qatarperegrine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
qatarperegrine) wrote2008-05-26 11:02 am
qatarperegrine) wrote2008-05-26 11:02 am
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You say портокал, I say برتقال
I noticed while traveling through Eastern Europe that, despite the fact that Eastern European languages come from vastly different language families, they all call oranges something like "portokal." Then I moved to Arabic and learned that the word for orange is برتقال, "burtuqal."
Today I learned where all these words come from: Portugal!
The earlier word for orange is from the Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ, which is where Persian gets nārang, Spanish gets naranja, Japanese gets orenji and we get orange. But these all referred to the bitter Indian orange. It was Portuguese traders who started bringing the sweet orange, Citrus sinensis, back from China. And thus all along their trading route -- Uzbekistan, Georgia, Persia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy -- the new orange got named for the Portuguese who brought it.
Today I learned where all these words come from: Portugal!
The earlier word for orange is from the Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ, which is where Persian gets nārang, Spanish gets naranja, Japanese gets orenji and we get orange. But these all referred to the bitter Indian orange. It was Portuguese traders who started bringing the sweet orange, Citrus sinensis, back from China. And thus all along their trading route -- Uzbekistan, Georgia, Persia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy -- the new orange got named for the Portuguese who brought it.
Nice catch
Another fascinating example is the American "Turkey". The Hebrew name for this bird, is in fact, {Hodu} the word for "India", but contrary to what Wikipedia explains ("The many references to India seen in common names go back to a combination of two factors: first, the genuine belief that the newly-discovered Americas were in fact a part of Asia"), I think that this is a reference to the fact that initially, America was known as the New-Indies.
And rooting for the Home-Team, another neat example, are Scallions, so named for the Philistine port of Ashkelon, from which they were introduced to ancient Europe.
Re: Nice catch
I only realized afterwards how many orange relatives are named for geographic regions, too: mandarins, tangerines, etc.
Yeah
- Oranges being Tapuz, a modern acronym of Tapu'ach Zahaz, use the older European "Golden Apples".
- Lemons, being Limon, take after the Arabic, and
- Grapefruit being Eshkolit, takes after the English, in being named for the "clusters" (an Eshkol) that they grow in.
Aside from newly invented citrus species, the only one that has a unique Hebrew name is the Citron, known as the Etrog (which goes back to the Aramaic). This because of its' ritual importance.Re: Yeah
Until you said that, I didn't even know that "lemon" was originally an Arabic word, but indeed it was. The OED says that English gets the word lemon thus:
[ad. F. limon (now restricted to the lime; formerly of wider application) = Sp. limon, Pg. limão, It. limone, med.L. limon-em, related to F. lime: see LIME n.2 The words are prob. of Oriental origin: cf. Arab. laimun, Pers. limun, Arab. limah, collective lim, fruits of the citron kind, Skr. nimbu the lime.]
So it is an Arabic word, but not originally Semitic; it's borrowed from Persian, and thus originally from Sanskrit.
Re: Nice catch