#orangeheads

MASTERLIST                                                                                        20.11.2019 | 0.3k words

— why do we call people "redheads" instead of "orangeheads"?

it stems from root words of those languages like orenge, pomum de orenge, narancia, and naranj. orange was not used as a word to signify color until the 1540s. the term "redhead" likely comes from the simple need to refer to redheads in english before orange used was to describe the color. [wtsp]

     one of the oft-cited illogical characteristics of the english language is why we say "redhead" to describe people who look like elizabeth i [of england], amy adams, or anne of green gables. hair colour closer to a carrot than a strawberry, would it not be more logical to call them "orangeheads" instead?

origin of "redheads" and oranges. according to etymonline, the word red in english dates straight back to the proto-indo-european word reudh, via the proto-germanic word rauthaz, and is also related to words like ruddy, rufus, and the surname reid. the fact that the word for "red" is so old is consistent with what we know about colour terms cross-linguistically: after black and white, red is generally the next earliest colour term that a language is likely to have (quick and dirty tips).

orange, on the other hand, only appears in english after the arrival of the fruits with the same name in england. according to etymonline again, the term for the fruit shows up around 1300 a.d. from the italian word arancia, via arabic naranj, and traces back to sanskrit naranga-s meaning "orange tree", but orange did not start being used in english for the colour until the 1540s, approximately two-hundred years later (quick and dirty tips).

the term redhead started to be used during the mid-1200s, at least a hundred years before oranges were known to english speaking people and even longer before orange was recognised as a colour (quick and dirty tips).

when the term redhead was coined, the english language did not differentiate between red and orange as it does today. which is why we call people "redheads" instead of "orangeheads" even though their hair colour is leaning more towards orange (quick and dirty tips).

think about how we today do not differentiate between different shades of green; we still call it green even when the shade is lighter or darker (quick and dirty tips).

before there was orange. it took until the english speakers had the fruit orange to name the colour orange. but did they not have a fruit or vegetable to name the orange colour after? like "carrots" or "pumpkins"?

with pumpkin there is a geographic problem. pumpkins were first grown in north america, and europeans had never heard of it until they started to travel to the other continent. by the time christopher columbus sailed to north america in 1492, he only sailed to the caribbean, where pumpkins are not really seen. and even if he did see one, there would be a language barrier as he did not speak english. it would take until the 1540s for the word pumpkin to become part of the english language (quick and dirty tips).

carrot came around during the 1530s (from greek karoton via latin carota), but as we previously established, orange, as a fruit, had already been around since two-hundred years back. and the final nail in the coffin: the earliest carrots were in fact purple. the orange carrot got more common during the 1600s when the dutch started to grow them.

reference

"why do we call people "redheads" instead of "orangeheads" - google search", google search.