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Why do we call maize, corn?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

August 31, 2001

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Suggested Reading—>Click here.

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The word, corn, is a strange term. In the United States, corn means the plant, Zea mays or "Indian corn". In European countries, corn, corne, koorn, koren, choron, ziarno, or zyrne simply meant any grain for humans and horses. Corn, as used in the Bible, meant any of the grains grown in the Middle East and a head of wheat was called an "ear of corn".

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In most of the world, corn is called maize after the Spanish word maiz. In 1492, the Taino of the Caribbean island, Hispaniola, introduced mahiz to Columbus and the Spanish. Far from home, greed got the better of the Spanish conquerors; they enslaved and slaughtered the peaceful colony of farmers and artisans. But, mahiz was a good thing and the Spanish introduced this crop wherever they went.

So how did we begin calling maize, corn?

Possibly because of religious persecution—many of the first people to come to the United States were escaping Europe and the domination of state religions. They brought with them the food crops grown in Europe. Often, those crops did not grow well in this country and many people faced starvation when their European seeds failed.

Unfortunately, many conservative Protestants would not grow a plant unless it was mentioned in the Bible, and certainly not something that the natives of the Americas grew so well. It is thought that to give maize a social acceptability, it was called "corn", a term one could find in the Bible.

Nature, the PBS program, has posted a page about the Taino people. To learn more about their civilization, click on the PBS link:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/spirits/html/taino.html

(Compiled from: "Corn", The Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889, posted to the internet by Global Language Resources, 2001-2005 and Notes from an Anthropology Lecture, circa 1984)

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Suggested Reading:

What ceremony celebrated the gift of the corn harvest? Herbal Folklore - August 27, 2001
Why do we call maize, corn? What's in a Name? - August 31, 2001
What plant helped build North American civilizations? Plants that Changed History - Aug 28, 2001
What is pellagra? Plants that Changed History - February 24, 2004

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