# the etymology of "Cake"



## IRAJ2000

Hi members and happy new year!
I found some things about the etymology of the cake. What's you idea about it? Is it correct?
You know, we have the word *کاک /kak/* in persian. It went to Arabic and became *کعک /ka'k/*. After coming to English it became *cake /keIk/*.


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## Outsider

Hello, and happy new year.

For these kinds of questions, the Online Etymology Dictionary is usually a good start. Here's what I found there:



> cake (n.)
> early 13c., from *Old Norse* *kaka* "cake," from *West Germanic* **kokon-* (cognates: *Middle Dutch koke, Dutch koek, Old High German huohho, German Kuchen*). Not now believed to be related to Latin _coquere_ "to cook," as formerly supposed. Replaced its *Old English cognate, coecel*.


No apparent direct connection with Persian, although the two words may be cognates, since both languages are Indoeuropean.


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## fdb

Arabic kaʻk ‘designation of various kinds of pastry’ is probably borrowed from an Egyptian word that appears in Demotic as kʻkʻ, also (metathesis) ʻkk, Coptic čaače, also mentioned as κάκεις ‘an Egyptian sort of bread’  in Strabo. (See Fournet BSL 1989, p. 66.)

It is correct that Persian is an Indo-European language, but a correspondence of New Persian kāk with English “cake” and its Germanic cognates (German Kuchen etc.) is not possible in the light of IE sound laws (Germanic k goes back to IE *g or *ĝ; Persian k goes back to IE *k). It is probably merely a Persianised from of Arabic kaʻk.


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## origumi

kʻk is attested in Gemaraic Hebrew/Aramaic (פסחים מ"ח ב), some 1500-1800 years ago, in the plural form כעכין. It is some kind pastry, maybe lengthened bread with sharp ends (לחמים מוארכים בעלי קצוות חדים says רש"י).

In modern Hebrew it means _bagel_ under Arabic influence yet the word is old.


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## fdb

Also in Syriac (kaʻkē d-laḥmā). The Arabic word is presumably not borrowed directly from Egyptian, but via one of the Aramaic languages.


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## DarkChild

What does *kak* mean in Persian? In Armenian it literally means sh*t


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## IRAJ2000

DarkChild said:


> What does *kak* mean in Persian? In Armenian it literally means sh*t


You know, *kak* is a kind of pastry that is baked in Kermanshah(one of the provinces of Iran).


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## IRAJ2000

Anyway, thank you for your nice replies!


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## sotos

fdb said:


> Arabic kaʻk ‘designation of various kinds of pastry’ is probably borrowed from an Egyptian word that appears in Demotic as kʻkʻ, also (metathesis) ʻkk, Coptic čaače, also mentioned as κάκεις ‘an Egyptian sort of bread’  in Strabo. (See Fournet BSL 1989, p. 66.)
> 
> It is correct that Persian is an Indo-European language, but a correspondence of New Persian kāk with English “cake” and its Germanic cognates (German Kuchen etc.) is not possible in the light of IE sound laws (Germanic k goes back to IE *g or *ĝ; Persian k goes back to IE *k). It is probably merely a Persianised from of Arabic kaʻk.



Cognate or not, the Gr. καίω (to burn) may assisted the circulation of the word around Mediterranean. This καίω in medieval Greek acquired somehow a "γ" in the stem, so it also found as καίγω.


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## IRAJ2000

sotos said:


> Cognate or not, the Gr. καίω (to burn) may assisted the circulation of the word around Mediterranean. This καίω in medieval Greek acquired somehow a "γ" in the stem, so it also found as καίγω.


Thank you. I think your idea is better.


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## Unoverwordinesslogged

> cake (n.)
> 
> early 13c., from Old Norse kaka "cake," from West Germanic *kokon- (cognates: Middle Dutch koke, Dutch koek, Old High German huohho, German Kuchen). *Not now believed to be related to Latin coquere "to cook," as formerly supposed. Replaced its Old English cognate, coecel. *



Were ALL these aforesaid Germanic _cake_ cognates thought to be related to Latin or only the English one: _cake_?

Was _cake_ misthought to be related from Latin whilst also knowingly or unknowingly said to be from Norse?

Why is it now thought not to be from Latin?

Forethanks to anyone whom answers.


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## berndf

The word group _to cook, the cook, kitchen _(German _kochen, Koch, Küche_; Dutch _koken, kok, keuken_) is from Latin _coquere_ (_to cook_). The question is, if _cake, Kuchen, koek, kaka,_ ... are related to _cook, kitchen_ or not. The opinion of most scholars today is that this is not the case and that those words have an independent Common Germanic root. This is nothing specifically English or Norse.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> Arabic kaʻk ‘designation of various kinds of pastry’ is probably borrowed from an Egyptian word that appears in Demotic as kʻkʻ, also (metathesis) ʻkk, Coptic čaače, also mentioned as κάκεις ‘an Egyptian sort of bread’  in Strabo. (See Fournet BSL 1989, p. 66.)



Akkadian _kukku_ also means "cake" (probably from Sumerian _gug_ with the same meaning) and _kakkaru_ means "round bread", these are much older than the Egyptian word.

English _cake_ is from proto-Germanic *_koko_, from pre-Germanic *_gog-_.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> English _cake_ is from proto-Germanic *_koko_, from pre-Germanic *_gog-_.


That looks suspiciously like another one of those Wiktionary fantasy etymologies.


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## CyrusSH

DarkChild said:


> What does *kak* mean in Persian? In Armenian it literally means sh*t



The interesting thing is that as a loanword from Persian, the same word meant "dry bread" in Armenian too: քաք - Wiktionary


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