Back to the OP... (oh noes!)
The French dictionary that goes "all the way" back to Italian does not explain the initial 'n' in Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, etc. words for orange. Since oranges came to Europe from India and points further east by way of Persia, all those older Eastern languages seem a rather glaring indicator that there was originally an 'n' or that there's something else mysterious to explain away before you can assume that Italian is the authority.
I don't think anyone is denying that the word originated in the East, nor that it lost its initial "n" somewhere along the way. It's just that the explanation is lacking since the change is seen across many languagues, but English is the only one where the pattern "a n..." --> "an ..." exists.
In fairness, it could be argued that in French "ton norange" and "ton orange" are pronounced identically (because of the liason between a terminal consonant and a following vowel) and thus this route from
naranga to
orange would be plausible. However, since the French dictionaries indicate that the word came from Italian and almost all-- if not all-- indo-European languages have endured a similar change, although the concept is plausible I still rest unconvinced.
Cheers,
Kenn Sebesta
OP
