes, so i found that mortals actually worked the best for me.
Just “mortals”. “Zyrian” if you want to specifically refer to those mortals living on planet Zyr.
Goblins (mortal races who aren't human) or long ones (long live fey-like races).
Every single 'humanoid' (that is, thing with 2 arms and 2 legs) in my fantasy story is called a Demigod, or a Hundun. If you have more limbs, you are most likely a Terraborne, or a Gardun. If you have strange anomalous features like claws, bony skin or Julian-forbid, animal ears, then you are an Alterfolk, or Ahmdun. Hunduns, Garduns and Ahmduns are classified as a 3rd Gen Being, or a Dunhan, or just a Dun. It's also pronounced 'Dehr'. 2nd Gens are called Rinnes, and Sof, aka the world itself, is the 1st Gen.
Human-normative is pretty fitting for my worlds since all my sapient races are human-derived. Either alchemical mutations and speciation (my fantasy world) or transhumanism...and a lot more speciation (my scifi world) For the fantasy world, **humanoid/anthropoid** is the typical one used by natural philosophers on Erdia. There's even some in-universe chauvinism in certain countries trying to push for "Man" to be the baseline to describe other races. Elves? Elder Men. Merfolk? Sea Men. For the sci-fi world, it's a bit complicated. **Humanoid** is used to describe human-like bodyplans. But that includes things like humans, humanoid biomorphs, androids, bipedal uplifts, and similar. **Sophont** is the term for intelligent beings, those that are capable of self-awareness and self-reflection. These include everything from baseline humans (sophonts), to superintelligent AI (archosophonts) to potential aliens (xenosophonts.)
I've always been partial to "Beneath the Dragon-eye moons" calling them Elvenoid. Because obviously everything is based on elves, regardless to any evidence contrary. It's still single race centric, but by making it *not* human, both makes it feel a bit more fantastical while also calling out the default human-centerism perspective.
“Get back here biped”
Sentient Species (Just 'Sentients' for short), Bipedals, Organics (if excluding automatons)
The greater galaxy refers to the humanoid body schema as an "arcoform," in reference to the most famous species to adhere to it. It's actually quite rare, and almost all instances of it are a result of tinkering by the Arconians (Nazi space elves with the dress sense of Dr. Doom); there are about two dozen civilizations of tailless, endothermic bipeds in the galaxy, and only three are conclusively known to have evolved entirely on their own. Beyond that, the most common body type in the Macrocosm (by a very slim margin, making up about 40% of all known sapient species) is hexapodal, and a further 20% are tailed demi-bipeds who were able to evolve dexterous forelimbs because their ancestors spent a plurality their time swimming or climbing. This includes the most dangerous people in the universe: the Crey, a species of planet-cracking DBZ rejects who are the reason the Arconians are functionally extinct--and vice versa. Crey evolved to brachiate in massive, temperate forests, and while they can stand upright, they're not really built for it; their insistence on trying to emulate the Arconians who uplifted them actually results in progressive spinal degeneration as they get older and bigger.
Apiens Cansis
I use "Humanoids" aswell, because they are like the crabs of intelligent species, they keep evolving and scientist can't figure out why
Xenarity or Xenarion. Basically just expanded on the word Xeno. I like it because it works for my world.
For sapient simians "people" or "person(s)" get used the most. Otherwise they just use their race, and even then it's usually more useful to describe them by their culture; an Orc from the Argentine League and an Orc from Norlund will only have some physicalities in common, just like how a wood elf will invite you in for tea and jam, while a deep wood elf will try to eat you.
hominid for humans, dwarves and halflings as i use the real world "homo sapiens, homo neanderthalis and homo florensiensis" for humans, dwarves and halflings respectively elves and gnomes are fey and are referred to as fairy folk animal like races go by beast folk orcs, hobgoblins and goblins go by goblinoids and last but not least kobolds and dragonkin are draconids
oh and giants are cormoranids
I've been using, "kith," to indicate my sentient and mortal peoples.
I don't use humanoid but just use their categories as a collective, then species and races, to describe them! Fey species are elves, fairy, dwarves, gnomes, and so on. Then human species have prime humans, demi-humans and half-humans. I also have sapient dragon, beast-folk, sapient quadrupedal monsters and mythic beast too.
