Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange” | Hacker News Reader

Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”

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Other 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/

One of my favorite cases of reanalysis gone amok is:

[(xocalia + a'tl) => chocola-tl => chocolate => choco-] + [(al-kuhl => alcohol) + (-ique => -ic) => -holic] => chocoholic

which, having contributions from Nahuatl, Arabic, and Latin results in a word with morphemes originating in 3 distinct language families.

On the topic of article rebracketing, I also love "an eke-name" (an extra name) becoming "a nickname".

In Italian we have the Latin word "luscinia" (nightingale) that became "usignolo". -olo is just a suffix that means small, the interesting part is that at some point people started confusing the initial L for the article l'.

> an eke-name

I'm not buying this. "eke" as "also" may give the sense "by-name", alright. What irks me is the lack of explanation of the rebracketing, which would appear like a mistake. But "nick of time" and the like would make a reanalysis as "short name" plausible, so not a mistake but a funny play of words.

Rebracketing also happened a lot when incorporating words from other languages, from a misunderstanding of the other languages (often the misunderstanding occurred first in another language before being borrowed by English).

"Alligator" is from Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard").

Tons of terms from Arabic include "al," the Arabic word for "the":

Alchemy, algorithm, algebra, alfalfa, alkaline, alcohol, alcove.

Rebracketing also leads to some interesting affix/root usage:

The root of "cybernetics" is "cybern," but "cyber" is frequently used to form related words.

"Helicopter" comes from "helix" ("spiral") and "pteron" ("wing"), but it is generally split into "heli"/"helo" and "copter" for the formation of related words.

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.

My favorite one is "umpire". The origin of the word is the Old French nonper which means "not even", referring to an extra person arbitrating a match between two "even" teams.

The "per" part of "nonper" originated from the Latin "par" meaning "even" which is also the root of the modern English words "parity" and the "par" in "par for the course".

"Nonper" then made it's way into Middle English as "noumpere", and "a noumpere" soon became "an oumpere" via re-bracketing. The word pair then evolved into "an oumper", which finally became "an umpire" in modern English.

Anyone here have any idea how it came about that the element called Tungsten in english, is called Wolfram in swedish? Tungsten is obviously from swedish, as "tung" means "heavy" and "sten" means "rock"? (and Tungsten is indeed an extremely heavy metal). Wolfram, OTOH looks very much like an english word. Is it common for two languages to swap words like this?

It was named by a german chemist, it is volfram in swedish. Check out the german wikipediaentry and try sending it through translate.

"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.

Read all the way through, didn’t know it would end up at a Tamil word as the origin of naranja

I am wondering why didn't the word percolate to Punjabi language where we call the colour as "santri" and the fruit is called "santra". Hindi has the same word for it, I think.

Or to Kannada, where the fruit is called "kittaLe", despite also being classified a Dravidian language. Kannada and Telugu in general seem to have too many differences from Tamil and Malayalam to be lumped into a common bucket.

The color has always been referred to as "kesari" in Kannada, and translates to saffron.

> 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

[3]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry#Etymology_1

[4]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mango#Etymology

only westerners date vedas to 15 century BC to prop up the fantasy of europeans being aryans and support the aryan invasion theory

indians date it quite securely via astronomical observations in the texts of dhruva the pole star to 3000 BC or 5kya

dhruva was thuban or alpha draconis of draco or the indian constellation sisumara whale dolphin

there were no pole stars from about 2300 BC to 1500 AD but the knowledge of the previous one was preserved in india

the rig veda and some other vedas even predate the dhruva observation but have not been securely dated

Are you using that absolutely non-credible David Frawley’s non peer reviewed assertions regarding the astronomical dating of Vedas?

Please post a credible source for whole of your post.

R N Iyengar

http://www.academia.edu/7193503/Dhruva-the-Ancient-Vedic-Hin...

