Avocado, with its might, of being shaped like a water droplet, enlarged, green then muddy brownish-purple (ripe) — sometimes with those black spots, looks like a testicle, hanging on a tree — is indeed originally named testicle. 🤣🤦 I kid you not, dear reader.
Avocado (Persea americana) is native to Central America and southern Mexico.
It was first domesticated by the indigenous peoples there thousands of years ago — long before the Spanish even knew the New World (the continent of America).
In Nahuatl (language or group of languages belonging to the Uto-Aztecan language family), it is āhuacatl. It literally means testicle. They call it that due to the shape of the fruit.
Āhuacatl is pronounced as aː.wakat͡ɬ.
AH-wah-kahtl.
The final -tl is a single consonant (t͡ɬ), common in Nahuatl, pronounced like a soft, quick "tl" with the tongue flicking near the roof of the mouth (think of a quick "tul" but not fully separated).
The Spanish
Then came the Spanish.
The Portuguese holdings in New World in those days mostly limited to Brazil, through the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494).
Hm.
The Spanish first translated that as aguacate — no original "-tl" in it, because of the different technique (custom) for uttering word, thus that.
Portuguese for avocado is abacate. Pretty similar sounding to aguacate, "shortened".
In Spanish, the avocado is also called palta. Because it was originally the name of a people (the Palta people) in what is now southern Ecuador, where avocados were cultivated.
Hence:
- Aguacate, the term is mostly used in Spain, Mexico, Central America, and parts of the Caribbean (former Spanish-speaking colonies).
- Palta, used in the Andean region, especially Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina (Quechua-speaking regions).
Both refer to the same fruit.
Worldwide Distribution
By the 17th to 18th century, Spanish and Portuguese traders were shipping all sorts of New-World crops — maize, cassava, guava, chilli, pineapple, papaya, avocado, pumpkin, peanut, and so on — to Asia via the Manila–Acapulco galleon route and Portuguese trade posts.
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To Southeast Asia ➡️ Came via Philippines (Spanish), then slowly spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, often helped along by the Dutch VOC (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) later on. Dutch VOC picked it up in Manila and trialled it in Batavia and Java by the mid-18th century.
The term Batavia comes from the Batavi, a tribe that lived in what is now the Netherlands, around the Rhine delta region during the Roman era.
Like Philippines. The "Philippines" naming is as native to the archipelago as crumpets are to a volcano.
Formerly Jayakarta, hence now Jakarta.
The name Java comes from Jawa, the native term used long before any European scribbled it into a map. You'll find references to it in Old Javanese inscriptions, Sanskrit texts, and even Chinese records from as early as the 3rd century. Mainly because of the colonial tongue laziness, always "fixing". 🤷♂️
The Strait of Malacca linked the Indian Ocean to the South-China Sea and was vital for the spice run, not for New-World produce (the crops above). The Portuguese seized Malacca in 1511 and used the strait for pepper, cloves, and nutmeg moving west towards Europe, then the Dutch took over.
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To India ➡️ Early 20th century, around 1906–1914, by the British.
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Onward to everyone else.
💡 Eggplant is native to South and Southeast Asia. I put "eggplant" there above in the New-World crops list — corrected. ✅
The British
In English, we know the fruit as avocado.
The term "avocado" doesn't resemble palta, aguacate, or āhuacatl.
Avocado — aguacate.
There's "g" in it, not "v" — or the other way around — there's "v" in it, not "g".
But it resembles "advogado".
Perhaps it stems from the word abogado (Spanish) or advogado (Portuguese), either mispronounced or misheard.
Abocado in Spanish means lawyer.
In Portuguese, advogado. Also means lawyer. Even closer in pronunciation.
| An English | : | Mate, what's this? ¿Cómo? ¿Qué? Esto. Chamado. Oh, blast it. (Pointing at the fruit multiple times.) |
| A Spanish-Portuguese | : |
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| An English | : |
|
Thus the fruit-naming saga from testicle to lawyer. What a journey.
Benefit
It's calorie-dense, but when taken in moderation, superbly healthy and delicious.
If you have high cholesterol, you should toss the butter, dodge the margarine, and slap some avocado on the toast instead. Mm, mm.
Well, it's expensive in U.S., Europe, or anywhere else far away from the plantation, hence beneficial to the distributors.
Ah.
Wah-kahtl.
Guacamole spread is waiting.
Thus ends the Book of Avocado, Chapter Toast, Verse Cholesterol.
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