# Are there any languages where the colour orange and the fruit are totally different? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907 "2009-10-23T22:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/61 "2009-10-25T18:14:24Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > But the word I was wondering about would have been the Greek equivalent (‘hippo’?). What if ‘hippopotamus’ orignally meant ‘river beast’ instead of, specifically, ‘river horse’, and ‘hippo’ later changed meaning from ‘beast’ to ‘horse’? **Wendell Wagner** didn’t make it explicit, but “hippo” **IS** the Indo-European “horse” word, or rather its reflection in Greek. It’s cognate with Latin _equus_, Irish _each_, and a whole bunch of other words. In other words, “hippo” must have meant “horse” before it ever became Greek, and any other meanings are secondary. The standard dictionary clarifies how they got “river horse” as a description for the hippo: [QUOTE=Liddell & Scott’s dictionary] VII. in compds., to express anything large or coarse, as in our horse-chestnut, horse-laugh [/QUOTE] So, “large, coarse river-thing.” _A hippo’s a horse So coarse, so coarse And no-one can ride on a hippo-horse That is, of course, unless the “horse” is the famous Hippo Fred._ ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/62 "2009-10-25T21:22:40Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Uncertain, notice that phouka didn’t even understand that you were making a joke. When you make a joke that’s easy to misunderstand, don’t be too surprised that someone will fail to get it. Why are you harassing me, since I at least understood that it was supposed to be a joke, when phouka (and probably others) didn’t see that it was a joke at all? [Moderating] Here’s the thing, **Wendell**. When you’re snarky to someone, you can’t claim that they’re harassing you when they’re a bit snarky back. (This said, I don’t think either your or **Uncertain’s** comments were particularly out of line for GQ.) On the more general issue, while joking is permitted in GQ, when making a tongue-in-cheek post in GQ it’s usually a good idea to include a smilie. Even though you think it’s obvious the statement is outlandish, someone is likely to take it seriously. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Uncertain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/63 "2009-10-26T02:24:16Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Uncertain, notice that phouka didn’t even understand that you were making a joke. When you make a joke that’s easy to misunderstand, don’t be too surprised that someone will fail to get it. Why are you harassing me, since I at least understood that it was supposed to be a joke, when phouka (and probably others) didn’t see that it was a joke at all? I wasn’t harrassing you. I was commenting on my own apparent failure, and expressing my gratitude that at least one person (you) “got” my failed attempt at humor. I apologize for being unclear not once, but twice. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/64 "2009-10-26T13:24:18Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Other than in rainbows and on some people’s heads, when did pre-modern Europeans ever see anything orange? Were they exposed to any orange plants, orange foods or orange fabrics? I was thinking about this, and coming up pretty empty. Green is of course all around in non-winter times. Blue is the sky, many wildflowers, a few birds, and some people’s eyes. Red is blood, sunset, fire (along with yellow), some ripe fruits. Yellow is many flowers, straw and dried plants, Black, White, Brown, Gray and Silver are all pretty common, too. But there’s not a whole lot that’s orange specifically in Europe/North America/the Mediterranean that I can think of. Some patches on a few birds is about it. So it’s not surprising that most languages just used ‘Reddish-yellow’ instead of making up a whole new word. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/65 "2009-10-26T13:54:47Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > In Armenian, the fruit is called “nareeng.” The color is “nareeng ah guyn.” Directly translated, that means “orange colored.” So the color isn’t orange it’s “orange colored.” are you insinuating that the color came first, at least in armenian? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/66 "2009-10-26T14:09:54Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > are you insinuating that the color came first, at least in armenian? The Celtic and Slavic parallels above would lead to the opposite interpretation. I had thought that carrots pre-dated oranges, but linguistically at least they don’t seem to in English. OED describes carrots as “bright red,” which is outside my experience: carrots are usually orange, though I have also seen white, yellow, and purple. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/67 "2009-10-26T15:48:42Z")
**pancakes3** said: > [@](#): > > are you insinuating that the color came first, at least in armenian? I believe he is insinuating that the fruit came first, then the name for the color of the fruit was derived from the fruit. It didn’t have an independent name before that. Which is exactly how it was in English. **Dr. Drake** said: > [@](#): > > I had thought that carrots pre-dated oranges, but linguistically at least they don’t seem to in English. OED describes carrots as “bright red,” which is outside my experience: carrots are usually orange, though I have also seen white, yellow, and purple. I believe white “carrots” are actually parsnips. Not sure about yellow carrots. The purple ones are a modern invention to up the beta-carotene, specifically bred by Texas students over their long-time college rivalry. I note with amusement that the “Robin Red-breast” of history is actually orange. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/68 "2009-10-26T16:23:33Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > I note with amusement that the “Robin Red-breast” of history is actually orange. And ‘red’ hair. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/69 "2009-10-26T16:54:30Z")
So, I’ve been waiting, hoping someone would come in with the Arabic version so I could test my hypothesis that the Bulgarian word originally came from Arabic, but no one did. I guess I gots to do it myself. That is why god invented online dictionaries. I don’t actually speak Arabic (I \*can \*read it, though) so I would appreciate a more thorough etymology, but this is what I got: A برتقالي N برتقال, لون برتقالي, البرتقالي So, the color - which I believe would be pronounced as “portaqaly” - is pretty obviously the root of the Bulgarian word for the fruit. The three words given for the fruit are different versions of the same word, which is also clearly very closely related to the word for the fruit. Obviously I have no idea which came first, or if Arabic is ultimately the source of the word. Perhaps Arabic borrowed it from some other language, although it doesn’t sound like any of the other languages in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/70 "2009-10-26T17:06:27Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > **Wendell Wagner** didn’t make it explicit, but “hippo” **IS** the Indo-European “horse” word, or rather its reflection in Greek… I didn’t realize that. Hippo… equus… that’s a lot of difference. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/71 "2009-10-26T19:18:08Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > **pancakes3** said: > > I believe he is insinuating that the fruit came first, then the name for the color of the fruit was derived from the fruit. It didn’t have an independent name before that. > > Which is exactly how it was in English. that’s what i meant. something went awry between brain and fingertips. well i was going to follow up on it by asking if all colors were qualified with “color” like it is with some other languages. red-color, blue-color, etc. if so, then just because it has “color” tacked onto the end of it doesn’t really tell us which came first. otherwise if orange was the only color that’s distinguished then there’s really no need to insinuate. it’d be safe to assume that orange came first. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/72 "2009-10-26T19:26:37Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > So, I’ve been waiting, hoping someone would come in with the Arabic version so I could test my hypothesis that the Bulgarian word originally came from Arabic, but no one did. I guess I gots to do it myself. That is why god invented online dictionaries. I don’t actually speak Arabic (I \*can \*read it, though) so I would appreciate a more thorough etymology, but this is what I got: > > A برتقالي > N برتقال, لون برتقالي, البرتقالي > > So, the color - which I believe would be pronounced as “portaqaly” - is pretty obviously the root of the Bulgarian word for the fruit. The three words given for the fruit are different versions of the same word, which is also clearly very closely related to the word for the fruit. > > Obviously I have no idea which came first, or if Arabic is ultimately the source of the word. Perhaps Arabic borrowed it from some other language, although it doesn’t sound like any of the other languages in the thread. “_burtuqal_: oranges [from Portuguese _Portugal_]” ([http://etymological.freeweb.hu/AEDweb.htm](http://etymological.freeweb.hu/AEDweb.htm))The “norange / orange” word doesn’t appear on that website. No time to edit the post before class but I believe _portugalli_ is used for “oranges” in some Southern Italian dialects. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/73 "2009-10-26T21:28:53Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Other than in rainbows and on some people’s heads, when did pre-modern Europeans ever see anything orange? Were they exposed to any orange plants, orange foods or orange fabrics? Certainly in Britain (since we’re talking about the origin of the English language), there are few native orange things: - Only two native orange flowers (one of which - hawkbit - is a doubtful native and the other is Anagallis arvensis - better known as _ **Scarlet** _ Pimpernel) - Only a couple of native orange-coloured fruits, none of them edible and in most specimens, deep enough in colour to be comfortably called ‘red’ - Flames, sunsets, some Autumn leaves seems it could be quite reasonably argued that we didn’t have much need for a name for the colour orange, long before we had oranges. Even carrots weren’t orange until comparatively recently. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/74 "2009-10-26T21:33:42Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > I believe white “carrots” are actually parsnips. Not sure about yellow carrots. The purple ones are a modern invention to up the beta-carotene, specifically bred by Texas students over their long-time college rivalry. Purple carrots (not necessarily the same variety you mention) have been around for much longer. orange carrots are the modern cultivar - before that, they were purple, white or yellow. Wild carrots tend to have whitish roots with white or purple skins. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/75 "2009-10-26T21:50:38Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > In modern day Japan, they call it orenji-iro (orange color), taken from English. > > It looks like there was a word, toukoushoku (橙黄色), which appears to be named after the [bitter orange](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_orange) (橙). I hate to nitpick,\* but Japanese generally uses オレンジ色 \*orenji-iro \*(\*iro \*= color) for the color \*\*and \*\* オレンジ \*orenji \*for the fruit as we generally think of a typical orange in the U.S. You also have 橙色 \*daidai-iro \*as a noun meaning orange-colored, 蜜柑 \*mikan \*for a mandarin orange, etc. \*That’s a lie. I love to nitpick. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/76 "2009-10-27T14:56:18Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I didn’t realize that. Hippo… equus… that’s a lot of difference. It does look weird, but in certain contexts, there is a regular correspondence between the “kw” sound in Proto-Indo-European (in cases like “equus”, preserved in Latin), and the “p” sound in Greek. A couple of other examples: \*sekw- “to follow” (like in “sequence”) is “hep-” in Greek \*kwrepo- “body” (“corpus” in Latin) is “prapis” in Greek (later meant “spirit”) I don’t think we have any English words related directly to these other Greek ones, though, so it’s not as vivid as “hippo” and “equus”. Notice how you make a “kissing” motion with your lips to pronounce “kw”, and from there it’s not that far to make a sort of soft “p” sound. Okay, hijack over…sorry! ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/77 "2009-10-27T14:58:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Note that in Hebrew, both words (mentioned above) are bessentilally neologisms. The word for the color (_Katom_), derives from a biblical word for “finest gold”, which appears in Lamentations 4-1, among other places. The word for the fruit (_Tapuz_), is simply short for _Tapuach Zahav_, or “golden apple”. Whoa. I didn’t know that… You learn something new every day. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/78 "2009-10-27T15:16:32Z")
Hindi: Sunthra is the fruit, sunthri is the color for orange; however, that literally means “orange colored like the fruit”. The real word for orange color is naaraangi. Also nimboo is the lemon, and peela is the color. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/79 "2009-10-27T16:25:18Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > Oh, give up. Do you see the ocean in the background there? London is hundreds of miles from the coast, as it happens. Besides, the painting is from 1839, so it predates the smog by several decades anyway. Er, no, no and no. London is not ‘hundreds of miles from the coast’. Using even the most generous estimates, the coast is less than fifty miles to the east. In any case, Turner’s _The Fighting Temeraire_ doesn’t show ‘the ocean’ in the background. [What it in fact shows is the Thames between Sheerness and Rotherhithe](http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.177). Sheerness, which was only about thirty-five miles from the outskirts of London at the time, is actually as good a place as any to count as the point at which the river reaches the sea. What Turner was painting was the stretch upstream from that. Moreover, smoke pollution in London was already a problem by 1839. It was enough of one that it was being raised as an issue in Parliament by the mid-1840s, leading to the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Act of 1853. Not that I believe for a moment that Turner’s painting really counts as evidence for any actual sunset. And, of course, all this is irrelevant, as both the modern senses of ‘orange’ were well-established in English long before this. Nineteenth-century Londoners hardly needed spectacular sunsets to tell them what ‘orange’ looked like. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907/80 "2009-10-27T16:50:42Z")
> [@APB](#): > > Er, no, no and no. London is not ‘hundreds of miles from the coast’. Using even the most generous estimates, the coast is less than fifty miles to the east. I’m sure it’s hundreds of miles from _ **a** _ coast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-languages-where-the-colour-orange-and-the-fruit-are-totally-different/514907.md?page=5)