What came first, the fruit or the color orange?

Answer 1

Well, I believe the word "Orange" comes from the Middle-Eastern term "naranj" or something like that. In the medieval era the Muslims (living in most of Turkey & central Asia) were the main traders between the far east and western Europe. Oranges are believed to have originated somewhere in southeast Asia, and so the only name the Europeans had for the fruit was what the Muslim traders called it, "naranj", which, as you must have noticed, sounds very close to orange, because thats where our name for it comes from.

Which leaves us with two possibilities:

1- The Muslims called it 'naranj' for reasons that had nothing to do with the fruit's color. (I like this reason, because it's the simpler.)

2- The Muslims called the fruit their term for the color orange, meaning that the color was named first. This complicates things, because Arabic/Turkish are both derived from the same pre-ancient language set as the European languages. This means that there could have been a word for the color similar to 'naranj' or 'orange' already in the European languages. This is hypothetical and complicated- if you know someone who knows Arabic, ask them about the word. Or stick to answer #1.

Answer 2

do you mean the actual orange or the name that was given to associate with it? If the second then this would depend upon the preliferation of language skills at the time. The name "orange" may have evolved as language developed over the years. Who's to say that the orange (fruit) existed for some time before it was found or even named? maybe it was called by another name (say... banana) until someone decided to change it, having later discovered that a banana already exists and had to change the name to orange to save intellectual property rights (to my knowledge there are no existent IPR over the name "banana") over the banana. Either way i doubt whether either orange or its name sake could actually come.

Answer 3

I would think the color orange came first. Great question!

Answer 4

I would think the fruit, then we decided to call things the same color after the fruit.

Answer 5

Probably the color orange from the sunrise and sunset. Just my speculation.