# Corn ( Maize)



## 2x2isnot4

I think there are different words for it in different countries, one example, if I am not wrong, is Egypt vs. Syria...

Thanking you all in advance!


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## AndyRoo

In MSA it's ذرة dhura. I think it's the same in Egyptian, but pronounced zura. Hopefully someone can confirm that. 

In Iraqi Arabic I believe it's إذرة idhra, which is clearly related.


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## elroy

In Palestinian Arabic it's "dura."


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## WadiH

In the old days, we used to call it دخن (_dikhn_), but that has given way to the MSA term ذرة mentioned above.


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## origumi

elroy said:


> In Palestinian Arabic it's "dura."


 


Wadi Hanifa said:


> In the old days, we used to call it دخن (_dikhn_), but that has given way to the MSA term ذرة mentioned above.


 
This is confusing: in Hebrew "dura" דורה is sorghum, "dikhn" דוחן is millet.


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## WadiH

origumi said:


> This is confusing: in Hebrew "dura" דורה is sorghum, "dikhn" דוחן is millet.



Hmmm ... maybe I confused corn with millet then?


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## cherine

AndyRoo said:


> In MSA it's ذرة dhura. I think it's the same in Egyptian, but pronounced zura. Hopefully someone can confirm that.


Egyptian Arabic doesn't always pronounce the ذ as ز . The word "dhura" ذرة is pronounced "dora" درة.


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## Mahaodeh

Wadi Hanifa said:


> Hmmm ... maybe I confused corn with millet then?


 
I think so, because my understanding is that dikhn is millet in Arabic too.


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## MarcB

Mahaodeh said:


> I think so, because my understanding is that dikhn is millet in Arabic too.



Dikhn is millet in American and AUE ,often referred to as corn in Britith English. Corn is American English and AuE, referred to as maize or Indian corn by BR is dhura.


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## origumi

In the Arabic dialect of Yemenite Jews maize is called "Rumi".


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## 2x2isnot4

Thank you all, this has been a very fruitful discussion. I am working on the etymology of "corn". For that purpose, it would be really useful, if you could also refer in your postings whether or not the words themselves indicate any geographical location. I can not confirm this but I have seen somewhere where corn/maize was called "Syrian sorghum" ( a plant that was familiar to the locals before the arrival corn in the Old World) in Egyptian Arabic. It is also interesting to note that corn is called "Mısır" in Turkish, referring to Egypt...

origumi: Rumi, if I am not wrong would mean Roman in Arabic. Could you confirm this?


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## sokol

origumi said:


> This is confusing: in Hebrew "dura" דורה is sorghum, "dikhn" דוחן is millet.


I can't contribute to the use of the terms - only a semantic remark: just look at what happened in English.
English "corn = wheat/barley/rye" was applied for the main crop of America, thus maize = corn in America. Something similar happened in south-eastern Styria, Austria where "Woaz = Weizen = wheat" is used to refer to "maize/corn" as this is the main crop in this region.

So to rename a new crop which becomes predominant in a region after the main crop of former times wouldn't be completely out of order: that is, in this case, "dura = sorghum" became "dura = corn/maize", or so it seems.

And possibly the same semantic re-interpretation just didn't happen in Hebrew as Modern Hebrew relied on the definition of "dura" as used in the Tora? Just an educated guess. 


origumi said:


> In the Arabic dialect of Yemenite Jews maize is called "Rumi".


"Rumi" could refer to "Rum-Seljuks" (the Seljuks who settled in Anatolia - "Rum" derived from "Rome < Romans"), so to Turks. (See also this related thread.)


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## AndyRoo

Hans Wehr says:
ذرة dhura = sorghum
ذرة شامي dhura shaamii [i.e. Syrian sorghum] = Indian corn, maize, (Zea mays L.).

Incidentally, Lane says ذرة dhura was originally written ذُرَو  or ذُرَى


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## Abu Rashid

> "Rumi" could refer to "Rum-Seljuks" (the Seljuks who settled in Anatolia - "Rum" derived from "Rome < Romans"), so to Turks.



