Naming the Coconut and (De)Colonizing the Middle Ages

Abstract

Etymological dictionaries declare that the origins of the word coconut are found in Spanish and Portuguese, and they trace its earliest attestations to explorer accounts. While potentially true in a literal sense, this common narrative cloaks a much older European history of the fruit. By 1500, the name Indian nut for what we today call coconut was at least 1,000 years old and used in languages across Europe. In some specialist fields, Latinate Europeans also knew Arabic and even Sanskrit names for coconut. As European nations began conquering other parts of the world, however, they renamed the Indian nut, taking control of the name as they began to take control of the trade routes on which coconuts traveled.