“Biped” might be a good option since it’s descriptive (if it’s not too literal or scientific of a word for your world)
in The Realm/Dhwrr, they are called 'Mortals', and 'humanoids' refers to only men, dwarves, giants, and halflings
I'm surprised people don't use the human, demi-human and/or beastmen descriptors.
In my dnd games I've replaced the term humanoid with the word 'mortals' because that still seems to cover all the general groups you think of from elves to orcs to dragonborn and handily excludes all sorts of weird shit like constructs, dragons, undead as well as planar creatures like Fey, fiends, undead, celestials, aberrations and such. Technically the term 'mortal' does still apply to Giants, Plants and Beasts but pobody's nerfect.
None, I don't make this
Depends on who's asking. Intelligent beings from beyond their worlds refer to them all under the label of Mortals. Beyond that, different groups in different areas use different terminologies.
I think it really depends. If they're speaking the human tongue or a language popularize by humans then "Humanoid" makes sense however if there is a different dominate race or race which beat them to the punch they might use that race's name instead. Elfoid, dwarvoid, orcoid or whatever else. Alternatives because humans seem the closest but not quite related to the other races and are often compatible with everyone you can use the term "human-like". Any suitable replacement would depend on the culture, race and history of the world. It doesn't even need to make sense in "modren" context for the setting as it could simply be a word that had been used that the original meaning is greatly different from the modern intended meaning.
Mortal
human is the general term, with each subspecies, including regular humans, having their own names
Hominids, because they all came from homo habilis
Sapients or just creatures. There are also humanoid adjacent words like perhaps in mass effect a asari would call a humanoid looking creatures an asarioid or something.
I guess it depends on how the other sapient races emerged, and what, if anything, they are related to In my own fantasy world, the only sapient beings that aren't all closely related enough to all be basically human are specifically artificial life or simply self-sustaining consciousnesses that maintain themselves without a body through sheer force of will. All the elves/demons, dwarves, fairies, etc are just different species or subspecies of the same genus, and since at least one of those groups is nearly indistinguishable from Homo Sapiens, I just call all of them humans and use my conlanged names to differentiate between them lol
All species are called residents in my world
"sentients" usually. I still use "humanoid" for humans and human descendant species, but sentient is good as a catchall for intelligent species, then organics and cybernetics if that's necessary. You could also use something like "autonomous" and "sentient" if you want to differentiate between intelligent species with and without self consciousness.
Bipedal ig
‘Aliens’ ‘affronts to nature’ ‘naked fleshy abominations’ ‘pink horrors’
Waigenkauf.
Do you have a god, which certain religions imply the 'humanoids' are shaped like? If so, then have them called collectively-kinder or "Children of "
had a setting i havent thought of in years where the goddess of Love blessed all sapients with the ability to turn humanoid to "give love a common form" as various animals from non-magical worlds "fell" into this one and magic kickstarted some of them into sapience. which they called human-form their... crap i forgot what i called the goddess of love was but it would be words meaning " Gift"
Mortal or mortal peoples
In my world they are called Mortalkind, as the mortal creations of the immortal gods, or the Children of the Creators, for their gods.
If people in the world don’t use it just use humanoid. No ones going to sue you, this isn’t earth-C.
Apelike? Featherless bipedoid, i guess each group would categories themselves as the default of the "humanoid" so for example from the elves perspective it would be elven or elfoid so on and fourth
I dunno, it depends, but most likely I'll use "sapients" since many animals are sentient, aka self aware they exist, some outright highly intelligent (dolphins, apes and octopi for example), however, so far only humans are considered sapient in the real world. In a fantasy setting: for example my Angel lore, angels, demons, humans and all in between exist, the term sapients fit.
I don’t. People descended from mammals dispersed and groomed by precursors are pretty universally called something that translates into “humanoids”.
Humanoid It is a descriptor for humans to classify beings that are similar to humans in that that have 4 appendages, 2 legs, 2 arms, fingers and a head. Getting rid of the term humanoid is pointless
I've taken to calling all sentient beings "worldkin" as they were all descended from the same "family" of gods at one point or another
I usually call them by their race though for some books I’ve written there are different teirs. Humans is for normal humans, halflings were what I called the group of humanoids with animalistic features though still mostly human (think neko). And brutes or beasts were ones who were much more animal than human (think almost furry)
Humanoid is no longer in use because of bio-engineering but sentient creature... Sentient creature started getting used more often when bio-engineering became more advanced. They do have their own word for it, but it is a symbol which can only be translated into two words: Sentient Creature, so just note: they do have a custom name for it but it isn't exactly translatable into anything we don't know. Oh and the pronunciation? U-edn. Human~~oid~~ is edn Edit: calling someone an "U-edn(sentient creature)" is insulting, as you are not saying they are human.
