<font color=skyblue>Okay...I am doing a history paper on Chocolate and I have learned more than I care to tell you guys at this moment, but maybe I'll post my research some day for you all to enjoy.

Anyway, I learned that the original Olmecan (civilization before the Mayans that probably taught them about the use of chocolate beans), is the word Kakawa. This later became Cacao, and from there it gets interesting, but again, I will share my research later. Right now I am interested in what I saw at the store yesterday.

I went into a store that had 99% cocoa (the new way to spell cacao) and on the back of this package it had four different languages which all spoke of the 99% make-up of this chocolate packaged. I recognized three of the languages, but the fourth was written as "kakawa". I was wondering if was modern mayan or if another language in the world might translate chocolate like this.

I know that Spain was the country that first came across the mayans using chocolate and therefore I would think that maybe one of the five official languages of Spain might spell it like this, or is there another country that does? Or is this in fact proof that this chocolate comes from Guatemala?</font>

If I'm not mystaken its Brazillian. 8 years ago
when I was down there I saw that spelling on the
Chocolate milk mixes. I drink chocolate milk every
day with my breakfast and the only mixer I found
in the store had that name on it. Its been a long
time since I was that far south so I may be wrong.

<font color=skyblue>So what you're saying is that it's Portuguese? Cool! Thanks! This is interesting, as the way its spelled is exactly the way the Olmecas did...though I think there's an accent in there somewhere...cannot remember where but it mattereth not. I'll cross-check you with a friend I know that speaks Portuguese. But at least you pointed me to "who" to ask for confirmation.</font>

"The word "chocolate" comes from the Nahuatl words Xocol meaning "bitter" and Atl meaning "water" "

From Wiki's chocolate article. Take it for what you will (if you trust wiki or not. [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

DON'T EAT IT!!! [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img] If something had "Kakawa" in it, I wouldn't eat it...

SilentThief

[ 11-27-2006, 06:46 AM: Message edited by: SilentThief ]

<font color=skyblue>That is what the Spaniards did to the word. They took Xocal from Mayan and Atl (nahuatl) from Aztec. They did that because the Mayans are the ones that taught the conquistadores about the drink at first, but they called it cacao. The Spaniards of course refused to call a brown drink anything that had the word "caca" in it, so they changed it to what they wanted.


The original mayan word for the stuff is cacao, and they got that from the ancient Olmecans, who called it Kákawa.

My references for this comes mostly from "The True History of Chocolate", by Sophie and Michael Coe, as well as several websites that specialize in Chocolate or are peer-reviewed online journals from the university's library. In total, I have used 17 sources of references for my bibiography to be included in my presentation and 6-page paper assignment, which is my final exam grade.
We got to pick our own historical topic of the ancient americas and I saw no reason not to enjoy what I was writing about. </font>

I have to agree with Silent Thief here, i wouldn't eat anything that has the word kaka on the label, but if your wife doesn't mind washing the racing stripes out of your underwear, then be my guest and go get your indigestion. :D

<font color=skyblue>To be fair, The Olmecas lived long before Spanish crawled out of Latin. Kákawa is not even a word in any Romance Language, including "Brazilian" Portuguese according to my brazilian friend. She (yes, I know a brazilian girl, but I'm married) said that Portuguese spells it the way Castillian does, which is also the way English spells it.

I am left wondering again what language was written on the back of that package. </font>

Seems to be Olmec.

The word cacao drives from kakawa, from the Olmec language dated to 1000 BC. Sometime between 400 BC and 100 AD, the Maya borrowed this word into their own vocabulary. The exact origin of the word chocolate is unknown. It may derive from Maya verb chokola'j, meaning 'to drink chocolate together', or from the Yucatec word chocol haa, meaning 'hot drink'. It is often reported to derive from the word Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) word "tchocoatl." Shortly after tasting the drink at the Court of Moctezuma in Tecnochtitlan, Cortes was told that the chocolate-based drink started with "cacahuaquchtl" powder (the origin of the word "cocoa"), which was then boiled in water and combined with chilli, musk and honey and ground maize.Theobroma cacao, the name of the cacao tree, from which chocolate is derived, was named by Linnaeus in 1753.
http://groups.msn.com/FoodiesCorner/...teorigins.msnw

Nice work Larry.

Any good history acknowledges the impossibility of completeness. Of course, you've still got to try. [img]smile.gif[/img]

A few things to consider in this case: there are many kinds of modern Maya - Mayan has been as much a political and ethnic identification as it has been a linguistic one (and MUCH more than it has been a historical one). IIRC, an ethnography of social movements of Guatemala referred to ~25 different dialects spoken (many quite different from each other). Garifuna, Xinca, Mam, Kekchi, Cakchiquel, Quiche being ones common enough that you might find something about. Since this is an academic thing, if you need it I can find the source.