בוטן (botan) — peanut
Etymology
The word בוטן has one of the most interesting semantic journeys in Hebrew. In the Bible (Genesis 43:11), Jacob tells his sons to bring gifts to Egypt including "בָּטְנִים וּשְׁקֵדִים" — botanim and almonds. These were certainly pistachios: the Arabic name for the pistachio tree is still בֹטְם (botm), and the Aramaic form בּוּטְמָא appears in Talmudic sources. The Greek word for pistachio, pistakhe, which gave Hebrew פסתקי and פסטקי, was itself borrowed from Old Persian pistag. For many centuries, then, בוטן meant pistachio.
The story changes with the discovery of the Americas. Peanuts — known to the Aztecs as tlalcacahuatl ("earth cocoa beans") — spread through Europe and eventually to Mandatory Palestine. In 1845, Shimshon Bloch, writing the first modern Hebrew geography book, Shvilei Olam, translated the German Erdnuss (earth-nut) as "אגוז אדמה." But as peanut consumption grew in the early 20th century, Arabicphone street vendors were already calling pistachios פִיסְטוּק — the shorter modern word — leaving the old name בוטן free to migrate. The mechanism was twofold: Yiddish speakers, influenced by Polish, called peanuts פּיסטאַשקע (pistachio), which in earlier Hebrew had been בוטן; and the French term Pistache de Terre produced the Hebrew "בוטן אדמה," which could be shortened once פיסטוק had taken over.
The Academy of the Hebrew Language tried to resist. In 1959, the Culinary Terminology Committee proposed keeping בוטן for pistachios and calling peanuts בּוֹטְנִית. The full Academy debated the matter: President Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai acknowledged the public had already decided, but purists like Prof. Ze'ev Ben-Hayyim argued one should not "steal" an ancient name from one plant and give it to another. After debate, the Academy voted to keep "אגוזי אדמה" as the official term — but the public ignored the ruling. As Tur-Sinai himself said: "practical usage will decide." And it did.
Key Quotes
"אין כל טעם הגיוני לערער על השם בטנים במשמעותו המקובלת, ואין לקרוא להם ׳אגוזי אדמה׳" — יצחק אבנרי, על המשמר, 1954
"הבֹטן זהו האילן pistachio. לעומת זאת peanuts הם אגוזי אדמה... הקושי הוא, ש׳אגוזי אדמה׳ הוא שם ארוך, והקהל אינו נוהג כך." — פרופ' נפתלי הרץ טור-סיני, ועדת האקדמיה, 1959
Timeline
- ~1800 BCE: Genesis 43:11 — "בָּטְנִים" listed among gifts Jacob sends to Egypt; these are pistachios
- 6th century CE: Asaf HaRofe mentions "botmim shekor'in bilshon Yavan pistika"
- 1845: Shimshon Bloch coins "אגוז אדמה" as Hebrew for peanut in Shvilei Olam
- Early 20th century: Arab vendors begin calling pistachios פיסטוק; בוטן drifts to mean peanut
- 1954: Yitzhak Avneri supports the popular usage of בוטנים for peanuts
- 1959: Academy committee debates; votes to maintain "אגוזי אדמה" officially
- Present: בוטן universally means peanut; פיסטוק means pistachio
Related Words
- פיסטוק — pistachio; from Greek pistakhe, from Old Persian pistag; took over the original meaning of בוטן
- אגוז אדמה — earth-nut; the Academy's preferred term for peanut, coined by Shimshon Bloch 1845
- בּוֹטְנִית — proposed Academy term for peanut, never adopted