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/RN_Iyengar

personally dont care about peer review status since we know the reasons westerners reject this information has nothing to do with science but self interest

but you might be interested to know it was first proposed by a european named jacobi before europeans got the desire to be aryan leading to the world war and destruction

video lecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R2lXuUMdoo

another person same conclusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfW4iLBgxg8

I will wait for an article published in a journal which at least has an Impact Factor. Cannot even find impact factor for the journal you linked to. And your central theme is invalidating western views while proving Indian supremacy, I will not lend any credence to your views and assertions.

impact factor science is why the west will decline and fall

and actual science will head back east to india and maybe china if they can get their act together

Fantasy? Then how come genetics is now starting to confirm steppe ancestry in Indians?

the recent harvard preprint only had evidence for steppe women settling with indus men

this was not noted in the paper itself but only on twitter

you can imagine the ridiculousness of claims that women drove out dravidians and then installed a patriarchy

i hope they do publish cause it would mark the low point of western science future historians can point to as the beginning of the fall

in any case they have no evidence of steppe languages only inferences and we have strong evidence of sanskrit in india 3000 BC well before the fake aryan invasion claims of 1500 BC

the word for rice also comes from tamil arici and not from the chinese mi

unexpectedly even the japanese use a form of the tamil word coupled with the chinese word uruchi mai leading to theories of dravidian japanese linkages or atleast contact and trade

but the debate of whether the tamil word itself comes from sanskrit vrihi is not settled there is the possibility of agriculture spreading to north india from south india and lanka starting 17.5kya and then on to the fertile crescent as well contrary to popular beliefs

http://indiafacts.org/how-old-is-indian-agriculture/

Why are linking to a site that is known to spread falsehoods?

yes the site is anathema to indian marxists

please argue on merits of the content of the article

if you think there is something false please point to the specifics

Indian marxist? No wonder you belong and advocate views of Hindu nationalist party of India, BJP. Pathetic diss.

Two Points regarding the article:- 1. Author says agriculture first started in Sri Lanka, and then uses that to say India was the country where agriculture started. Completely ignoring the fact that Sri Lanka is not in India.

2. Author says, "India cannot now be ruled out as the home of the grape, in which case, we would have a Neolithic-era spread of a crop from India to the FC and beyond."

His whole assertion is this paper [A], where all the paper authors say is that grape could have been present in India before the presently accepted timeline, they don't say anything about India being home of the grape or even if grape spread out from India. IndiaFacts did quite a reach there just for proving supremacy of India.

So yeah again, a better site for your ignorant BS. It is better to not bring your level of discourse to this site.

[A] - http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Downloads/article_id_097_04_...

17.5kya lanka was part of the indian landmass according to the article due to sea level differences

rest of your nit picking i will ignore since you seem to have accepted and not disputed the main claim of lankan agri well before the fertile crescent

>17.5kya lanka was part of the indian landmass according to the article due to sea level differences

Any other independent source for it?

Can you please not use HN for ideological and nationalistic argument? This is definitely not what the site is for, and you've done it a lot already.

I think it is called an older Dravidian language, and not Tamil because the older Dravidian language cannot be called Tamil. It is vastly different from the Tamil that is spoken today. Calling a language the "oldest" is usually just veiled attempts at asserting racial/cultural superiority that does not really exist. Oscar Tay has a great answer on Quora explaining this, and I cannot state it any better: https://www.quora.com/Is-Tamil-the-oldest-living-language-in...

They left out the best part: The use of the word "redhead," for people with hair that is decidedly orange rather than red, predates the emergence of the color name "orange." Otherwise, they would presumably have been called "orangeheads."

Another factor there might be that "redhead" rolls off the tongue quite a bit better.

I'm sure you can find some sort of rhyme that'll work just as well.

For "orange"? Could you suggest a rhyme?

Finding a rhyme for orange is as annoying as a squeaky door 'inge

Oh danger, orange, her hair may be, by the manger, quite, orange she sees, the fire burns bright, the ranger, he schemes, in death she finds evil Sir Granger's deeds.

It's not as absurd as it may seem. Eminem discussed the topic at one point, although I don't think any of them would fit the bill as a replacement for "redhead": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPcR5RVXHMg

The trick is that assonance is sufficient for rap in contrast to a strictly true rhyme.

From the video description: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sporange

porridge

The only true rhyme for orange I've ever heard:

"Four engineers wore orange brassieres."

If you ask why my floor that was white is now orange, Well I quite like juice, and I last mopped my floor in July.

Came up with that one allll by myself.

Not as well as ginger ninja or fanta pants.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

Similarly, the birds called redbreasts, whose chests are orange as well

A robin orangebreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage

simply doesn’t have the same punch.

