Question about Greece: the barbarian threat (Osprey)

[Nearco]

Hi all!

I just get today a book from the Osprey collection (new editions translated to Spanish), the book in question is "Greece: the barbarian threat" by Christopher webber, and is based on "the Thracians".

Well I was reading it when I found on page number 10: "The Tesalian aristocracy prospered with the exportation of maize(corn)"

Corn??????? Didn't know Tesalians reached America before Columbus.... hock: hock: I would like to know if somebody has a copy of the original book in english anf if the book really says corn or if it is a mistake of the translated edition.

Thanks!

[Athena Areias]

It has to be a mistake (bad editors/translators!!). Corn in "European" english is any domestic grain: wheat, rye, barley (John BarleyCORN), spelt...

In America, corn is maize. Wheat is wheat, rye is rye... It gets very confusing to read literature from across the pond and realize "corn " is a grain "catch-all" term. Somebody slipped up.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I have often seen it written as 'the corn dole' or the corn supplies' in Roman terms, but they are refering to the grains as mentioned above, not the Maize corn.......I think the writers have boobed, but let us hope only in typography and not in their understanding...

[Epictetus]

That really confused me the first time I read Caesar's Gallic War as a teenager, and I believe I've seen that mistake in several different places since then. Translating can be a hard job. :wink:

[Nearco]

thank you!

I think that is the reason, the autor used the word corn as a general word for grain, but in Spanish as far as I know corn is translated as maize corn... This is a normal mistake, but anyway editors should look to this, I think these are the most famous divulgation books about ancient warfare.. So maybe in a future we can see the hoplites eating some corn flakes in their carnyx for breakfast :mrgreen:

[hoplite14gr]

Skopadae an Aleuadae also became rich except from argro-products trade by exporting beef, hides and above horses!
Remember Voukefalas?

Kind regards

[Peter Raftos]

The names for foodstuffs is always a fascinating subject. The English words corn and grain are what are known as linguistic doublets. Both can be traced to a Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as greno (about 4000 B.C.). This word meant 'cereal grain'. In Proto-Germanic (about 500 B.C) it becomes kurnan. As the Indo-European languages grew apart, it took different forms.

Other Germanic cognates are: Old Frisian korn, Old Saxon korn , Old High German korn , Old Norse korn , Gothic kaurn, Icelandic korn,Dutch koren, German Korn, Swedish korn,
Other Indo-European cognates: Latin gr?num, Old Church Slavonic zerno , Russian zerno, Lithuanian žìrnis, Old Irish grán , Welsh grawn, English grain, French graine, Italian grano Spanish grano

So the old four-letter Anglo-Saxon word "corn" meant a grain of any kind, and except in the United States it doesn’t refer specifically to Indian corn, Zea mays. The American Indian word "maize," however, is understood around the world.

When English and German speaking settlers in the New World (the "Indies") came across this cereal that was new to them, they invented a new name for it: referring to the generic term for an edible grass crop they initially distinguished it from other grains by calling it "Indian corn." In the United States, this name was eventually shortened to corn, which is why, in the United States, corn now means 'Indian corn'. Meanwhile, back in Europe, where Indian corn was soon transplanted, people came to know it under the name maize. It is also called Zea mais L. by botanists(Zea being a classical greek word for wheat to confuse matters further). In South Africa it has a different name again, mealie or mielie (a word borrowed from Afrikaans and said to derive originally from Portuguese milho.
The origin of the word maize is believed to be from the Taino people, who inhabited the islands in Northern Antilles (near present day San Salvador) where Christopher Columbus first landed. The Taino name for their crop was actually "mahis" which meant "source of life." In the three main languages of Mesoamerica, where maize was originally domesticated, maize was known as: Nahuatl (Aztec): Centli, Maya: Cor, Zapotec: Rxoa. A very interesting chronology of maize and its name in other languages appears here:[urll9p8oza]http://www.andes.missouri.edu/Personal/DMartinez/Diffusion/msg00389.html[/url]
The whole spirited debate of its diffusion with a fascinating read is here:
[urll9p8oza]urlhttp://www.andes.missouri.edu/Personal/DMartinez/Diffusion/threads.html#00349[/url]