Which came first: Orange fruit or orange colour? Find out here

Did you know that the original name for oranges possibly came from South Asia? (Picture Credit: Pexels)

• The orange fruit originated in Southeast Asia and spread via Arab trade routes
• The fruit's name shaped the word for orange in many languages before the color.
• The color orange was named after the fruit in the 1500s.

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For those who love a little bit of history, it would be interesting to learn that the orange fruit originated in the tropical Southeast Asian region, specifically in Northeast India, Myanmar, and Southern China. It was the Arab trade routes that were responsible for taking it to the Mediterranean, after which it travelled to other parts of the world and became a widely cultivated crop.

If you haven’t been able to guess, the fruit orange came first and not the colour. Possibly, the original name for oranges came from South Asia, which influenced how the fruit was named in different languages as it travelled northwest.

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The earliest recorded use of the name dates back to the 1300s. Many similar versions of the word appeared, especially in Italy. This was largely because Arab traders brought Seville oranges to the region during the Middle Ages and helped spread both the fruit and its name.

It is said that the word began with the South Indian term for bitter orange: nārandam. It came to be called nāraṅga (orange tree) in Sanskrit, nārang in Persian, and nāranj in Arabic. When Arab traders brought it to Europe, many people likened oranges to apples, a fruit they were familiar with. Hence, some of the phrases would literally translate to “orange apple.”

The French gave it the name pomme d'orenge, and the Italians termed it naranza and narans. For the Germans, it was Pomeranze, and the Italians also referred to it as melarancio. The Scots and the Dutch called it appil orange and oranjeappel. All these were used before the fruit got its own name.

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Orange, the colour, came much later and only after the fruit had gained popularity worldwide. By the 1400s, the word had officially entered the English language. About a hundred years later, people began using the same word to describe the colour they earlier referred to as “yellow-red.” The first recorded use of the colour dates back to the 1500s.