Language Matters | The coconut, and the curious origins of the word in English – derived from the name for an Iberian ghost-monster that ate disobedient children
- Westerners usually adopted local names for fruits new to them, but to Portuguese in India coconuts, with their three holes, reminded them of the human face
- They called them ‘coco’ after their word for head – derived from el Coco the mythical monster that ate naughty children. The English took ‘coco’ and added nut
The coconut tree is ubiquitous in all coastal tropical regions. However, its ultimate origins (a subject of controversy) lie in the Central Indo-Pacific, the region between western Southeast Asia and Melanesia, recent studies showing the greatest genetic diversity there (with other evidence deriving from coconut crabs’ native habitats and specific pests).
First domesticated by the Austronesian peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, coconuts were carried to the Pacific during early Neolithic ocean migrations 4,500 years ago, and Micronesia. Similarity in the names for “coconut” (and its parts and uses) in the region lend support: across Polynesian languages such as Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian and Hawaiian, it is niu, while other Austronesian languages include niu, such as in Fijian and in Sa’a of the Solomon Islands, the Tagalog niyog and Malay niur.
Brought to India before the first century BC from Sri Lanka (having been introduced there earlier by the Austronesians), the word for coconut in Dravidian languages, such as the Tamil tēṅkāy, reflects this route, being a compound of the words of “south” and “fruit”.
So whence “coconut”? The Portuguese first encountered the plant in their colonies in India. Curiously, they didn’t adopt a local term for the fruit (as was done with numerous other cultural words during their Asian empire), nor use the existing term nux indica, “Indian nut”.
Rather, on account of the face-like appearance conveyed by the characteristic three holes on the base of the coconut shell, the Portuguese (and Spanish) bequeathed the name “coco”, referencing a skull, head or round mask used to frighten children, an extension of el Coco, ghost-monster, kidnapper and eater of disobedient children of Iberian folklore.
