Tuesday, September 06, 2011

on orange

i've long wondered which came first, the use of the word "orange" for the color or the use of the word for the fruit. i finally got around to looking into it today and the verdict is the fruit.

and on a related subject, it looks the arabic word for both the orange color and fruit (برتقال bortuqaal) came from the name of the country "portugal" (which is derived from the latin for port of cale). not the other way around as i once wondered because arabs used to rule the iberian peninsula. i found this discussion of the subject to be pretty interesting.

still up in the air is where the name for the principality of orange came from. once i figure that out, it will also cover william of orange and thus also the orangemen in northern ireland.