To understand the pronunciation of the Old English word ġeoluhrēad, one must understand Old Saxon and its orthographic translation from Germanic runes into Latin script. For example, the Old English ġ could be pronounced like y in the word yes. The diphthong ēa would have been pronounced as a short e as in bread. So, even to contemporary English speakers, it is likely ġeolu (yellow) and rēad (red) would be understood as yelu-red.
It would, however, be a mistake to assume the absence of a single word for orange was due to a cultural lack in perceptual nuances. There were two combinations of words in Old English to refer to orange. One included crog, the common word for saffron. Orange was called ġeoluhrēad (yellow-red) for reddish-orange and ġeoluhcrog (yellow-saffron) for yellowish-orange.
Which came first, the fruit or the color?
Portuguese merchants brought the first orange trees to Europe from Asia in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The English name of the fruit comes from the Old French word pomme d’orange. The French word, in turn, is from the Italian word arancia, based on the Arabic word nāranj, which was acquired from the Sanskrit word nāraṅga (नारङ्ग). So, to dispel any arguments, the word for the color orange was derived from the fruit and not the other way around.
The first instance of the English word orange being recorded as a color is found in a description for clothing purchased for Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, in 1502.
So, now you know.
Did you know the word scientist wasn’t coined until 1834? Why do Americans say /zee/ and the rest of the world says /zed/? An early spelling of Chicago was Stktschagko! Do you have Dimples of Venus or Morton’s Toe? There’s so much to learn on the Kinney Brothers Publishing blog!
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