At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Dutch settlers in what is now South Africa borrowed the Portuguese word milje—meaning millet, a kind of grain—and from it formed the word mielie, which they first bestowed upon the grain known in North America as corn and later bestowed upon a cake made from this corn. Eventually, because the grain and cake now had the same name—mielie—the cornmeal required to make the cake became known as mielie-mielie, literally meaning corn for corn cake. This word was respelt as mealie-mealie in the middle of the nineteenth century. Mieli also was combined with the word pap, meaning gruel, to form mielipap, a corn porridge that became a staple in the diet of millions of impoverished South Africans.