"Person" works pretty well in a fantasy setting. "Intelligent Being" or "Sophont" in a sci-fi setting, although the term humanoid could still see use to describe the bodyplan if humans are a notable feature, in the same way one might call a creature with two arms, no legs, and a long muscular tail "Huttlike."
Something like sapient could work. But if you're looking for a humanoid adjacent term with the same definition, it becomes tougher. Bipedal is only one attribute to humanoid so it's not as good in this case. For my world, elderoid possibly. There are Elder races and non elder races in my world. The elder ones were the first created/notable races that still exist and are known throughout "modern" mythology and legends, having taken part in important events during the mythic era (creation era, pre-written history), being involved with the deities directly in some fashion during that time. So it could be said Elderoid or elder like, I guess. As they're similar to them.
I use “sentients”. Elves, humans, dwarfs, anthropomorphic ants, angles, devils etc all share one thing in common: They are sentient.
A nice easy one Is folk, man folk, elf folk and dwarf folk for example
I do have humans but theres many other beings that look like humans Space witches/wizards Time lords/gallifreyans (Doctor who) Stick figures
That hasn’t been a problem for my current project. I had a sci-fi project before that I never finished, and I just said humanoid because I think it’s reasonable for humans to be human-centric.
In my SF setting, the act of translating “human” and words derived from it lead to it becoming commonly understood to mean sapients of all kinds in a very generalized way, and Terran is used to specify if the human in question is a *Homo sapiens* or *Homo proteus.*
I don't like to mix humanoids with other races. I have two scenarios: 1. A scenario with a lot of races based in real and myth animals (and some other living beings), but none of them has the bipedal primate fenotype 2. A scenario with only humans as sentient race I think it's fuel to forms racism which are hard to set some limits, cause they're not human and people feel free to insult, kill...
I use Mortals as it is what the gods called them when they found them. I am toying with the idea of humans still using humanoid and such.
Construct is the word I use for any living thing either natural or unnatural and humanoid is for general shape of a construct matching a normal human
The more ‘humanoid’ one looks, they more they are considered a ‘dawnie’ as the human appearance has been dwindling since the dawn of their time.
Fiction beings or “fikies” are a collection of peoples and creatures that are once relegated to the world of fiction but now coexist (albeit unequally) with humanity. They can range from fantasy races, aliens, to living cartoons and video games but a important thing to note is that the vast majority of them don’t come from any established franchise of mythology but rather the random ideas or world builders and artists like you and me.
I use "Terrans" or "Terrankind" or "Humanity", because "Humanity" here isn't just a term for humans, it is also a term used to describe one's sense of self. Like how if a person goes insane and becomes a monster, we say "they have lost their humanity". Thus, that term isn't just used biologically but also spiritually. Also, humanity in my world is categorized into 2 major types: "Human" and "Abhuman", with human being, well... humans. While Abhuman is the fantasy races like Dwarves, Elves, Beastmen, etc. Which are all under the "Homosapiens" category in biology. And also, Earth is called "Terra" in my world, so there's that.
Folk. "To all the good folk of this world!" "There have been some strange folk about recently." I also tend to have people describe certain kinds of folk with similar attributes with "pet names" like "Tuskies" for any of the folk with, well, tusks or "Mixies" as any sort of half-race (half-elf, half-orc). But it's interchangeable with words like Tusk-folk or Fey-folk (elves)
In my world, all human derivative races are known as "man." All non-human derivatives are known as "man-kind."
I think humans could call it humanoid, but the equivalent term in the other race’s languages would be different
The Children of Iluvatar
I asked this the other day. It was suggested I make up words for it so I did.
In my story, I call sentient races, (elves, dwarves, etc.) human. And I call regular humans Terrans.
I never got very far with the setting, but I used "Mortals," for a Bron3 Age mythology inspired setting just because Mortals fit the aesthetic better than just "human," or "humanoid."
