Re: CHAT: corn (was: [CHAT] Aussie terminology question)

Quoting "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...>:

> On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 18:36:34 +1100, Tristan McLeay
> <conlang@...> wrote:
>
> >On 8 Feb 2005, at 6.26 pm, Ray Brown wrote:
> >
> >> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 10:20 , Philip Newton wrote:
> >>
> >> [snip]
> >>> I daresay that "a cornfield" would be interpreted as a field of wheat
> >>> in England,
> >>
> >> I would be  :)
>
> In German, "Kornfeld" also exclusively refers to a field with wheat.
>
> >But the real question is, that I've wanted to know the answer for, does
> >'corn' in everyday speech of your everyday urban English person refer
> >to wheat or maize? ('Cornfield' could be interpreted as a compound ...
> >'cornflour' is wheat starch in Australia, in spite of the definition of
> >'corn'.)
>
> Here, "korn" is used exclusively for wheat and *never* for maize. The latter
> is always "Mais".
FWIW, in Swedish, _korn_ is barley. Barley was the dominant cereal for so long
that the original specific name _bjugg_ was simply replaced by the originally
general _korn_.

                                                      Andreas

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