Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Maize" in English language version.
The word "maize" is preferred in international usage because in many countries the term "corn", the name by which the plant is known in the United States, is synonymous with the leading cereal grain; thus, in England "corn" refers to wheat, and in Scotland and Ireland it refers to oats.
Recent studies in the Central Balsas River Valley of Mexico, maize's postulated cradle of origin, document the presence of maize phytoliths and starch grains at 8700 BP, the earliest date recorded for the crop (Piperno et al. 2009; Ranere et al. 2009). A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Given the number of Cauca Valley, Colombia, sites that demonstrate early maize, it is likely that the inter-Andean valleys were a major dispersal route for the crop after it entered South America
To say the word "corn" is to plunge into the tragi-farcical mistranslations of language and history. If only the British had followed Columbus in phoneticizing the Taino word mahiz, which the Arawaks named their staple grain, we wouldn't be in the same linguistic pickle we're in today, where I have to explain to someone every year that when Biblical Ruth "stood in tears amid the alien corn" she was standing in a wheat field. But it was a near thing even with the Spaniards, when we read in Columbus' Journals that the grain "which the Indians called maiz... the Spanish called panizo.' The Spanish term was generic for the cereal grains they knew - wheat, millet, barley, oats - as was the Italian term polenta, from Latin pub. As was the English term "corn", which covered grains of all kinds, including grains of salt, as in "corned beef".
French linguistic imperialism, by way of a Parisian botanist in 1536, provided the term Turcicum frumentum, which the British quickly translated into "Turkey wheat", "Turkey corn", and "Indian corn". By Turkey or Indian, they meant not a place but a condition, a savage rather than a civilized grain, with which the Turks concurred, calling it kukuruz, meaning barbaric.
To say the word "corn" is to plunge into the tragi-farcical mistranslations of language and history. If only the British had followed Columbus in phoneticizing the Taino word mahiz, which the Arawaks named their staple grain, we wouldn't be in the same linguistic pickle we're in today, where I have to explain to someone every year that when Biblical Ruth "stood in tears amid the alien corn" she was standing in a wheat field. But it was a near thing even with the Spaniards, when we read in Columbus' Journals that the grain "which the Indians called maiz... the Spanish called panizo.' The Spanish term was generic for the cereal grains they knew - wheat, millet, barley, oats - as was the Italian term polenta, from Latin pub. As was the English term "corn", which covered grains of all kinds, including grains of salt, as in "corned beef".
French linguistic imperialism, by way of a Parisian botanist in 1536, provided the term Turcicum frumentum, which the British quickly translated into "Turkey wheat", "Turkey corn", and "Indian corn". By Turkey or Indian, they meant not a place but a condition, a savage rather than a civilized grain, with which the Turks concurred, calling it kukuruz, meaning barbaric.
The use of the word "corn" for what is termed "maize" by most other countries is peculiar to the United States. Europeans who were accustomed to the names "wheat corn", "barley corn", and "rye corn" for other small-seeded cereal grains referred to the unique American grain maize as "Indian corn." The term was shortened to just "corn", which has become the American word for the plant of American genesis.
To say the word "corn" is to plunge into the tragi-farcical mistranslations of language and history. If only the British had followed Columbus in phoneticizing the Taino word mahiz, which the Arawaks named their staple grain, we wouldn't be in the same linguistic pickle we're in today, where I have to explain to someone every year that when Biblical Ruth "stood in tears amid the alien corn" she was standing in a wheat field. But it was a near thing even with the Spaniards, when we read in Columbus' Journals that the grain "which the Indians called maiz... the Spanish called panizo.' The Spanish term was generic for the cereal grains they knew - wheat, millet, barley, oats - as was the Italian term polenta, from Latin pub. As was the English term "corn", which covered grains of all kinds, including grains of salt, as in "corned beef".
French linguistic imperialism, by way of a Parisian botanist in 1536, provided the term Turcicum frumentum, which the British quickly translated into "Turkey wheat", "Turkey corn", and "Indian corn". By Turkey or Indian, they meant not a place but a condition, a savage rather than a civilized grain, with which the Turks concurred, calling it kukuruz, meaning barbaric.
Recent studies in the Central Balsas River Valley of Mexico, maize's postulated cradle of origin, document the presence of maize phytoliths and starch grains at 8700 BP, the earliest date recorded for the crop (Piperno et al. 2009; Ranere et al. 2009). A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Given the number of Cauca Valley, Colombia, sites that demonstrate early maize, it is likely that the inter-Andean valleys were a major dispersal route for the crop after it entered South America
