Speculation--Minshara Class planets

[Andorian_Incident]

I was just wondering what other people thought about the origin of "Minshara-class" planets.  Obviously, it comes from the Vulcans.  But which do you think is more likely--that Minshara is a Vulcan word that would mean basically "capable of supporting life", or that there is a planet that the Vulcans call Minshara out there someplace (perhaps the first inhabited planet the Vulcans encountered), just like a class of starship is named after the first ship of that line.

[UltimateTrekker]

Well, our words sometimes come from things like that and we never know.  It could be both.  Minshara might mean "Cable of supporting life" because of the Minshara planet they found.

[Elric3960]

In the Classic Trek episode "Return to Tomorrow" Spock mentions that Vulcan pre-history speculates that life on Vulcan could have originated somewhere else.

In "Balance of Terror" Spock mentions Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonization period.  Perhaps Minshara is like their "lost city of Atlantis" or "Jerusalem", a home civilization that's lost to antiquity and Vulcan is their "Tel Aviv."

In "The Enterprise Incident" the Romulan Commander mentions that Vulcans and Romulans have the same roots and considers Vulcans as "our distant brothers."  Perhaps Minshara could have been the setting of a civil war and Vulcan and Romulus could have been respective places of refuge for both races before their "joint home world" was destroyed, leaving them new planets to call "home."

Even Spock said "There are always possibilities."

[Andorian_Incident]

Those are all interesting possibilities

[ElanaM]

I assume that the later Trek term 'M-Class' is short form for Minshara Class planets.

[Trekdog]

Maybe it is the Name of the guy (or gal) that first "named " this class of planet.  I assumed it was the longer form of "M-class" also...

[Christina]

or Minshara is a local name for Vulcan?

just like we say earth-like?  But aliens may call this ball of rock something else.

[Tpol]

I'm sure it means its capable of supporting humanoid type lifeforms and I agree with Christina with 'Earth type'. There are so many words for Earth in the various Languages on this world that it is probably a derivative of a Vulcan Dialect that means 'Vulcan type' planet. After all Earth is often reffered to as Terra or a human from Earth being a Terran.