# Etymology: California



## Qcumber

Hello

In a thread of the Arabic folder, I discovered that some people believe the name of California is derived from Caliph < Arabic xaliifa(t) "'emperor'".
The data to support this hypothesis are to be found in the Wikipedia article: Origin of the name California.

My opinion is that California and other similar toponyms like Califerne, are derived from the root CAL "heat" as in calor.

Your opinion?


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## panjabigator

Interesting!  Caliph...wow!

I assumed Cal-heat, forn-oven.


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## Qcumber

panjabigator said:


> Interesting! Caliph...wow!
> I assumed Cal-heat, forn-oven.


Yes, that's it.


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## Spectre scolaire

Since there are so many place-names of Indian origin in California, why wouldn’t also the name _California_ be of native origin? One could think of a folk etymology of an Indian word; quite a number of different tribes were living along the western coast before the invasions from the south and the east. Whatever these tribes called the region – or rather what a specific tribe might have called a small part of it (the name of which was eventually generalized for a much larger area) – the white man would pick it up and transform it according to his own linguistic habits. 

If nobody by now has found any documents or dug up some linguistic evidence likely to elucidate the question, it is doubtful whether we will ever know the true orgin of the name. If lack of relevant sources is indeed the case – the verification of which should be easy to make – I think any suggestion about the origin of _California_ would be pure speculation. 

If the author of the Wikipedia article is right – I can’t open the article for the time being – a direct Arabic etymology is in any case excluded, but what might have come through Spanish (which has a plethora of Arabic loanwords) is quite another thing. It is not impossible that a Spanish name eventually prevailed.**


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## Qcumber

Spectre Scolaire, I noticed Spaniards gave Spanish names to the territories their conquered, e.g. Florida, unless these were empires or kingdoms that already had a name that could be easily recorded, e.g. Perú. As you can see by yourself, the latter cannot be related to any Spanish / Latin etymon while California can (calor, forno). Now, as you, say, we'll never know for sure.


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## Spectre scolaire

Qcumber said:
			
		

> As you can see by yourself, the latter cannot be related to any Spanish / Latin etymon while





			
				Qcumber said:
			
		

> California can (calor, forno).


Webster provides a good definition to the concept of “folk etymology”

“the transformation of words so as to give them an apparent relationship to other better-known or better-understood words (as in the change of Spanish _cucaracha_ to English _cockroach_)

By the way, from _Etnologue_ I counted 27 Indian languages currently spoken in California (most of which are moribund) and 31 already extinct languages.


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## Qcumber

Spectre scolaire said:


> Webster provides a good definition to the concept of “folk etymology”



Laugh as you may, you can't deny the existence of Califerne, etc. a long time before the New World was discovered.


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## Hakro

Here's the link to the Wikipedia article that Sceptre scolaire mentioned..


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## Spectre scolaire

Qcumber said:
			
		

> Laugh as you may, you can't deny the existence of Califerne, etc. a long time before the New World was discovered.


If this is an argument in the discussion, I am sorry to admit that I don’t understand it.

My reference was of course Et*h*nologue - with a _haich_ (as they say in Ireland).


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## Asgaard

Hi. 
I thought to add this:

My nephew's dead, who won for me such realms!
Against me then the Saxon will rebel,
Hungar, Bulgar, and many hostile men,R
omain, Puillain, all those are in Palerne,
And in Affrike, and those in Califerne; 

– _Song of Roland_, Verse CCIX (i.e. 209; lines 2920–2924), 11th c.

"Since the Roland poem concerns the 'evil' Saracens it's possible that the poet derived 'Califerne' from 'caliph'. Montalvo might also have been influenced by such similar names as _Californo_ and _Calafornina_ in Sicily or Calahora in Spain."Regards,
Asgaard


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## palomnik

Asgaard said:


> Hi.
> I thought to add this:
> 
> My nephew's dead, who won for me such realms!
> Against me then the Saxon will rebel,
> Hungar, Bulgar, and many hostile men,R
> omain, Puillain, all those are in Palerne,
> And in Affrike, and those in Califerne;
> 
> – _Song of Roland_, Verse CCIX (i.e. 209; lines 2920–2924), 11th c.
> 
> "Since the Roland poem concerns the 'evil' Saracens it's possible that the poet derived 'Califerne' from 'caliph'. Montalvo might also have been influenced by such similar names as _Californo_ and _Calafornina_ in Sicily or Calahora in Spain."Regards,
> Asgaard


 
I think Asgaard is on to the source.  As I recall, _California _is mentioned as a country in one of those medieval Spanish romances that drove Don Quixote mad.  That, of course, doesn't invalidate the idea that the term came from the caliphs.