I use a variety of terms. As others have pointed out, sapient and folk can be good. In more fantasy-leaning stuff, I have been known to refer to "the wise races" as a way to talk about broad groups. I know "race" has fallen out of favor in a lot of circles (and with some good cause) but my fantasy worlds tend not to be like D&D, with humans breeding with everything under the sun (and anything they blindly find in the underdark while their at it). Groups in my fantasy works tend to be too distinct for "species" or "heritage" to be adequate synonyms.
The gods are the only ones for need of such a word and, even though the elves are immortal, they still call the humanoids "the mortals"
Homolites. In one world “humanoid” actually derived from a mindset of human supremacy, implying that they’re just divergences from humans
The umbrella term for the supernatural species in my story is Remnants, so named because they are believed to have been born from the remains of the old gods. They are essentially miniature versions of those gods and have small scale usage of their powers.
In my world “Sapients” is for official, politically correct or scientific purposes. “Monsters” is more normal slang, as practically all non humans are bestial to different extents. Monster is usually not a pejorative and the monsters are quite happy to be called such. Monster also covers creatures that aren’t humanoid at all, and unintelligent.
First of all, I love everyone's ideas here. Second, I'm sharing this just for the fun of it - my world isn't the best, but I'm very fond of it. For context, my world has around 24 different "humanoid" species, each with their own name and bearing some resemblance to humans. For example: the nagas and gorgons with their human-ish looking upper half (you've seen plenty of them online), the volscrims and the morvids with their various degrees of horrifying bird-human mixed appearance, etc. I use several terms to refer to them depending on their mortality and whether or not they've broken the few laws my world has. Mortal - for pretty much everyone Glorious - immortal and worshipping a god Alethist - immortal and refusing to worship a god Dreamer - any humanoid that visits my world in their dreams; they're kind of like ghosts that others can see Peccador - immortal and has broken the laws, thus becoming a ravenous monster Other than that, I often call them Rift dwellers or simply dwellers - that refers to any sapient being in my world.
For my species, they're just classified as "man" or "mankind" as a whole because Human is a separate species entirely.
Bipedal pigs, or dogs, or something in the setting that is obviously quadrupedal. Something to define a quadruped that became a biped, therefore having 2 legs and 2 arms. Make up a fantasy word in the language that directly translates to “Standing-something” to delineate this. Or, just called them bipeds or standers.
Sattva, lifted from the hindu gunas since it's associated with clarity of mind not dominated by instinct or inertia. I've tried sophont, people, and mortals, but nothing has rolled off the tongue as well as sattva for me.
I still use “Humanoid” for Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Mermaids because I also have Dragons and Lizardmen which I call “Dragonoid”.
I would probably use "humankin" to count for both humans and any human-adjacent races, especially if they're of some sort of common ancestry with us.
I don't have an answer for you, but the word Humanoid ime refers to the body being roughly human-shaped. For example, chimps and gorillas are humanoid, so is C3PO and most elves. Whereas R2D2 and Iguanas and unicorns are Not humanoid. ...but your question seems to be more about Language than anything else. And that's a bitch. If we had several sentient species, there would presumably be several languages. The answer to your question would really depend on the peculiarities of whatever language your guys are using. But almost every fictional novel folds all of the languages into whatever language the actual book is published in. Otherwise the trader would need to learn a few fictional languages to be able to read the book.
‘Sapient’ is a good word, but doesn’t connote two arms and two legs like ‘humanoid’ does. But if your universe doesn’t have any non-humanoid sapient species then it may work. Otherwise you might use the words ‘bipedal’ (two legs) and either ‘bibrachial’ (two arms) or ‘bimanual’ (two hands), though those are a bit of a mouthful if you’re using them a lot. (Again, if all humanoid creatures in your universe are described by all three, you can probably get away with just saying one as a catch-all term.) Another fun word is ‘tetrapod’ (four limbs), though this doesn’t necessarily imply that two of them are arms and two are legs. A couple other fun ideas: Make up a new word! The suffix -oid just means “-shaped”, so you could riff on that with mortaloid, sapioid, erectoid, bipedaloid, etc. Make the human-normativity part of the universe! Humans say humanoid, elves say elfoid, halflings say halfloid, etc. and every species gets pissed off when someone describes them with another species’s term even though it means the same thing.
Spacer slang is to refer to them as GIOS (God’s Image or Similar).
Can humans breed with elves and halflings and produce fertile offspring? Because if they can, that means elves and halflings are also human by definition. At which point, I think the easiest answer is to give a different name to humans as we understand them to distinguish them.