@@ Etymology of "Anar" @@
Arash
December 1, 2005
Bowlful of fruity meaning
Etymology of Anar
By Guive Mirfendereski
This is the time of the year when the fruit bowl that sits atop the eating counter in
my kitchen begins to reflect the autumnal colors outdoors. In this still life the
color orange is represented by the seedless "narengi" (tangerine), the mellowing
bananas provide the browning yellow. But dominating it all in color and presence is
the "anar" (pomegranate). I love pomegranate. Unlike any other fruit, perhaps with
the exception of coconut or pineapple, it requires labor and precision in bringing
its marvelous rewards to the lips. And, boy, is it ever worth it!
In my recipe, I first seed the pomegranate in a bowl that is nestled deep in the sink
in order to avoid an excessive marking of the surroundings with the microscopic
squirts of the juice. An average size pomegranate yields a few hundred fleshy
vesicles (douneh). I then slice up a narengi or two and add it to the seeds. A dash
of salt and pinch of "golpar" later – I am ready for a mouthwatering experience. What
I like most about this concoction is that it assembles in most complimentary way all
the four basic tastes -- the sweet and sour of the tangerine and pomegranate,
salinity of salt, and bitterness of golpar. The dictionary defines golpar as Persian
marjoram, origan, mountain-pride, angelica. But like "gojeh" (green baby plum) golpar
defies definition, it is experienced.
In Farsi, the word for pomegranate is anar, for which the poetic "nar" is a
contraction. The pomegranate blossom is appropriately called "golnar" (also gol-e
anar,nargol), literally, flower (gol) of pomegranate.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the "Punica granatum" is the size of a large
orange and its skin color ranges from brownish yellow to red; it is considered
indigenous to Iran and early on its cultivation encircled the Mediterranean and
extended through Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan and India. Regardless, due to its
caloric content, if memory serves, "anar" is classified in the Iranian culinary
folklore as a "garmi" (warm) fruit.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word pomegranate in English consists
of derivations from the Latin ponum (fruit) and granatum (grainy, seedy). In Old
French, the fruit was called pomme granatum in which pomme had come to mean apple and
granatum (Italian: granata; Spanish: granada) referred perhaps less to the seedy
nature of the fruit but rather its place of origination in Granada. In modern French
the fruit is called simply grenade.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the city of Granada in southern Spain owes its
name either to the Spanish granada (pomegranate), a locally abundant fruit that
appears on the city’s coat or arms, or to the Moorish name from the place that was
Karnattah (Gharnatah) possibly meaning “hill of strangers”. My money is on the first
explanation, which could interpret the Moorish name of the place as a corruption of
the place’s Spanish name having something to do with the pomegranate.
Because pomegranate is indigenous to Iran one naturally tends to assume that the
Farsi word anar should be Persian. In Arabic the word anNar means fire and, according
to the Dictionary of Islam, it occurs in the Koran very frequently for hell.
According to my Haim Farsi-Inglisi Dictionary, in Farsi too the word nar means fire
and its plural "niran" means hell. From my childhood, however, I recall the saying
that "anar mieveh beheshtist" (pomegranate is a paradisiacal fruit).
Exactly how the presumptively infernal fruit became suddenly heavenly was not clear
to me until now. According to the "hadith" (Islamic parables), per Encyclopaedia
Britannica, the Prophet Mohammad remarked, “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the
system of envy and hatred”. My guess is that the Prophet’s urging was necessary in
order to educate the hoards that had considered the fruit hellish, evil! The fact of
the hadith, if it is to be believed, makes a strong case for the Farsi word anar to
be of Arabic origin. Not!
The key to understanding nar or anar as a Persian word is in the adjective "anaryn",
which, according to Haim, is synonymous with "zang", a general word in Persian for
oxidization of many different substances.
The color of iron rust is the same as the brownish-reddish color of the pomegranate
skin. I posit that in Persian the word for brownish-reddish rust would have been
"anar", from which derived "anaryn" (rusty). It would have been made up of "anar",
plus "yn", like in "rang" (color) and "rangyn" (colorful). The relation between the
Arabic anNar (fire) and Persian anar (pomegranate) could therefore be coincidental. I
tend to think that Arabic, in which the common word for fire is "harq", probably
derived the word anNar from the Persian anar, which reminded the Arabic speaker of
the color of fire. That Arabic would be receptive to taking in the Persian anar is
evident in Arabic word "narjyl" from the Persian "nargyl", meaning coconut. Another
example of Arabicization of a Persian fruit name is narenj, which in Persian is
"narang".
* Guive Mirfendereski is a professorial lecturer in international relations and law;
and the VP and GC at Virtual Telemetry Corporation since 2004 and is the artisan
doing business as Guy vanDeresk (http://www.trapworks.com). Born in Tehran in 1952,
he is a graduate of Georgetown University's College of Arts and Sciences (BA), Tufts
University's Fletcher School (PhD, MALD, MA) and Boston College Law School (JD). He
is the author of "A Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312240058).
http://www.iranian.com/GuiveMirfendereski/2005/December/Fruity/index.html