APPENDIX A 



A PHILOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL TREATISE OF 



COFFEE 



(Kadu "^ Karwa ^^^ Coffee) 



For coffee, the world is indebted to Africa. The various terms 



applied to this Abyssinian plant, its fruit, its seed, and the beverage 



prepared from these, are exceedingly interesting from the viewpoint 



of the derivation and the philological history of our word "Coffee." 



From the words <^'^ or Bun, the Arabic and Abyssinian name for 



the plant or its seed, and ^>^ or Qahwah, sometimes written 

 Kahwah, K'hawah, or Kahwa, which is the Arabic term for wine, 

 most of the terms signifying coffee are derived. Thus we have 

 cahua, kawa, chauhe, kapi, cave, kava, cafe, cafeier, and coffee; and 

 also bouUj bun, ban, ben, bunu, buncha and innumerable derivatives 

 from these terms, which I shall list on subsequent pages. 



The literature of the past ages since the eleventh century, when 

 coffee was first referred to, contains attempts to explain the use of 

 Kahwah by the Arabians and Egyptians to signify this common bev- 

 erage. Kahwah is assumed by some authors to have been a corruption 

 of Kaffa, the name of an Abyssinian district where the coffee-plant 

 is indigenous. If this supposition were true, then cave, cafe, and 

 coffee would be remarkably akin to the original name. Throughout 

 the early literature, one finds Kahwah customarily applied to the 

 beverage and Bun to the plant. In Yemen, Arabia, Bun designates 

 the berry. Early Arabic writers used the term Bun by itself or in 

 combination. Ancient authors considered it as an Abyssinian medici- 

 nal plant; and I infer that the appearance of the Arabic name 

 Kahwah indicates the progress in the development of coffee as a bev- 

 erage. No author has ever correctly explained the use of Kahwah for 

 the coffee-beverage. Previous writers have suggested various reasons 



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