ETYMOLOGY OF FOOD

ETYMOLOGY OF FOOD. The words of a language can be traced to two sources. Some have been a part of that same language as far back as its history is known, although, since no language remains fixed, they will have gradually changed in form and sound. Others are loanwords, borrowed from another language with which the speakers of the first have been in contact.

Food words fall into both categories. Food and drink are necessities of life, basic elements of which are likely to remain fixed (and to retain the same vocabulary) through the centuries. Yet innumerable details will change (and demand new names) in response to taste, fashion, and the love of variety; also in response to the migration of peoples, the development of trade, and the transplanting of food species. Thus in English the names of foods and drinks mirror the cultural history of English speakers. Some names remain unexplained: no one knows the origin of "raspberry," "syllabub," or "toffee."

Some basic foods have had the same name in English and in its ancestral languages all the way back to Proto-Indo-European, an unrecorded, reconstructed language that might have been spoken some time between 5000 and 3000 B.C.E. in the southern Russian steppes. Such words include water (compare modern Russian voda [water] and vodka ), mead (Sanskrit madhu [honey]), barley (Latin far [emmer wheat]), milk (Latin mulgere [to milk an animal]). Also from Proto-Indo-European come the names of certain basic preparation methods, bake (compare Greek phogein ), brew, and broth (Greek broutos [a kind of beer]).

The names of some foods go back to the unrecorded Proto-Germanic language of the first millennium B.C.E. (the immediate ancestor of English, German, and others) but cannot be traced to any earlier stage. This applies to meat, bread (German Brot ), honey, eel (German Aal ), egg (German Ei ). Some of these words may have been borrowed into Proto-Germanic from other unrecorded prehistoric languages of Europe.

Moving forward in time, some Mediterranean foods and luxuries were introduced to northern Europe by the Romans. Thus English uses words of Latin origin for important products such as cheese (from Latin caseus ) and wine (from Latin vinum ) and also for a few fruits and vegetables that were first planted in northern Europe by the Romans, such as plum (from Latin prunum ) and fennel (from Latin feniculum ).

Certain new foods came to England with the Norman conquest in 1066. During the period of English-French bilingual culture that followed, English cuisine changed and developed rapidly. Thus many terms relevant to food were borrowed into English from Anglo-Norman, the dialect of Old French that was spoken in Medieval England. Examples include pear (French poire ), chestnut (French châtaigne ; originally from ancient Greek kastanea ), salmon (French saumon ), sausage (French saucisse ). Anglo-Norman was also the source of names for cooking methods, fry (French frire ) and boil (French bouillir ).

English has continued to borrow food concepts from other cultures and food words from other languages. Steak comes from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings; lozenge from Arabic by way of Old French; pickle from Dutch; tomato, chocolate, and chili from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. In modern times, with the globalization of tastes, this kind of borrowing has become even more frequent. So we have curry from Tamil or Kannada of southern India, toddy and chutney from Hindi, pasta and pizza from Italian, marzipan from German (the word originated in Italian), blini from Russian, tofu from Japanese (the word originated in Chinese). Cooks and restaurateurs like to make the names of dishes evoke their origins by retaining an authentically foreign form, such as the French coq au vin and tripes à la mode de Caen (cockerel cooked in wine, tripe in the Caen fashion). They also like to use foreign names for methods of preparation, as in chicken chasseur (French chasseur [huntsman]).

Local specialities in food and wine mean that place-names often have a special food meaning. Cheddar is a village in Somerset, England (but cheeses with this name are now made in many countries). Cognac and Armagnac are towns in southwestern France. Parmesan is an English form of the Italian adjective Parmigiano, meaning 'from Parma', a town in northern Italy. Sherry is an English form of the Spanish place-name Jérez (de la Frontera ); Port is an English form of the Portuguese place name Porto.

Since English is spoken so widely across the world, its vocabulary is astonishingly varied. Many foods have different names, and many food names have different meanings in Britain and the United States. Cider is apple juice in the United States; it is an alcoholic drink in Britain. Corn is maize in the United States, wheat in Britain. The spice called turmeric in Britain and the United States is known in South Africa as borrie (a loan from Malay by way of Afrikaans). The European spice known in Britain as coriander is called in Indian English dhania or dhunia ; in the United States the fruit is called coriander but the leaves are called cilantro, a word borrowed from Spanish. The Afghan spice known as hing in Indian English is asafoetida in Britain and the United States, while it is duivelsdrek in South African English: this is a loanword from Afrikaans meaning literally 'devil's dung' (because that is what asafoetida smells like). The spice called jeera in Indian English is cumin or cummin in British and U.S. English. Indian English methi is British English fenugreek. Indian English sitaphul is known elsewhere as custard-apple. Indian English alu is U.S. and British English potato (also British spud ). The fruit okra (this name is borrowed from the Akan language of Ghana) is also known regionally as gumbo (borrowed from Mbundu of Angola), bhindi (borrowed from Marathi of India), and ladies' fingers. The chickpea is also known as chana (borrowed from Hindi) and garbanzo bean (borrowed from Spanish). Even where the English names derive ultimately from a single foreign word, they may have different forms and connotations in different regions, like U.S. English kabob for British English kebab (a word that is Turkish in origin).

