Thursday, July 12, 2007

Farsi of the day

The word for "orange," both the color and the fruit (as far as I can tell), is "porteghal."
I find this fascinating. I suspect that it's because oranges were imported from Portugal--the Iberian peninsula was famous for them. Remember in Much Ado, what Beatrice said about Claudio? "He is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well, but civil, Count, civil [Seville] as an orange, and much of that jealous complexion."
It does make me happy when Shakespeare trivia helps make sense of Farsi vocab. Hurrah for the unity of knowledge! :-)

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