Text | Hexi
Everything has a name, and a name must have a reason. There is no love and hate for no reason, and there is no name for no reason.
Therefore, the strange fruits also have their own names for a reason. Why is watermelon called watermelon? Why are oranges called oranges? Foreknowledge, and see below.
Watermelon
The first one is to talk about the "king of fruits" - watermelon.
Why is watermelon not called Donggua? Obviously, it's called watermelon from the west. This west is the western region.
Watermelon, native to Africa, has been cultivated in Egypt for more than 4,000 years. From Africa, watermelon gradually spread to the Nordic region, then to the Middle East, India and other places, and finally from the western region to China. At that time, Chinese because this melon came from the western region, it was called "watermelon". According to this logic, if the watermelon is passed down from Japan and Korea, the name will probably become "Dong Gua".
The reason why the pumpkin is called a pumpkin is because the northerners believe that this melon fruit comes from the south; the reason why it is called "squash" is because some people think that it came from Japan. In fact, Both Japan and Southern China are transit points, and its real origin is South America.
tangerine
Oranges, often written as oranges, are actually a conventional way of writing. The word orange, originally had only one pronunciation, that is, the second sound of jie, referring to the orange stem.
Orange is the right name for this fruit. Because the word orange is more difficult to write, some people use the word orange to replace orange, and only then did they have the name orange.
As far as the original meaning of the word orange is concerned: "orange" to the right is "矞", above which is a spear, referring to "sharp thorns", because there are many spikes on the branches of orange trees, so this word means "tree with thorns in the branches".
mango
Similar to the case of oranges, mangoes.
Mango, the Modern Chinese Dictionary clearly states: the canonical way of writing is the fruit, and the mango is just a common name. 杧, is a word specially made for mangoes to distinguish it from another kind of mango: it is a tall perennial thatch planted, also known as bamao.
Now I know that mangoes should be written about the fruit, I am afraid that there are not many. Whether it is 杧 or mang, the pronunciation is mang, so why is it called mang? The pronunciation of "mango" is first derived from the Tamil language of southern India. Tamils used to call mangoes "ma-gay". Among them, "ma" refers to this fruit and "gay" refers to unripe fruit. This is because in order to facilitate storage and transportation, people picked are unripe green mangoes, green mangoes after a period of storage and transportation, to the buyer's hand just naturally ripe. This pronunciation is also the origin of mango's Latin literary name Mangifera indicaL.
loquat
The reason why the fruit loquat is called loquat is because the shape of loquat (mainly pear-shaped loquat) after cutting is very similar to the musical instrument lute, so the name, so the two names of loquat and pipa are so similar is not a coincidence, but related.
apple
Apple's problem is more complicated, and the academic community is still inconclusive. It is said to be related to Buddhism and is confused with Pinpa (hyacinth fruit). But the two are completely different, the phoenix fruit and the apple do not have any similarities, how can it be wrong? The apple was called 柰 in ancient China, and Liu Ru has a poem "Tong Hua is the most mournful, and the bi que is empty". Also known as Lin Yu, the Japanese singer Shiki Hayashi, which means "Vertebral Apple". But this is not the apple we eat now, the fruit is very small, and now there are also cultivated and sold, called sand fruit. The current Apple Yuan Dynasty was imported from the Western Regions, also known as Huiguo and Pingbo. Can Pingbo literally mean "pacify Persia"?
In 1253, Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led an army across the Amu Darya River and began the last expedition of the Mongol army. Hulagu defeated the Ismains in Western Asia, then destroyed the Abbasid dynasty, establishing a state that stretched from the Khorasan region of eastern Persia to Baghdad in Iraq, the Ilkhanate.
But the complication of Apple's problem is that Apple's traditional characters do not write "apple" or "flat fruit", but "apple". It shows that this "apple" word may indeed be related to the frequency of the po, and it should come from the "frequency" of the pin po.
