hw did the language we speak cme cos no 1 cud speak n y is an orange called an orange wen its the colour orange is it

Question: hw did the language we speak cme cos no 1 cud speak n y is an orange called an orange wen its the colour orange is it cs it orange?:S

Asked by toddy13 to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
- Alastair Sloan answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  That’s a difficult one!
  
  Language develops through use and how it is passed down generations. The origins of language are complex and nobody really knows how it developed and there are many ideas and theories. Some people separate language and speech and say that language is the ability to communicate concepts by any means (not necessarily by talking). This has been around for a long time and many animals can communicate concepts in their groups.
  
  As for speech, well to speak you need what is called a descended larynx, which we have, but we don’t fully know when that occurred and how we came to make the first vocalisations. Certainly speech developed from modifiying the first vocalisations (grunts and howls). As early man evolved, anatomical changes in the skull would make it easier to make different sounds, and as our brains became more developed, we could understand and interpret such sounds.
  
  An orange is called an orange just because it is!
- Keith Brain answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  Languages must have built up gradually, with extra words being added as they were needed and as our brains grew big enough to cope with new works. I suppose that our ancestors just kept making the same noise until their meaning was understood – eventually, it clicked, and then the sound becomes a word.
  
  Why is an orange an orange – probably because whoever named the orange had run out of original names!
- Vicki Stevenson answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Hi Toddy
  Oranges actually spread westwards from China to India to the Middle East, Europe then the Americas. It’s thought that along the way, the name changed a bit to accommodate the local language.
  Sanskrit – narangah
  Persian – narang
  Old Italian – melarancio (mela means fruit and arancio means orange tree)
  Old French – pume orenge
  English – orange.
  oranges had reached us and been named by 1380.
  Before fruit oranges arrived the colour orange was known in Old English as geoluhread (which means yellow-red), but the word orange took over and is first recorded as being used as a colour name in 1512.
  
  This is just one example of how language evolves. The people who make dictionaries pay attention to new words and try to make sure they get them included in new versions of the dictionary.
- Emma Carter answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  the modern languages we speak today have evolved over hundreds of years from other languages (in our case influenced by the languages of the people who invaded us like the saxons and the romans).
  
  As for an orange being orange – why not? Same reason a green is green and a violet is violet 😉

Comments

Moderator - Sophia commented on 17 Jun 2010:

Apparently the word orange was for the fruit first, and then after that was used for the colour. Before then the colour was called geoluhread by english-speaking people. The teachers will hate me but I’m going to give you a wikipedia page to reference that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word)

Remember kids, just cos I’m doing it here, doesn’t mean you can use wikipedia as a reference when you are writing essays!

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Question: hw did the language we speak cme cos no 1 cud speak n y is an orange called an orange wen its the colour orange is it cs it orange?:S