{"id":7301,"date":"2015-01-19T07:22:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T07:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=7301"},"modified":"2018-08-15T19:23:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T19:23:47","slug":"etymology-of-russian-fruit-and-vegetable-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/etymology-of-russian-fruit-and-vegetable-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Etymology of Russian Fruit and Vegetable Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have recently read an article<\/a> about different words for oranges in Spanish. According to the article, the word for an orange in the Dominican Republic is china<\/em> because Spanish settlers of the country were aware of its Chinese origins. This made me think about the Russian word for “orange” which reflects\u00a0the same thing. I thought it might be interesting for learners of Russian to look into the origins of\u00a0Russian names of fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n

Orange<\/h2>\n

The Russian word for orange, \u0430\u043f\u0435\u043b\u044c\u0441\u0438\u0301\u043d<\/strong>, comes from the Dutch appelsien<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>which was literally translated from the French pomme de Chine<\/em>, or “Chinese apple.” Oranges originated in China and were brought\u00a0to Europe by Portuguese sailors. The first attempt to cultivate oranges<\/a> in Russia took place\u00a0in 1714.<\/p>\n

Tomato<\/h2>\n

There are two competing words for tomato in Russian — \u0442\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0301\u0442<\/strong> and \u043f\u043e\u043c\u0438\u0434\u043e\u0301\u0440<\/strong>. \u041f\u043e\u043c\u0438\u0434\u043e\u0440 is the word you are most likely to hear in everyday, informal conversation. \u0422\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0442 is normally reserved for formal writing, although this may be the preferred word for older people. Most adjectives are derived from \u0442\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0442 — \u0442\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0301\u0442\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0441\u043e\u043a<\/strong> (tomato juice), \u0442\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0301\u0442\u043d\u0430\u044f \u043f\u0430\u0301\u0441\u0442\u0430<\/strong> (tomato paste). \u0422\u043e\u043c\u0430\u0442 is, of course, a cognate of “tomato” and is derived from the Aztec\u00a0tomatl<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>\u041f\u043e\u043c\u0438\u0434\u043e\u0440 comes from the Italian\u00a0pomo d’oro\u00a0<\/em>(“golden apple”).<\/p>\n

Eggplant\/aubergine<\/h2>\n

The\u00a0funny thing about the Russian word \u0431\u0430\u043a\u043b\u0430\u0436\u0430\u0301\u043d is that is comes from the same Persian word<\/a>\u00a0as the English “aubergine.” Eggplants are also known as \u0441\u0438\u0301\u043d\u0435\u043d\u044c\u043a\u0438\u0435<\/strong> in the south of Russia and Ukraine, literally “little blue ones.”<\/p>\n

Watermelon<\/h2>\n

We’ve covered words that mean different things<\/a> in Russian and other Slavic languages, and \u0430\u0440\u0431\u0443\u0301\u0437<\/strong> (watermelon) is one of them. In Ukrainian and Belorussian, \u0433\u0430\u0440\u0431\u0443\u0437 means “pumpkin<\/a>.” This word came to Russian from Persian, where it meant “melon,” or literally “donkey cucumber.” According to Wikipedia, watermelons were brought to Russia by Tatars in the 13th and 14 centuries.<\/p>\n

Are there any names of Russian foods you were surprised to learn? Are there any that are similar to your language?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have recently read an article about different words for oranges in Spanish. According to the article, the word for an orange in the Dominican Republic is china because Spanish settlers of the country were aware of its Chinese origins. This made me think about the Russian word for “orange” which reflects\u00a0the same thing. I…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[65,2151,164],"class_list":["post-7301","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-language","tag-etymology","tag-fruit","tag-vegetables"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7301"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11090,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7301\/revisions\/11090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}