Is it possible that pingbo is misremembered as a frequency because it is harmonized with the frequency wave? If this is the case, it may be a more logical explanation of the origin of the name Apple.
After the Opium War in modern times, the British planted apples in Yantai, and Chinese began to eat really delicious apples, which are Western apples, and most of the apples we eat now are like this, and its history is very short. This is why The apple in Yantai is so famous.
grape
Grape is a transliteration of the Persian word budawa. It first appeared in Sima Xiangru's Shanglin Fu and the Chronicle of Dawan Lie, writing Pu Tao. Chinese the earliest known vines planted and the wine made from grapes was in 128 BC when Zhang Qian went out to the Western Regions, passing through the kingdoms of Dawan and Kang (Sogdia), and when he returned to report that Dawan saw wine made of grapes in Dawan. The grapes are native to western Asia, and Persia is an important source of grapes.
lichee
Lychee, the earliest writing of "detachment", appeared in Sima Xiangru's Shanglin Fu. Refers to leaving the branches. In "Shanglin Fu", the names of loquat, bayberry, and cherry also appear for the first time.
cherry
The "cherry" of the cherry, on the right is the "baby" of the baby, which refers to the small.
Very small peaches, called cherries.
banana
The aroma of bananas is well understood, and the fruits of bananas have a faint aroma, but what is this banana? It's actually plantains. Plantains and bananas are close relatives, and not only are the plants very similar in form, but the fruits and flowers are very similar. This picture looks like a banana flower, which is very similar to a banana blossom.
pineapple
Pineapple, brought to Europe from South America by Columbus, spread to China in the 16th century, has nothing to do with India, but because it is a bit similar to Indian jackfruit, so the pineapple planted on the ground was initially considered to be a grass pineapple, and the jackfruit that grows on the tree is a wooden pineapple, which is how it came, some people say that the name pineapple is to commemorate Marco Polo Is complete nonsense.
peach
Of all the fruits, peaches are the most mysterious.
The story in "Journey to the West" is very familiar to everyone, saying that the 1200 peach trees in the former district of the Queen Mother's mother are "ripe for three thousand years", 1200 peach trees in the central district are "ripe for six thousand years", and 1200 peach trees in the back area are "ripe for nine thousand years".
People who eat "three thousand years and one ripe" become immortals and have a light body; they eat the Xiaju of "six thousand years and one ripe" and soar, immortality; and those who eat "nine thousand years and one ripe" live together with heaven and earth, and the sun and the moon are the same. That is to say, eating "six thousand years and one cooked" can achieve the effect of eating Tang monk meat, eating "nine thousand years a cooked", naturally more magical than eating Tang monk meat.
In Jin Yong's "Legend of the Archery Hero", the island where the Eastern Evil Yellow Medicine Master lives is called Peach Blossom Island. Why Peach Blossom Island? Because the Oriental is a wood, a plant is needed to embody the properties of this five elements.
The "Feng" of Ouyang Feng in the West and the "Hong" of the Seven Dukes of Hong in the North have already exposed their relationship with the Five Elements, the west belongs to gold, and the north belongs to water. This is the embodiment of Jin Yong's deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture.
Peach, native to China, literally, the right is a "zhao", one is said to be the pattern on the peach core like a turtle shell, in the shape of a "mega" glyph, which can omen the future; the other means that when the peach blossoms bloom, the thousand flowers bloom, such as the sun in the sky, extremely dazzling. The meaning of the trillion is one trillion or two trillion in the computer, which means many, so it can ward off evil spirits. Therefore, the ancients made swords out of peach wood to drive away evil spirits and ghosts. Therefore, a place that is not affected by the outside world or a utopian world in fantasy is called Xanadu, which is related to the ancient people's understanding of peach.
It is worth pointing out that the peach mentioned in "Journey to the West" is an almond, not the appearance of this peach used in various cartoons and TV series, which is a common mistake made by people who are not familiar with plants.
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