IMPORTANCE AND ///STORY 17 



The word maize, therefore, dating back to the introduction chap. 



of the crop into the Old World, having been adopted into 

 many languages, as detailed below, and forming part of the 

 botanical name of the plant, has the highest claim to recogni- 

 tion as its universal vernacular name. 



The following are the different forms in which it is in use 

 in different parts of the world : — 



Maiz (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Peru, Brazil, Uru- 

 guay, and Argentina) ; mais (Germany and Denmark) ; mais 

 (France) ; mays (Holland and Belgium) ; mase (Northern 

 Africa), Maheende (Central Africa), Mahindi (Northern Africa), 

 and Mihindi (Suahili), i.e. Indian corn or maize of India ; 

 mahiz (Hayti) ; marichi (Guiana) ; maysi (Cuba, Jamaica, and 

 the Bahamas) ; maize (British Empire and the United States). 



In English literature the word appears in the following 

 forms : maith (doubtless the phonetic spelling of the Spanish 

 pronunciation of mahiz), maix, maise, maiz, maize, maizium, 

 mays, mayis, maijs, mayz, mayze, maes, maez, maze, mass. 



The e is a comparatively modern suffix, which is not found 

 in some English writers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth 

 centuries, soon after the introduction of the grain into Europe. 

 Du Bartas (1544-90), in his Divine Weekes and Workes 

 (Sylvester's translation), writes : — 



Heer, of one grain of maiz, a reed doth spring 

 That thrice a year five hundred grains doth bring. 



Hakluyt {Voy., 1600) and Dampier {Voy., 1676) spell 

 the word maiz, and Bacon, also, apparently throughout his 

 writings, for we find it so in his Natural History, § 49 ; 

 Sylva (1626); Med. Rem. Wks. (1626), and the earlier edi- 

 tions of Essay 33 "of Plantations," though in some modern 

 editions the e has been added (perhaps in a pedantic effort to 

 correct a "typographical error"). Baileys Dictionary (17th 

 ed., 1757) gives only the spelling maize, as does Murray's; 

 the Century Dictionary has — "maize, formerly also maiz, 

 mais, mayz, mays " ; while the Standard Dictionary gives 

 both maiz and maize, the former on the authority of the 

 Philological Society. 



Although maize is practically the only form in which the 

 word occurs in modern English literature, there are several 



2 



1. 



