תירס

The modern Hebrew word for corn (maize) has a fascinating history. In the Bible, "תירס" (Tiras) appears as the name of one of Noah's grandsons: "The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras" (Genesis 10:2). This Tiras was likely the name of an ancient people in the Turkey-Greece region, possibly related to the Etruscans. When maize was introduced to the Middle East after Columbus's voyages to the Americas in the late 15th century, it received various names in different regions. In Ottoman Turkish, it was called "Egyptian wheat"; in French, German, and Italian, it was "Turkish wheat"; and in Greece, it was "Arabic wheat" - all reflecting confusion about its origins. In the late 19th century, when Hebrew writers needed a term for this New World crop, they started using the phrase "חיטי תירס" (hitei tiras) - literally "Turkish wheat" - as a calque of the German term. Over time, through a linguistic process called ellipsis, the full phrase was shortened to just "תירס" (tiras), and this shortened form became standard in spoken and eventually written Hebrew.