48 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6920 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 41 of 48 01 November 2011 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
In the recently published book "Ljust och fräscht" (~"Bright and fresh"), the authors (comedians Fredrik Lindström and Henrik Schyffert) draw attention to Swedish interior design, including colour tables with shades of white such as Stockholm white, tofu white, dandruff, sneaker, basin, extension cord...
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6676 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil
| Message 42 of 48 02 November 2011 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
strikingstar wrote:
"Portokalli" = Portugal. It refers to Portugal's status as the main importer of oranges
from East to West around the 16th century. This seems to suggest that oranges made
their way from China/India to Portugal before spreading East again towards the
Caucusus. Portugal likely accomplished this with their maritime prowess as well as the
discovery of a sea route between East and West via the Cape of Good Hope. Would also
seem to suggest that few (or no) oranges were actively traded along the Silk Road. |
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I know that Arabic took this word directly from Portuguese and that Turkish loaned it from Arabic. Because of the geographical proximity, I think it's very likely that it spread from Turkish to Greek, Albanian, and Georgian (and probably some other languages as well).
By the way, this thread is awesome!
Edited by Marc Frisch on 02 November 2011 at 9:47pm
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6676 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil
| Message 43 of 48 02 November 2011 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
H.Computatralis wrote:
Middle English orenge, orange, from Old French pome orenge 'Persian orange', literally 'orange apple', influenced by Old Provençal auranja and calqued from Old Italian melarancio, melarancia, compound of mela 'apple' and (n)arancia 'orange', from Arabic نارنج (nāranj), from Persian نارنگ (nārang), from Sanskrit नारङ्ग (nāraṅga, “orange tree”), from Dravidian (cf. Tamil nartankāy, compound of நரந்தம் (narantam) 'fragrance' and காய் (kāy) 'fruit'; also Telugu nāraṅgamu, Malayam narakam, Kannada naranga).
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This is so incredible: I'm studying Tamil right now and it's so interesting to see how a Tamil (or Dravidian) word has travelled through virtually all the languages I'm interested in!
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| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 44 of 48 03 November 2011 at 7:57pm | IP Logged |
Marc Frisch wrote:
strikingstar wrote:
"Portokalli" = Portugal. It refers to Portugal's status as the main importer of oranges
from East to West around the 16th century. This seems to suggest that oranges made
their way from China/India to Portugal before spreading East again towards the
Caucusus. Portugal likely accomplished this with their maritime prowess as well as the
discovery of a sea route between East and West via the Cape of Good Hope. Would also
seem to suggest that few (or no) oranges were actively traded along the Silk Road.
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I know that Arabic took this word directly from Portuguese and that Turkish loaned it
from Arabic. Because of the geographical proximity, I think it's very likely that it
spread from Turkish to Greek, Albanian, and Georgian (and probably some other languages
as well).
By the way, this thread is awesome! |
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That makes more sense. Afterall most of the countries between Portugal and the Caucusus
did not adopt a variation of "Portokalli" as the name for the fruit. I assume
Portuguese vessels stopped somewhere along the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea on the
way back to Europe and introduced the oranges to the Arabs. The orange then spread
towards Turkey and Eastern Europe from there.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Rutabaga Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Romania Joined 4938 days ago 27 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Slovenian*, French, German, Russian Studies: Portuguese, Uzbek
| Message 45 of 48 05 November 2011 at 11:19am | IP Logged |
strikingstar wrote:
Interesting. Do you know how many true color words there are in Bambara? And do they
follow the color evolutionary pattern as presented by Berlin and Kay? (The link is on
page 1 in H.Computatralis' post. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Swahili
conforms nicely to this pattern.)
And if there is no word for the orange color in their languages, how would they
describe what we perceive as orange? |
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You know, I'm not entirely sure how many true color words there are. I was never able to get a definitive answer. According to my language book, older speakers of the language out in the village refer to things as being only dark and light (ie. black and white, which are finman and jeeman). However, there seems to be a true word for red: bilenman. I think that follows the pattern, right? There are words to describe other colors, but they're all along the lines of 'the color of [object]'. For example, yellow is neremuguman, where neremugu is the yellow powder of the plant nere, and green is binkeneman, where bin means grass and kene means healthy or alive. I tried to find out more about this when I was learning the colours, but found that most people just referred to the colors in French. In fact, a whole discussion ensued when my friend and I tried to find out the words for pink and orange.
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| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5269 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian
| Message 46 of 48 09 January 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
In Hebrew it's "tapuz" for the fruit and "katom" for the color. I don't know the origin of the color word, though.
1 person has voted this message useful
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5507 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 47 of 48 09 January 2012 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
stelingo wrote:
In Czech orange (fruit) is pomeranč and the colour pomerančový. |
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No, in Czech the color is "oranžová", the fruit is indeed "pomeranč"
1 person has voted this message useful
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5146 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian*
| Message 48 of 48 22 December 2015 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
In Indonesia, the color orange is either "oranye" for the loan word or "jingga" for the native word while the fruit orange is "jeruk".
On the other hand, the Indonesian for "cacao" and "brown" are both "cokelat" leading to a riddle changes the answer if translated to English.
English:
What fruit has the same name as its color? Orange.
Indonesia:
Buah apa yang namanya sama dengan warnanya? (What fruit has the same name as its color?) Cokelat (Cacao/Brown).
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