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It's the opposite of watermelon
"You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word 'milo,' which is mean 'apple,' so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word 'portokali,' which mean 'orange.' So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit."
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
We have, partway through the fourth semester of Arabic, finally begun learning vocabulary about things like colors and clothing and foods. This comes after our exciting chapters with themes like "Maha's father tells you about his education and the degrees that he's earned" or "Khaled's father tries to convince him to major in Business instead of English." I'm not sure exactly what kind of world this book is supposed to be preparing us for, but I have the impression it's one where we talk endlessly about the structure of university departments while we walk around naked and starve.
(... Sounds like my job now! Boo-yeah!)
My teacher has finally decided to defy the book's structure and teach us a few useful things. So today I learned that the Arabic word for orange is برتقالي, which sounds a heck of a lot like the Greek "portokali." What's interesting is that the first time I saw the word برتقالي it was in some online quiz that I can't find anymore, where you had to match the color on the screen to its Arabic name. I remember sounding the word for "orange" out and thinking that it sounded like "Portugal" and that I was going to remember it that way. Now that I've heard it properly pronounced, it's going to make me think of the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding instead, but I wonder if there's a connection there. A lot of citrus fruit seems to come from the Iberian peninsula. Like English, Arabic uses the same word for the fruit as for the color, whichever came first¹. I'm assuming the Arabic word for the fruit/color came from the Greek or vice versa, but did the word for orange come from the word for Portugal, or vice versa? Or am I just imagining the connection?
If I were really clever and cared enough, I would actually research this to find out the answer, but instead I will just shout my question into the blog-void and wait and see if an Arabic/geography scholar finds me.
A lot of the clothing words are easy to remember, too, because they all seem to have some connection to the English, Spanish or French names for the same things... bantalon, qamisa, teesheert, shoort, jeenz, beejama, etc.
البس بلوفر خضر!
srah - Monday, 11 February 2008 - 11:02 PM
Tags: arabic, in arabic, language
Comments (12)
srah - February 12, 2008 - 6:24 AM - ℓ
Oh dear! Tested by a native speaker! I plan on freezing up and forgetting what little I know.
I could probably understand you, though, as long as you spoke fusha very slowly and stuck to the topic of university administrative structure (and possibly the color of people's clothing/food).
What thrilling discussions we shall have!
Cherri - February 12, 2008 - 6:59 AM - ℓ
I don't really have an answer for you, but I just wanted to say that this is the sort of information which is really interesting to me. Anyway, from the brief amount of research I did, you are not imagining the connection between Portugal and the various words which mean orange. Check out this thread on a message board if you're interested: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=70665
As for the fruit itself, it appears that the orange started in Asia and diffused out into the Middle East, and into the Iberian Peninsula.
Craig - February 12, 2008 - 7:22 AM - ℓ
In this case of "the chicken or the egg," it would appear that the name of the place came first. Portugal comes from the Latin for "Port of Cale," a location in what is now Portugal.
As for the fruit, I'll let Wikipedia explain: "Some languages have different words for the bitter and the sweet orange, such as Modern Greek nerantzi and portokali, respectively. Or in Persian, the words are narang and porteghal (Portugal), in the same order. The reason is that the sweet orange was brought from China or India to Europe during the 15th century by the Portuguese. For the same reason, some languages refer to it as Applesin (or variants), which means "Apple from China", while the bitter orange was introduced through Persia."
So there you have it, there really is a connection.
Edward Vielmetti - February 15, 2008 - 2:35 PM - ℓ
In German, depending where you are, it's either Orange or Apfelsine (Chinese apple).
Your book is preparing you for the world I live in - yes, mom and dad, there are other jobs other than businessperson, doctor, engineer.