Re: CHAT: Citrons (was: Danny Wier's PIE (was: Vocab #5))

Dan Sulani wrote:
>    As far as I can tell, the word |etrog| is a borrowing from
>Persian , where it is called something like [turundZ].
>    BTW: Here in Israel, the term
>|pri hadar| ( = beautiful fruit)
>is a general term referring not only  to the etrog,
>(citron),  but also to the  lemon, orange, grapefruit,
>and any other type of citrus fruit. (But only the
>etrog is used for the festival of Sukkot.)
Interesting speculation:  the common Indonesian word (seemingly only
attested in IN and the PI) is *j@ruk ("j"-- palatal affricate) 'citrus in
genl., sour'.  It _might_ ultimately be a borrowing (via lots of corrupted
intermediaries) of the Persian.  Though I think at least some varieties of
citrus originated in E or SE Asia...??

Well, exactly what IS the "citron"?  Citrus varieties known to me are the
common everyday orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit/pomelo; kumquat; mandarin
(AKA tangerine and clementine??), the seville and blood orange,  and
something called the calamondin (decorative in Florida, considered
inedible-- very sour-- but that mightn't stop some people).

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