ivanmarkchang / Flickr
Few Portuguese people know that the name of their country, in addition to designating a territory and a language, is also, literally, the name of the most consumed fruit in the world, in different parts of the globe.
The most consumed fruit in the world has a stronger connection with Portugal than with any other country. It all starts 500 years ago, in the 16th century.
When Portuguese navigators brought the orange from China to Europe, they showed it to the world. The impact of this fruit was so great that, in many languages, its name became directly linked to Portugal.
Today, in several languages, the word used for “orange” derives from “Portugal”.
In Romanian we say “portocală”; in Turkish and Bulgarian, “portukal”; in Greek “portokáli”. In Persian and Arabic, the name “Portugal” itself is synonymous with orange. In Farsi, the official language of Iran and Afghanistan, the word orange means “orange”.
“This starts because, in Veneto, the language of the Venetian Republic, the name of the fruit, “orange”, was similar to the name of Portugal, probably because the Portuguese brought the sweet orange to Europe”, the master in Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Marco Franco Neves. “In some languages it also ended up being the name of the color”.
Even today, Portugal’s connection to oranges echoes throughout the economy. It is the second most produced fruit in the country, right after the apple.
But if the orange was named after Portugal, where does the name “Portugal” itself come from? Almost all Portuguese already know this: it comes from the old toponym “Portus Cale”, associated with the Porto region.
