Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure you can find some sort of rhyme that'll work just as well.
For "orange"? Could you suggest a rhyme?
porridge
Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is from a tendency in Germanic languages (and maybe others) to call the orange a "Chinese apple".
The word "sinaasappel" is much more common, which sounds a lot more like the Chinese apple you're referring to than "appelsien". The latter is used in a brand name for fruit juice (used to be exclusively orange juice). Besides that it's practically not used in modern Dutch.
Both sinaasappel and appelsien are derived from chinese apple (from dutch wikipedia: De sinaasappel komt oorspronkelijk uit China (in de oude vorm: Sina), waar ook de naam naar verwijst. In het vroegnieuwnederlands komt "appel sina" voor, in het nieuwnederlands "appelsien").
(Also in flemish appelsien is used far more than sinaasappel).
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#33I find it great that "naranja" (the spanish name) is so close, almost identical, to the sanskrit "naranga"
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#34“... a successful cosmetics company today does sell a lipstick color it creepily calls Underage Red.”
Wow. And the company defends it as a “feminine rebellion”. I couldn’t make it though the post but the link is below.
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#35Interesting that the name of the House of Orange had nothing to do with the fruit or the color.
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#36Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#37"possibly derived from an even older Dravidian (another ancient language spoken in what is now southern India) root, naru, meaning fragrant. " The Dravidian language referred here is Tamil. The fruit in the citrus family is called Narthangai. The unripe fruit makes a sour delicious pickle. It's such a joy to hear a Tamil word used everyday around the globe.
> The Dravidian language referred here is Tamil.
The "even older Dravidian [language]" referred to in the article is not exactly Tamil. The oldest written evidence we have for Old Tamil[1] dates to the 3rd century BC[2]. But we're told that this word is in Sanskrit's vocabulary, which was already developed well before then. (Some people date the Vedas to the 15th century BC.)
That means it probably didn't come from Tamil, and instead came from some other, older Dravidian language. That might be Proto-Dravidian, the common ancestor of all Dravidian languages (Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, etc.), or some other ancient Dravidian language that we don't have a record of.
(That seems likely, because that's generally how other Dravidian words in Sanskrit are thought to have gotten there: Skt. फल (phala) 'fruit' is thought to have been borrowed from Proto-Dravidian *palam, which has descended into Tamil பழம் (paḻam), Malayalam പഴം (paḻaṃ), etc.)
Some English words actually are directly from Tamil, though. Curry[3] and mango[4] are both directly from Tamil.
[1]: Old Tamil is actually quite different from Modern Tamil, but let's not get into that
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tamil_language
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#38Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#39Other interesting rebracketing/juncture loss: an napron => an apron a nauger => an auger a nadder => an adder And there's probably a bunch more for future centuries [1]. [1] https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
For a fun examplen from another language, consider the Arabic version of the name Alexander.
On hearing the city name "Alexandria" in many places (most notably Egypt), Arabs assumed the start was the Arabic definite article: Al-exandria. In addition, they swapped the "k" and "s" sounds, in an inverse of the African-American Vernacular formation of "aks" from "ask", making the city name "Al-iskandaria". To complete the ridiculous chain, they then back-formed the historical figure's name from the cities named after him: Iskandar.
Re: Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”
#40In arabic the both the noun and adjectives for "orange" roughly transliterates to "bortuqal": برتقالي What's the word for "Portugal" in arabic? "bortughal" (that is also not a good transliteration) برتغال Arabic is my favorite.
Portocaliu is orange in Romanian.