While reading Chris Brogan's latest book Trust Agents
, I came across this interesting factoid: until only very recently there was no word for the color "orange" in Western European languages. Chris claims that it is the main reason why we talk about "red heads" or "goldfish".
, I came across this interesting factoid: until only very recently there was no word for the color "orange" in Western European languages. Chris claims that it is the main reason why we talk about "red heads" or "goldfish".
Research on Wikipedia provides more background:
The colour is named after the orange fruit, introduced to Europe via the Sanskrit word nāranja. Before this was introduced to the English-speaking world, the colour was referred to (in Old English) as geoluhread, which translates into Modern English as yellow-red. The first recorded use of orange as a colour name in English was in 1512, in the court of King Henry VIII.