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All about the orange! | ||
Tags: Colors/Colours | Meaning of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 48 26 October 2011 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Indeed. So far, on this thread, names for the fruit have referenced either its
connection to the color "orange", it's introduction to the West by Portugal or its origins as an "apple from China". But the color itself (orange, naranja etc), seems to have the same origins across a broad spectrum of languages, i.e. Sanskrit नारङ्ग nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree" (from Wiki). Which begs the question, what was the color known as in these languages before the fruit was introduced to the West? Ignoring "geoluhread" (yellow-red) was there just no concept of the color? If there is no word for it, can there still be a concept of it? Not recognizing a color should not be too surprising. I seem to recall having been told that there were only 3 "real" colors in Swahili - nyeusi (black), nyeupe (white) and nyekudu (red). Buluu (blue) was obviously borrowed. Majani can mean green or leaves. And manjano can mean yellow or turmeric. This was what set me thinking about the whole "orange" business in the first place. Edit:
Wow, I just skimmed through part of it and saw this:
Which corresponds to the 3 'real' colors in Swahili. Edited by strikingstar on 26 October 2011 at 12:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| H.Computatralis Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6086 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Polish*, French, English Studies: German, Spanish, Latin | Message 10 of 48 26 October 2011 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly. And if you look further down: 7. If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, and/or grey. Since orange is so low on that scale then it should be expected that many languages don't have a native term for it and need to use borrowings or the color of a fruit instead. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5044 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 11 of 48 26 October 2011 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In the Caribbean Spanish of Puerto Rico an orange is a "china". Orange juice is "jugo de china" and color "color naranja". I almost never hear "naranja" for the fruit except from foreigners- both Spanish speakers and second language speakers. You will be understood if you ask for "jugo de naranja", but asking for "jugo de china" will get second language speakers of Spanish a reply in Spanish instead of English. Edited by iguanamon on 26 October 2011 at 11:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 4850 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 12 of 48 26 October 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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We also have the word "brandgul" (fire yellow) in Swedish, which is older than "orange".
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6364 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 13 of 48 26 October 2011 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, I was just about to mention that. I think the word "orange" in Swedish has to a certain extent replaced the older "brandgul", but the latter is still very much correct. And, as has been pointed out, the fruit is called "apelsin". So there you go. Three words. Swedish wins! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4816 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 48 26 October 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The Spanish word I learned for the color of orange was "anaranjado." It has parts of "naranja" but isn't merely that.
The Finnish paradigm is appelsiini (the fruit) and oranssi (the color). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4875 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 15 of 48 26 October 2011 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's the same in Vietnamese; cam and cam, just with different counters, Strangely oranges here are mainly dark green outide with an orange center.
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| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6022 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 16 of 48 26 October 2011 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Brandgul is rarely used nowadays, but I seem to remember it was more common a couple of decades ago. Actually the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter included it on its list of endangered words (in Swedish). And orange is notoriously difficult to inflect in Swedish. I don't think this advice (in Swedish) is followed by many native speakers of Swedish. By the way, I used to believe that the Danish word for carrot (gulerod) meant yellow-red, but it must of course mean yellow root. /aloysius 1 person has voted this message useful |
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