WHERE DOES THE WORD CHOCOLATE COME FROM? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Have you ever wondered where the word chocolate comes from? The name of this product has a long history that you can understand below. A considerable number of words from the indigenous languages ​​of the American continent passed into Spanish and, through Spanish, many times into other European languages.

When the Spanish conquerors arrived on the American continent, they found a great number of plants, animals and natural and cultural products previously unknown to them and which obviously needed to be named. These names were normally taken from the languages ​​spoken by the inhabitants of those areas.

The Spanish conquerors learned about chocolate (more precisely, cacao) through the Aztecs, who, in turn, learned the secrets of its elaboration from the ancient Mayan civilization, who received it from the Olmecs.

The three peoples consumed it as a drink. The pre-Columbian inhabitants of Mexico prepared xocolatl ("xocol": bitter and "atl": water) from cacahuatl (cocoa) by adding cold water and mixing vigorously.

The liquid was then poured into a container creating the foam, which was considered the most refined feature of the entire sensory experience.

Christopher Columbus brought cacao almonds to Europe as a curiosity, but it was Hernán Cortés who first realized their possible commercial value. Spain was the first European country to use and commercialize cocoa, having monopolized it for many years.

Origin of the word chocolate

Image source: "Course on the cultivation of cocoa" by Gustavo A. Enríquez, page 7.

From Amerindian languages ​​to Spanish

It is known that chocolate comes from the American continent, and that this word was not known in Europe before the discovery of the Spanish empire. The main Amerindian languages ​​that contributed lexical elements to Spanish are the following:

• Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec empire. From this language, words (in addition to chocolate) such as tomato, avocado, cacahuete (peanut in Mexico), chicle, coyote, ocelot, buzzard, tamale, and many others have passed into Spanish.
• Quechua, the language of the Inca empire. From Quechua, words like vicuña, guanaco, condor, puma, potato, potato, mate, pampa, etc. come.

Of these two languages, Nahuatl is more present in Spanish, since it was the most widespread language of the Aztec empire, which included Mexico and much of Central America and was used as a general language throughout the empire.

Timeline of the word chocolate

The indigenous people who inhabited the American continent used cocoa as ingredients for food and drinks, as well as the seeds as coins. Cocoa in Spain also occupied the role of food and currency, but the word chocolate began to dominate in the semantic world related to food and beverages.

At the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, the word chocolate is seen in popular works in Europe, but not yet as a word in common use. Before that, the Nahuatl language continued to be used to define many kinds of drinks that were made with cocoa.

During the end of the 17th century and until the beginning of the 19th century, the word chocolate began to be used by Europeans for various foods and drinks. The word chocolate appears in the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy only in the year 1590 according to the book "Natural and Moral History of the Indies" by José de Acosta.

This word is a lexical indigenism incorporated into Spanish due to the need to name the unknown elements of the new continent (the American continent). Indigenisms are the voices that come from pre-Columbian languages ​​that arrived in Spanish after an adaptation to the language.

The current use and meaning of the word chocolate

Although there is more certainty of the origin of the word cocoa, it is not so much with the word chocolate. This word has many hypotheses and some very different from each other.

The only data that agrees with all theories, hypotheses and assumptions is that "chocolate" is the derivation of the languages ​​of the inhabitants of Mexico of the pre-Columbian period.

Today, the word chocolate is used to refer to any product that contains cocoa. This is due to the great importance that cocoa had in the economy of the colonial era due to its trade thanks to Hernán Cortés.

Currently, the study of the origin and chronology of incorporation into the Spanish language of the word chocolate (as well as the source of its structural changes in form and meaning) is discussed.

The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines the word chocolate as: "paste made with ground cocoa and sugar, to which cinnamon or vanilla is generally added."

Therefore, the word chocolate derives from Central American languages ​​and was adapted over time by the Spanish to their own linguistic system, which was later incorporated into many other languages ​​or languages.

Lexical family of the word chocolate

The lexical family or word family is a set of words that share the same root. Thus, from the word chocolate, the root is "chocolat" and its family of words or derivatives are:

• Chocolatera: Container where the chocolate is served or prepared.
• Chocolatería: Place where chocolate is manufactured or sold.
• Chocolatier: Person who prepares or sells chocolate.
• Chocolate bar: Chocolate candy.

These words are the union of a root and at least one derivative element, which can be a suffix or a prefix. The ways of forming the listed words follow the procedures of the Spanish language system. In all cases, these are derived by suffixation.

Incorporation of the word chocolate into other languages

From the Amerindian languages ​​to Spanish the word chocolate derived. This, in turn, was incorporated into several different types of languages:

• German: Schokolade
• Danish: Chokolade
• French: Chocolat
• Dutch: Chocolade
• Indonesian: Coklat
• Italian: Cioccolato
• Polish: Czekolada
• Swedish: Choklad

The word chocolate was incorporated into many other languages. In both the English and Portuguese languages, the word is spelled the same, but of course, its pronunciation varies according to the tune of the language.

References

1. Coe, S. & Coe, M. (2013). The True History of Chocolate. London, United Kingdom: Thames and Hudson.
2. American Heritage. (2007). Spanish Word Histories and Mysteries: English Words That Come From Spanish. Boston, United States: American Heritage Dictionaries.
3. Hualde, J. & Olarrea, A. & Escobar, A. (2002). Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
4. López and López, M.. (2010). THE CHOCOLATE. ITS ORIGIN, ITS MANUFACTURING AND ITS UTILITY: SCRIPTIVA MEMORY OF THE FIRST FACTORY OF CHOCOLATE OF THE ESCORIAL. California, United States: MAXTOR.
5. Clarke, W. Tresper. Sidelights in the history of cacao and chocolate. Brooklyn, NY, Rockwood and Co. 1953 8 pp. See Intern. Choc. Rev. 8 (7): 179-183. July 1953.
6. Walter Baker & CO. The chocolate plant (Theobroma cacao) and its products. Dorchester, Mass., USA, 1891. 40 pp.
7. Hernández Triviño, Ascensión. (2013). Chocolate: history of a Nahuatlism. Nahuatl Culture Studies, 46, 37-87. Retrieved on March 31, 2017, from scielo.org.mx.