The orange came twiceOrangeROEN
An orange on a wooden ledge in warm light; its peel comes away in a spiral.

  1. One fruit, two roads

    The orange came twice: the word for orange in 183 languages, and why many have two

    English has one word for the fruit, and it is the old one: orange goes back to the old languages of India, through Persian and Arabic. Across the North Sea, Dutch, German and Swedish named the sweet orange after China and kept the old name for the bitter one.

    Two names, because the orange came twice: first the bitter fruit, then the sweet. In 18 languages, from Greek to Swedish, both names survive side by side.

    Below, the peel comes away and shows the road each name took.Skip to the map of languages

  2. The first arrival

    The bitter orange came first, with a name from India#

    The old name goes back to nāraṅga, in the old languages of India (Pali and Prakrit). Persian made it nārang, Arabic nāranj. It most likely meant the bitter orange at first, the archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller and colleagues argue: that is what it first meant in Persian and in Spanish.

    Arab growers brought the tree to the Mediterranean. The treatises of the Arab agronomists of al-Andalus show the bitter orange grown in Iberia by the 10th century. From nāranj come Spanish naranja, Italian arancia, French and English orange, Hungarian narancs and Romanian naramză, which came through Greek and Bulgarian.

  3. 61 languages

    The old name survives in 61 languages#

    On the map each point is a language, and its colour says where its word for orange comes from. Deep red, the colour of the bitter orange, is the old name: from nāraṅga.

    It is the word in 61 of the 183 languages and varieties on the map, in western and central Europe, in India, and in languages that took it from Spanish, French or English. Polish, Czech and Slovak put an "apple" in front of it: pomarańcza, pomeranč, from Latin pomum, "fruit", and arancia.

  4. The second arrival

    The sweet orange came later, and was named after countries#

    The sweet orange came later, and the sources disagree on when. The German etymological dictionary DWDS and several authors in the AGRUMED volume have it reaching Europe in the 16th century, brought by the Portuguese from China to a Europe that already knew the bitter one. Another AGRUMED chapter, following Samuel Tolkowsky, finds sweet oranges in Italy as early as the 1480s, and the Italian dictionary Treccani dates their spread to the 14th century.

    The new fruit took the names of countries. Portugal in 26 languages, from southern Italy and the Balkans to the Gulf: Romanian portocală, Greek πορτοκάλι, Turkish portakal. China in 39, from the North Sea to Central Asia: Dutch sinaasappel and German Apfelsine mean "apple from China", and Russian took апельсин from Dutch. Malta in Urdu and Dari, and as a second word in Hindi and Pashto: the fruit is simply called "Malta" (Urdu mālṭā, Dari mālta), a word that came through English.

  5. 18 languages

    In 18 languages, the bitter orange kept the old name beside a new one#

    Where both fruits arrived, many languages kept both names: a new one for the sweet orange, the old one for the bitter. Greek says πορτοκάλι and νεράντζι, Arabic burtuqāl and nāranj, Swedish apelsin and pomerans, German Apfelsine and Pomeranze, Russian апельсин and померанец.

    The orange and the bitter orange, in the 18 languages that keep the old name for the bitter one and a new one for the sweet
    • orangebitter orange
    • Greekπορτοκάλινεράντζι
    • Arabicبُرْتُقَالنَارِنْج
    • Swedishapelsinpomerans
    • GermanApfelsinePomeranze
    • Russianапельси́нпомера́нец
    • Romanianportocalănaramză
    • Persianپُرْتِقالنارَنْج
    • Central Kurdishپرتەقاڵنارِنج

    Of the 24 languages on the map with a word of their own for the bitter orange, 19 use the old name for it, and 18 of those have a different name for the sweet one.

    When each name first appears in writing14001500160017001800SwedishpomeransapelsinGermanPomeranzeApfelsineRomaniannaramzăportocală
    When each name first appears in writing. old name new name

  6. Romanian

    Romanian sits on the border between three names#

    Romania's neighbours chose differently. Bulgarian says портокал, after Portugal. Ukrainian says апельсин, after China. Hungarian narancs and Serbian наранџа (Croatian naranča) keep the old name. Romanian has two of its own: portocală, from Greek πορτοκάλι, and naramză, an old name for the orange, used above all for the bitter one, from Greek νεράντζι and Bulgarian неранза.

    Naramză was written down first. Miron Costin, the 17th-century chronicler of Moldavia, praised Italy in De neamul moldovenilor (On the Moldavian people) for its "citrons, naramze, lemons and sugar". Portocală first appears in a document of 1750. The Romanian Academy's dictionary also records the forms purtucală, protocală, năranță and naramță, and a third old name, pomeranță, a cousin of German Pomeranze.

  7. Detours

    Where the name went the long way round#

    The Portuguese, whose country gave the orange its name from the Balkans to the Gulf, call it laranja: the old name. In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic the orange is called china. In Suriname, Sranan Tongo says apresina and Aukan apeesina, which the SIL Aukan dictionary derives from Dutch sinaasappel: the China name reached South America through Dutch.

    The old name also travelled further through English. In Japan, the earliest example in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten dictionary is an 1860 diary of a journey to America, which notes "worenzu" as the American name for the fruit; today Japanese says オレンジ (orenji). Hebrew went its own way: תפוז (tapuz) is short for "golden apple".

  8. How do you say orange in other languages?#

    Tap a point on the map or search for a language. For each: the word or words, where they come from, and the road the name took to get there.

    What the colours mean
    • the old name: the old name, from nāraṅga in the old languages of India
    • Portugal: named after Portugal
    • China: named after China
    • Malta: named after Malta
    • another name: the language's own name (sometimes a 'golden apple' or a word for lemon or citron)
    • double ring: the language has a separate name for the bitter orange

    Ask someone who speaks another language what they call the bitter orange. If they have a separate word for it, it is most likely the old name, the one that came from India. Then send them their language's page.

How the words were gathered and classified

The words come from the translation table of the English Wiktionary entry "orange" (the fruit), revision 93615428, and from the "bitter orange" table, revision 92361393, read on 19 October 2026. Wiktionary serves as the index. Words mentioned in the text were checked in dictionaries of their own languages wherever one could be opened (listed below); Hungarian narancs was checked only in a Romanian dictionary (Scriban). The other words on the map rest on Wiktionary. Romanian naramză and English orange were added from dictionaries.

Each word was classified by hand from its form and, where there is one, its Wiktionary etymology: the old name (from nāraṅga), Portugal, China, Malta, or another name. "Bitter" appears only where the table or a dictionary says bitter orange. Sign languages, constructed and ancient languages were left out, and so were words for other citrus fruit (citron, tangerine, sweet lime). That leaves 183 languages and varieties: Egyptian and Gulf Arabic, for example, count separately.

Each language has one point on the map, from Glottolog; three varieties (Pannonian Rusyn, Haketia, Puerto Rican Spanish) were placed by hand. The roads are schematic: a line from one language to the next in the order the word's etymology gives, without dates.

What is not known: who brought the first sweet oranges to Europe, and why each language took the name it did. A country in the name says which place the fruit was linked with, not necessarily where the ship came from.

Sources

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