I find it great that "naranja" (the spanish name) is so close, almost identical, to the sanskrit "naranga"

Interesting that English was lacking this word for so long. Swedish has the word "brandgul" ("fire-yellow") which predates the English word orange by a couple of decades and is still in use. Which I guess in Swedish just makes it a variant of yellow instead of it's "own" color.

The word "orange" is also used for the color, but not for the fruit (which is "apelsin")

Interesting that yellow red was used to describe the color of a fox

Is that why gold fish are called gold fish - and not orange fish?

Probably because they're more reflective, like gold

Really interesting, but I thought this was a bit weak:

> Alexander the Great dressed in robes, some “of crimson, some of purple, some of murrey, and some of orange colour velvet.” The translator is confident that “murrey” will be identifiable—it is a reddish purple, the color of mulberries—but he needs to add the noun “colour” after “orange” for its meaning to be clear.

I would read that as a list of things, each of which is a colour of velvet.

In 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.

Wiktionary confirms that the name of the fruit came from the name of the country:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A...

(via Greek, via Venetian!)

Oh, cool. It's the same in Greek:

πορτοκάλι = Portokali = Orange

Πορτογαλία = Portogalia = Portugal

In Turkish, orange is called „Portakal“. Reason is, this fruit was introduced to Ottoman soil by Portuguese sailors. Probably Turkish people heard the name first from North African Arabs living in Ottoman Empire, and they started to use this word.

Kind of the same concept as in Swedish with ”apelsin” for orange (the fruit). apel + sin = Apple from China.

I was reading comments to see if anybody mentioned the Russian words for orange color and fruit. "apelsin" is the word for the fruit and must have come over from Western Europe but the word for the color is "oranzhevuy" which is just "naranj" with the adjective suffix.

In Persian, "orange" as a fruit is also "portaghal". But the color is "narenji". And then there's another citrus fruit quite close to the orange called a "narenj", that you can't usually find in the West.

Interestingly, nobody eats the "narenj" directly. They usually squeeze its juice on a fish dish. It gives it a very nice flavour.

Wikipedia identifies that fruit as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_orange

I don't know if I've ever had it or not!

Edit: corresponding Farsi Wikipedia link: https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%86%D8%AC

Bitter oranges make the best marmalade

"Clementines"[1] are a fruit related to oranges that are commonly sold in grocery stores where I live, but the country they are sourced in varies. I've found the best ones seem to be from Portugal or Spain.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine

I think this color survey from xkcd is very interesting https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/

FTA: "His orange exists only to brighten up tawny, a dark brown."

Almost like orange-is-to-brown as pink-is-to-red. This is more apparent when looking at http://colorizer.org/ and choosing HSV colorspace with H==34, S==80, and varying V==[20,90].

EDIT: reverse pink/red.

"Orange pekoe" turns out to have a fairly delightfully obscure etymology as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_leaf_grading#Orange_pekoe

Interestingly, in Dutch, the word is "Appelsien" according to Wikipedia, which seems quite unrelated to any word like "Orange" - this in a country where the royal family is called "House of Orange"?

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).

In Swedish as well. The fruit is apelsin. The colour is traditionally brandgul (fire yellow) but orange (pronounced like in french?) is not uncommon.

Russian as well. It's from silk road merchants calling oranges "chinese apples".

Interesting that the name of the House of Orange had nothing to do with the fruit or the color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A3cHzFQsqI

Doesn’t it seem plausible that “orange” rather comes from Latin aurantium based on the root aurum for gold? (Gold can appear orange-colored.)

Yes, the transition from narange to orange may come from the French “or” (gold). More here: https://www.etymonline.com/word/orange

> Often they referred to oranges as “golden apples.”

That is how the fruit "orange" is called in modern Hebrew

“... 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.

https://m.facebook.com/katvond/posts/10155445610990454:0

Orange you glad that etymological histories are studied so in depth?

Thank you.

Cut it out.

I think it could be better. A lot of oversees development has not been documented well and "studied" on an ad-hoc basis.

The incorrect division of Italian "(n)arancia" is debatable, as the similarity to e.g. Lt. aur(um), French or - gold might be completely intentional.

It’s pretty simple in Hungarian. The orange fruit is called “narancs”, while the color is “naracssárga” (“narancs” + “sárga”, where “sárga” means yellow).

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