Before the word chocolate came into the English language from Spanish, Hernan Cortes learned of a potent Aztec beverage made with cacahuaquchtl powder (the origin of the word “cocoa”), chili, musk, and honey. In a 1519 expedition to the New World, Cortes received a friendly reception from the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City), who offered him the beverage tchocoatl. In the Nahuatl language of the Aztects, tchocoatl is derived from two words that mean “bitter water”: xocolli and atl.

Another linguistic thread in the story of chocolate links the Nahuatl word chicol-li, a type of beating stick used in cooking, with the preparation of a frothy chocolate beverage. The original name of this drink may have been chicolatl, meaning “beaten drink.”

The history of words teaches us that food is the fuel of relationships. The word “companion”, from the Latin com “with” and panis “bread”, reminds us that food — and the brief respite allotted to people throughout history for sharing meals — feeds more than the physical body; it also nourishes generosity and friendship. To eat with someone implies a level of comfort with that person — a sense of security that mitigates the primordial fear that our provisions will be stolen from under our noses. The English “companion”, the Spanish “companero”, the Italian “compagno”, and the French “copain” all come from the Latin meaning “with whom one eats bread.”

The best advice is simply: don’t!

I remember the first time I brought my French boyfriend, Laurent, home for the holidays. Although he made efforts, his English was limited. I was responsible for interpreting much of the small talk. It was no easy task — especially since he liked to tell a lot of jokes.

After being in France for a couple of years, I was at a point where I could actually “get” most French jokes. Also, I was already familiar with my boyfriend’s humor since he had explained his own jokes to me before. But something happened when I translated them for my American family. They made absolutely no sense at all. That’s how I learned that jokes are the hardest thing to translate!

I finally told Laurent to please stop telling jokes, but poor Laurent loved to make people laugh. It was an inherent part of his personality. Despite the fact that my parents already loved him and found him quite entertaining as he was, Laurent wanted desperately to share his unique wit. I wanted to help him.

Humor, however, is not universal. French-style humor, as I had learned, was very different from American-style humor. (Maybe that’s why I never really found my boyfriend’s jokes that funny in the first place.)

In England, for example, constant self-deprecation is the first step to humor. By contrast, the French sense of humor is fueled by ridicule and mockery that is directed toward others. Another frequent form of French humor is to exaggerate a statement to illustrate its falsehood. If you are gullible like me, you may not clue in to the “funny” factor.

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How did Spanish become the second most-common language in the United States after English? The answer will lead us into our country’s past, examine America’s present, and speculate on what the coming years will bring.

It wasn’t the English who established the first permanent colony in what we now call the United States, but the Spanish. In 1513, three Spanish ships led by conquistador Ponce de Leon sailed across the Atlantic and landed in present-day Florida; by 1565, the colony of San Agustin became the hub of an east-coast exploration and conquest that last from 1520 to 1570 and encompassed Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The conquistadors then expanded west, to the present-day states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Texas. All of these states now bear Spanish names (e.g. Florida ” flowery” and Colorado “colored” for the reddish silt found in the Colorado river).

In the early 19th century, due in part to the growing population of English settlers and in part to increasing unrest in the Spanish-speaking regions of North America, Spanish began to give way to English. Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 and started to offer land to American settlers in Texas. As people streamed into the area, an Anglo-Hispanic identity formed and led to a desire for independence from Mexico, leading to the 1835 Texas Revolution and the subsequent American annexation of huge chunks of land surrounding Texas. By that time, English speakers greatly outnumbered Spanish speakers.

Returning to modern America, we can see the effects of such an intertwined Hispanic-American history, paired with an influx of immigration from Latin America. A 2006 census found that 44.3 million people in the U.S. are Hispanic. 34 million of those speak Spanish at home. Spanish is the most commonly and widely taught language in the U.S., which has the world’s fifth-largest Spanish-speaking population.

And what about “Spanglish”? The influence of English on Spanish and Spanish on English has created a blended language that has grown from the realm of Hispanic youth and the Latino subculture to a language spoken by families and used in semi-official documents. The proliferation of Spanglish — used by speakers of both languages — is just one reminder of the intermingling cultures and histories that formed our country and that continue to shape it.