The Naartjie
I thought I would take some time to educate my fellow Americans about the naartjie. Why? Because I’m a nerd and a dork and that is what I do best.
I served a mission in South Africa from 1996-1998. There they had these little oranges that were so much easier to peel – which made them so much more delightful to eat.
Before my mission I had never seen them in the states. I asked a few missionaries about them and some said they had and said they were referred to as mandarin oranges, tangerines, or even clementines. The only mandarin oranges I knew about was those in the can and they were pretty much the same size as a peeled naartjie.
Even since I’ve been home I haven’t seen them much. Maybe it’s just because I don’t look, or maybe they were not that popular in Utah.
A couple of years ago there a appeared a new store in our local mall called Naartjie. It’s a children’s clothing store and my wife was a big fan. I can’t remember how she mangled her pronunciation of the name, but I corrected her and explained what a naartjie is.
Well this Christmas naartjies seem to be everywhere! Friends and family are giving them to us in boxes like they are a new invention and telling us how wonderful they are and easy to peel. So obviously I haven’t been the only one that hasn’t noticed them in the past right?
Well, last night my mom gave a us box of them and as my wife and sister in law were talking my wife referred to one as a naartjie. My sister in law had not heard the term obviously and wondered where that name came from. Since my wife considers most of the things I teach her as nerdy, unnecessary information to retain, she couldn’t remember where she heard that name. I was watching a football game and so I wasn’t there to expound my wisdom, but I did hear them ask my brother, who served a mission in Spain what the Spanish word for orange was. When he said naranja, I figured out what they were talking about. I remember thinking about that cognate when I first heard the word naartjie in South Africa. I did take 2 years of Spanish in Jr. High. I don’t remember much, but for some odd reason I did remember the word for orange. That’s when I dispersed my highly coveted knowledge of what a naartjie is.
And now you know.
But what I would like to know is, where did the word “Orange” come from?
See also: www.answers.com/topic/naartjie
[tags]naartjie, citrus, orange, mandarin orange[/tags]
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The root of the word ‘naartjie’ is from the Tamil word ‘nartei’. Afrikaans as a language was very slightly influenced by Asian languages due to the slaves the early Dutch settlers brought to the country from Asia, who were predominantly Indian, in the 16 and 17 ’00s.
Naartjie’s are some damn good!
I thought you were gonna ask what rhymes with “Orange”. LOL
I live in south africa and cant believe americans didnt know this
Well, honestly, this name guided how the other cultures in South African call it. Im not an Afrikaaner, but we call it nerekisi, which is taken from naartjie.
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