A native speaker is needed to weigh in on this, I think.


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## Outsider

This was discussed before in another forum.


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## zpoludnia swiata

I also heard that the name California is derived from a Spanish medieval legend.  Since the Arabs were present in Spain for so long, it would seem to make sense that it would be derived from "caliph"--though by the time they named California, I'm sure the conexion to caliph had become obscure.


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## HUMBERT0

Lo que he leído acerca del origen del nombre de mi estado natal, son dos posibles orígenes uno atribuido a Hernán Cortés, que al pisar en tierra dijo Cali Fornix “horno caliente” y de ahí el nombre; y la otra que proviene tal cual de las sergas de Esplandián, en donde a esa isla cercana al paraíso se le llama “California”.

Ahora que..., a una especie de minibús aquí en mi ciudad se le llama Calafia, hay un hotel llamado Calafia en Rosarito y el teatro del Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana se llama Calafornix. Ah y si algún día compongo algún poema a esta mi tierra, empezaría con algo así “Oh tierra de Calafia, que entre dos mares te yergues…”  

  Aquí se recoge la historia del origen del nombre en la página de gobierno del Estado de Baja California y en la de los vecinos de la península, los del Estado de Baja California Sur (Ellos son los habitantes a los que su tierra se bautizó como California).

http://www.bajacalifornia.gob.mx/portal/nuestro_estado/historia/primeras_exploraciones.jsp
http://www.bcs.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=330&Itemid=73#exploraciones


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## Spectre scolaire

I wonder if this debate about the etymology of California has turned out to be somehow “Eurocentric”. For the sake of argument I find the suggestion made by _Asgaard_ intriguing. If “_California_ is mentioned as a country in one of those medieval Spanish romances that drove Don Quixote mad” – cf. _palomnik_ – it seems very likely that the Spaniards who named California used just this name. The etymology suggested by _HUMBERTO_ is equally a “hot” one.

But this is all beyond my point in the discussion. 

I think we all agree that California – or some part of this rather big territory – must have had a name _before_ the Spaniards came along. As I mentioned in #6, 31 native languages of today’s California are already extinct, a fact which gives us unbridled outlet for “imposing” a European-made name. And this may indeed be exactly what happened! I have nothing against finding the etymology of the name California – but there is a Eurocentric way of doing this and there is a native American one. Consider the following scenario:

A tribe in the area calls its territory *Qalifur* – with the first consonant being an _ejective_ (which is quite common in Californian languages), and whatever follows, makes the Spaniard exclaim: “Wow! Listen to that! He calls the country like in this romance I learned from my grandmother! And it is so hot here that he can’t even pronounce a [k], but spits it!”

California was born... 

I tried to hint at a folk etymology, but was rebuffed. Not that I am convinced about the suggested naming procedure, but I am quite certain that Indian names of California preceded European ones.

Our next task is to find the etymology of the word of which _California_ is the superimposed European version. As I said in #4, “it is doubtful whether we will ever know the true orgin of the name.”
 ​


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## tom_in_bahia

This reminds me of the folk etymology about Arizona that I bought into for a long time: Arid Zone...it's laughable after studying linguistics now, but at the time I was naive. Later, in college, I learned that Arizona came from the Spanish interpretation of a Tohono O'odham word "Alishonak" which meant something like "small river"-- possibly the Salt River (I guess?). I can't remember off hand.

I had heard that California was the name of a magical land in one of those knightly novels from 16th century Spain (I don't remember that novel being Don Quixote, seeing as how it was actually a spoof of those previous novels) that the explorer who discovered California happened to be reading when the place was found by him and his fleet.


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