The name for chocolate most likely comes from the Nahuatl language, indigenous to central Mexico, although it may have been influenced by the Mayan languages. One popular theory is that it comes from the Nahuatl word xocolātl (pronounced [ʃoˈkolaːtɬ]) derived from xocolli, bitter, and atl, water. (Xocolatl was a chocolate drink consumed by the Aztecs, associated with the Mayan god of Fertility). Alternate derivations include that of the Mexican philologist, Ignacio Davila Garibi, who proposed that "Spaniards had coined the word by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa, with the Aztec one, atl." The Maya verb chokola'j, "to drink chocolate together", has also been suggested as an origin. The Aztecs themselves may have coined the term, having long adopted into Nahuatl the Mayan word for the "cacao" bean; the Spanish had little contact with the Maya before Cortés's early reports to the Spanish King of the beverage known as xocolatl. However, professor Michael D. Coe, coauthor of the book The True History of Chocolate (ISBN 0500282298), argues that the word xocolatl appears in "no truly early source on the Nahuatl language or on Aztec culture."William Bright noted that the word xocoatl does not occur in early Spanish or Nahuatl colonial sources.
In a controversial recent study, linguists Karen Dakin and Søren Wichmann found that in many dialects of Nahuatl, the name is 'chicolatl', rather than 'chocolatl'. In addition, many languages in Mexico, such as Popoluca, Mixtec and Zapotec, and even languages spoken in the Philippines have borrowed this form of the word. The word chicol-li, refers to the frothing or beating sticks still used in some areas in cooking. There are two different sticks used, either a small straight stick with small strong twigs on one end, or a stiff plant stalk with the stubs of roots cleaned and trimmed. Since chocolate was originally served ceremonially with individual beater sticks, Dakin and Wichmann argue that it seems quite likely that the original form of the word was 'chicolatl', which would have meant 'beaten drink'. In many areas of Mexico, 'chicolear' means 'to beat, stir'.
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