Probably no more than Shami refers to Shami Seljuks...

Rumi merely means Roman or Anatolian, not necessarily Seljuki.


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## Abu Rashid

> This is confusing: in Hebrew "dura" דורה is sorghum, "dikhn" דוחן is millet.



The word which appears translated as "corn" in the Bible is דגן (dagan??), Strong's lexicon lists an Arabic word داجن as being it's cognate, which appears to mean domesticated.


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## djara

In Tunisian Arabic:
QTaanya (maybe from Qutn, cotton)
In some regions, it is sbuul (3jim), meaning "(foreign) ears" as in ears of corn.


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## sokol

Abu Rashid said:


> Probably no more than Shami refers to Shami Seljuks...
> 
> Rumi merely means Roman or Anatolian, not necessarily Seljuki.


Of course "Rumi" just means Roman, but here refers to Eastern Rome = Byzantine, which of course also was the reason why it was associated with Seljuks.

I only wanted to point out that the name "rumi = corn/maize" might rather refer to Anatolia [it couldn't be Byzantine, as corn/maize wasn't known in Europe before the fall of the Byzantine empire] than the "Rome" in Italy. Which is about the same as you said; sorry for the misunderstanding.


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## Abu Rashid

> I only wanted to point out that the name "rumi = corn/maize" might rather refer to Anatolia [it couldn't be Byzantine, as corn/maize wasn't known in Europe before the fall of the Byzantine empire] than the "Rome" in Italy. Which is about the same as you said; sorry for the misunderstanding.



Yes that is a good point, it refers to the Eastern Roman Realm (or Byzantium), rather than Rome proper, because that was the capital of the Roman world during the early Islamic period.


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## suma

Abu Rashid said:


> The word which appears translated as "corn" in the Bible is דגן (dagan??), Strong's lexicon lists an Arabic word داجن as being it's cognate, which appears to mean domesticated.


 
I thought corn (maize) was a new world crop, unknown in  ancient times? So why would the Bible contain a reference to corn? unless by _*corn*_ it means sorghum or millet?


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## origumi

suma said:


> I thought corn (maize) was a new world crop, unknown in ancient times? So why would the Bible contain a reference to corn? unless by _*corn*_ it means sorghum or millet?


 
Hebrew "dagan" is similar by meaning to UK English "corn" or "cereal" - that is, general term that refers to wheat, barley and also sorghum, millet, and any plant of the same botanic family (such as maize). This word is common to western Semitic languages, Ugaritic for example. Compare to the philistine deity "dagon" - the god of dagan, corn.

"Dikhn" (millet) is an Arabic word that appears in the Hebrew bible (Ezekiel 4:9) as "dokhan".

"Dura" (as sorghum) was borrowed (AFAIK) to Hebrew from Arabic in modern times.

"Dura" (as maize) is "tiras" in Hebrew and means (remotely) "Turkish", based on the biblical figure Tiras son of Japeth. I think that this Hebrew word was invented one or two hundred years after maize appeared in the old world.


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## Talib

origumi said:


> This is confusing: in Hebrew "dura" דורה is sorghum, "dikhn" דוחן is millet.


With that spelling it looks like "dokhn" or "dukhn"!

Either way it seems like a loan, possibly from Arabic, since Hebrew words rarely end in two consonants.


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## origumi

Dokhan.

Ezekiel 4:9
וְאַתָּה קַח-לְךָ חִטִּין וּשְׂעֹרִים וּפוֹל וַעֲדָשִׁים וְ*דֹחַן* וְכֻסְּמִים
Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt

You may also notice that Arabic "fool" is Hebrew "pol". Off-topic but interesting remembering we hold a 2600 years old document in hand.


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## djamal 2008

In colloquial algerian we call it Al jabaar الجبار; it should be the same in Tunisia.


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