Corn

The English words corn and grain are linguistic doublets: both of them originate in a Proto-Indo-European word (of about 4000 B.C.E.) that may be reconstructed as grnom. This word meant 'cereal grain'. As the Indo-European languages grew apart, it took a different form in Proto-Germanic, in Latin, and in other early languages. In Proto-Germanic (about 500 B.C.E.) the form was kurnam : this became korn in Old High German and Old Norse and corn in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), and that is the immediate origin of the modern English word corn. In classical Latin, meanwhile, the form was granum. This became grano in Spanish and Italian and grain in French, meaning 'cereal grain', and the French word was borrowed into English. The French words graine (seed) and grange (barn) derive from the same Latin word.

What does corn mean? In British English it means 'cereal'—and usually it means 'wheat', the favorite cereal of Europe. When English speakers in the New World (the "Indies") encountered a cereal that was new to them, they invented a new name for it: Indian corn. In the United States, this name was eventually shortened to corn, which is why, in the United States, corn now means 'Indian corn'. Meanwhile, back in Europe, where Indian corn was soon transplanted, people came to know it under the name maize (a Carib word, transmitted by way of Spanish maiz ). In South Africa it has a different name again, mealie or mielie (a word borrowed from Afrikaans and said to derive originally from Portuguese milho [millet]).

So what are Corn Flakes made from? Indian corn, of course, because they were invented and named in the United States; but British people often assume that they are made from wheat, because that is what corn means in Britain.

Sugar

Sugar, in ancient and medieval Europe, was a rare and costly spice. India was the nearest source of supply; sugar was shipped across the wide Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean to reach its European purchasers.

Sugar was originally traded as solid cakes. It was in India that granulated sugar was invented, perhaps about 200 B.C.E.; its ancient Indic (Pali and Prakrit) name, sakkhara, reflects this fact, because literally sakkhara (also sakkara ) means 'gravel, grit'. This word reached the ancient West along with the sacks of sugar; it was adopted into classical Greek (sakkhar, later sakhar ), Latin (saccharum ), and early Arabic (sukkar ). Medieval Russians got their sugar from the Greeks of Byzantium, so they called it sakhar. Medieval western Europe bought sugar from Arab traders, and therefore gave it names that resemble the Arabic: medieval Latin succarum, Italian zucchero, Old French sukere, modern French sucre.

Sugar must have been almost unknown in Britain until Norman times. The English name for it is borrowed from Norman French: the form is suker or zuker in thirteenth-century manuscripts, then suger, and finally sugar.

Cooking for William the Conquerer

The most familiar examples of food words borrowed into English from the Anglo-Norman form of French are names for the meat of the pig, sheep, and ox, the three major farm animals of medieval Europe. In the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language, just one basic word existed for each of these three animals, alive or dead. So also in Old French; so also in modern French, in which the basic words are porc (pig), mouton (sheep), and boeuf (ox).

In Norman times, English borrowed those three French words, pork, mutton, beef. So, unusually, ever since then, English has had six basic words in this semantic field, three for the living animals and three for the meats. Why were the extra three words borrowed at all? Why were the borrowed words used in the special sense of ready-to-eat meats?

The likely answer is that because the English nobles of that period spoke French and ordered their food in French, others eventually thought it fashionable and classy to use French for the names of fine foods. In just the same way, after a successful hunt, the huntsmen demanded in French to be served with la veneson, meaning literally 'the game we just hunted', and that is why venison has its modern English meaning of 'deer meat'.

See also Language about Food ; Metaphor, Food as ; Naming of Food ; Symbol, Food as .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The history of English words can be traced in: Clarence L. Barnhart, editor, The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1988). For food words see also: John Ayto, The Glutton's Glossary (London: Routledge, 1990). For English words of Asian origin see: Henry Yule, A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson. London: Murray, 1903.

Words in Proto-Indo-European and in later Indo-European languages can be tracked down in: Carl Darling Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of Ideas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, ed. J. P. Mallory, D. Q. Adams. Chicago, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. Joseph T. Shipley, The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

The books listed above are fairly easy to use. To go further, one needs to use etymological dictionaries of foreign languages, most of which are written for historical linguists. For guidance in finding and using such works see: Andrew Dalby, A Guide to World Language Dictionaries. London: Library Association Publishing; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998. Yakov Malkiel, Etymological Dictionaries: A Tentative Typology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

Andrew Dalby