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So I'm seeing that this is from the 8th century, but they make reference to corn and pumpkins, which were imports from North America. What's up with that?
by alekratz 6y ago
So I'm seeing that this is from the 8th century, but they make reference to corn and pumpkins, which were imports from North America. What's up with that?
- pja 6y agoIt’s a mistranslation of melon I think.
- dan-robertson 6y agoI think it’s a mistranslation. OF. popon -> pompon -> pompion, meaning a large melon or (later) pumpkin. I guess it was translated as pumpkin rather than melon.
- gh-throw 6y agoCorn just means grain. The shift to being equivalent to "maize" is later, and I think not universal in English-speaking dialects (and obviously only happened after the Columbian exchange).
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago"Corn" in UK English has historically meant cultivable grains in general, not "maize" specifically as in North America. Also, "pumpkin" is a standard English translation for the Latin and Greek terms that, if you want to be pedantic, were just "gourd". See e.g. The Pumpkinification of Claudius [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocolocyntosis
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]