Mr. Portokalos and the Marmalade

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (credit: Wikipedia)

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"Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek.... Kimono, kimono, kimono. Ha! Of course! Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So, what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono."

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a huge success and I honestly have never met anyone that hasn't really liked the film. Perhaps Mr. Portokalos represents a hole generation of Greeks. Men that were forced to leave their country for a better tomorrow, men that could wait for years to hear, or see, something from back home, men that deep inside their soul feel nostalgia, pain, anger and a sour complain for their lost country and how She treated them. The same feeling is rooted deep inside me as many others. Being angry for Her, saying bitter things for Her and for my brothers, but only my heart knows what She means to me, what I felt when my son touched the stones of Olympia and the marbles of Epidaurus. Pride, completion and pain.

Perhaps it only takes a Greek to understand these feelings, as I am very sure that we have our very own way of thinking.

It is the love for their country that lead them to teach the whole world about Hellas´s greatest achievement; Her language and its´ contribution worldwide. All Greeks have to be careful though. Hellenism is at the its´ most difficult era since the foundation of the Hellenic Republic, and they are in a grave danger to associate the terms of unreliability and beggary with their name. Indeed thousands of Greek words are all around the globe, and indeed philosophy is strongly connected to Hellenism. But this does not mean that all philosophers are Greeks. Likewise, it doesn´t mean that all words are from the Hellenic language, and we have to be careful with that, in order to avoid any further mockery; and brake at last the taboo of Greeks hellenising everything. Close to the end of that film, on the wedding speech, Mr. Portokalos said:

"You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word "milo," which is mean "apple," so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word "portokali," which mean "orange." So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end ... we all fruit".

Mr. Portokalos was once again, wrong. He was wrong because he actually switched the origins of the fruits he talked about. See, ¨portokali¨ is indeed greek for orange, but it isn´t any greek at all, since the term is a loan from the latin languages, owning its´ name to the kingdom of Portugal which introduced it to the rest in Europe. In addition, Mr. Portokalos failed to explain correctly what is happening with the ¨Mila¨ (greek for apples) simply because the word ¨apples¨ is of greek etymology. That´s right, the word apples comes from the greek language.

The term apple in english comes from the Old English Æppel meaning "any kind of fruit; fruit in general", from the Proto Germanic ap(a)laz, from the Proto Hellenic Ἃμπελ (pron. Àbel) for Ἃμπελος (pron. Ábelos) meaning ¨grapes, wineyard¨


Etymological Analysis:

1. Apple - English
2. Æppel - Old English for ¨Fruit¨, any kind of.
3. Appel - Norse from Old Frisian
4. Ap(a)laz - Proto Germanic
5. Abel - Latin
6. `Ἃμπελος (pron. Àbelos) - Hellenic for grapes (vineyard) the most important fruit of the ancient world.

Important, is to note that the modern word for apple in the greek language is Μήλο (pron. mēēlo) which is also the root of many other fruit names in the western languages. For example melon, watermelon, cucumber and marmalade owe their names to the greek language.


Melon:

1. from Old Frisian - melon,
2. Medieval Latin - melonem,
3. Latin - melopeponem,
4. Hellenic -  Μηλοπέπον (pron. melopepon) *pepon is greek for a kind of gourd.

 Watermelon:

Water + Mellon (water is also of Hellenic origin)

1. Old English - wæter,
2. Proto Germanic - *watar (cf. O.S. watar, O.Fris. wetir, Du. water)
3. Old High German - wazzar, Gothic - wato,
4. Dacian *wodor/*wedor/*uder- ,
5. Hellenic  - Ὓδωρ (Ydor) ) + Melon (apple, fruit)

Cucumber:
The word that replaced the original Eeorþæppla, (Eeorþ+æppla meaning earth+apple)       *(earth is also of Hellenic origin)

1. Old English eorþe
2. Pr.Ger erþō
3. Ἓρπω (pron. Èrpo) meaning crawl in the earth + apple, hellenic for fruit.

Marmalade:

1. Medival French - marmelade,
2. Portuguese - marmelada "quince jelly, marmalade," -> marmelo "quince," by dissimulation from Latin
3. Latin - melimelum "sweet apple,"
4. Hellenic melimelon, from meli (honey) + melon (apple)

In addition to the words above, there are also many other fruits that owe their names to the Hellenic language, irrelevantly with the terms Melon and Apple. If we would ask for a number, then we should think in tens, while if we do not put all latin languages into the same group, but see them individually as languages, then we talk for hundreds of them. I will give only a small example;  the fruits: apricot, peach, pineapple, and the term pommes for potatoes.


Apricot:

1. 1550s, -abrecock, from
2. Catalan - abercoc,
3. Portuguese - albricoque,
4. Spanish  - albaricoque,
5. Italian - albicocca,
6. Arabic -  أَلْبَرْقُوق  (pron. al-birquq),
7. Byzantine Hellenic - Βερύκοκκον (pron. verikokkon, beríkoko),
8. Latin - praecoquum
9. Hellenic - Πραίκοξον (pron. praecoxon) - (Πρίν+Κόκκος / Prín+kókkos) for premature.

Peach:

1. 12c., from Old French - pesche (O.N.Fr. - peske, Fr. - pêche),
2. Medieval Latin -  pesca,
3. L.L. pessica, variant of persica "peach, peach tree,"
4. Latin - malum Persicum "Persian apple,"
5. Hellenic Περσικόν Μήλον (pron. Persikon malon), from "Persia." the Hellenic name given by the Greeks to the Iranians.

Pineapple:
from pine+apple. Pine originates:

1. Old English - pin,
2. Latin - pinus,
3. Skt - pituh "juice, sap, resin,"
4. Hellenic -  Πίτυς (pron. pitys) "pine tree,"

Pommes
(meaning potatoes in most western European languages)

1. Pommes - c.1400, of types of apples or apple-shaped objects,
2. Old French - pome (Mod.Fr. pomme),
3. Late Latin - poma “apple,”
4. Latin -  pomus “fruit,” later “apple.”
5. Proto Italic - Prumnus,
6. Hellenic - προῦμνον, προῦμνος (pron. prúmnos) for ¨plums, cherries, peaches, apricots¨ e.g Pomegranate, Pommes Frittes etc.

Useful Trivia

After the consolidation of Christianity in the Roman world, and consequently to all the widths and lengths of the Empire, the apple fruit became an exclusively negative object, due to the Original Sin (Peccatum originale / Προπατορικό Aμάρτημα) of Adam & Eve resulting the Fall of Man. As the latin language was the De Facto language of all Europe, the latin word Malum which stands for apple, became synonym of evil, wick, and ill will, creating consequently the other etymological meaning of the term; Malus. Today there are countless words deriving from Malus that are being used regularly. Example of derivatives: malnutrition, malveillants, malicious, malevolent, maligno. ₪

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”   - George Bernard Shaw