# arándanos



## AdrienDeLaChicago

Hello, all.

I recall learning that arándanos was Spanish for cranberries. But a friend of mine from Mexico is debating with me and says that cranberries are called zarzamoras. But aren't zarzamoras Spanish for blackberries? 

Is this how extreme regional differences can be? 

Thank you for reading my thread. Hope to get some input.


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## User With No Name

Not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure your friend is confused.

I'm reasonably positive that arándanos can be either cranberries (arándanos rojos) or blueberries (arándanos azules).


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## AdrienDeLaChicago

Thanks for chiming in. I don't get it. She's from Mexico and we talk in Spanish. But sometimes a word comes along that we don't agree on and I get confused.


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## User With No Name

Are you sure she's not confused between blackberries and blueberries?


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## Amapolas

I agree with you, Adrien and No Name. 
The problem is, fruits and vegetables 'do have a tendency' to get varied names in different regions and to generate confusion.


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## User With No Name

Amapolas said:


> Yo digo papa, vos decís patata.


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## AdrienDeLaChicago

I asked her to pick up some cranberries from the store and she got me the right thing but she was calling them zarzamoras.

I am no expert but I think "mora" en zarzamoras has a Moorish reference. I could be wrong, but I make a Spanish dish from a cookbook that I have with Spanish recipes from Spain. One is called Moros y Cristianos and is a dish with black beans an white rice. The black beans are the Moors and the white rice are the Christians. So I wonder if mora in "zarzamora" is a female reference just like moro is a male (or general reference to both genders) reference to the Moors. If that's true it would certainly follow a consistent reference to the word black for black beans and blackberries.


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## User With No Name

AdrienDeLaChicago said:


> I am no expert but I think "mora" en zarzamoras has a Moorish reference. I could be wrong, but I make a Spanish dish from a cookbook that I have with Spanish recipes from Spain.


I looked at the etymology of "mora" in the DRAE, and it doesn't seem to be related to "moro" (Moor).

(As an aside, the name of the dish "moros y cristianos" has always made me cringe. But that's just me.)


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## Amapolas

I believe it comes from a Latin word for mulberry.


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## User With No Name

Also, don't some Spanish speakers use "mora" as a general term for "berry"?


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## AdrienDeLaChicago

User With No Name said:


> I looked at the etymology of "mora" in the DRAE, and it doesn't seem to be related to "moro" (Moor).
> 
> (As an aside, the name of the dish "moros y cristianos" has always made me cringe. But that's just me.)



Actually, just looking up the word "mora" on this site and it does say that it is a reference to female mores. But it also just means blackberry. 

mora - Diccionario Inglés-Español WordReference.com


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## Amapolas

User With No Name said:


> Also, don't some Spanish speakers use "mora" as a general term for "berry"?


Not in my region. Wait for input from other NSS.


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## User With No Name

Amapolas said:


> Not in my region. Wait for input from other NSS.


I think you're right. I was thinking of "baya." (Which is not a word I've heard very much, but that's neither here nor there.)

As always, thanks for your help.


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## Amapolas

AdrienDeLaChicago said:


> Actually, just looking up the word "mora" on this site and it does say that it is a reference to female mores. But it also just means blackberry.
> 
> mora - Diccionario Inglés-Español WordReference.com


Where exactly does it say the the name of the fruit is a reference to female moors? Isn't this 'whishful reading'?  Maybe we're doing 'popular etymology'. 
As I understand, the name of the fruit comes from, well, the name of the fruit in Latin. And the name of the people comes from the old name of Northern Africa in Latin, which passed into Spanish as Mauritania. If the two are related, I don't know, but perhaps we need someone conversant in Latin to be sure.


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## User With No Name

Amapolas said:


> If the two are related, I don't know, but perhaps we need someone conversant in Latin to be sure.


As I said, I looked on the RAE website, and while my knowledge of Latin is very shaky, it's pretty clear that "moro/a" (Moor) and "mora" (the fruit thing we can't decide what to call) come from different Latin words.

The fact that "mora" is also the feminine form of "moro" is not, of course, in doubt, as far as I know.


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## Amapolas

User With No Name said:


> As I said, I looked on the RAE website, and while my knowledge of Latin is very shaky, it's pretty clear that "moro/a" (Moor) and "mora" (the fruit thing we can't decide what to call) come from different Latin words.
> 
> The fact that "mora" is also the feminine form of "moro" is not, of course, in doubt, as far as I know.


My thoughts too.


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## Tampiqueña

Hola:

Les decimos arándanos en muchas partes de México, yo diría que en la mayor parte de México.


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## MiguelitOOO

Hi

Zarza morada = zarzamora

Morado/morada = purple

En mi región mexicana los cranberries son arándanos. Y sólo conozco los rojos. 

El problema es que los blueberries si pasan a veces como zarzamoras.


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## Elixabete

In Spain:
-Zarzamora, the plant ( blackberry bush)/ a well known copla.
- Mora(s), the fruit (blackberries).
- Arándanos, blueberries.
- Arándanos rojos, cranberries.
- Berries, bayas, frutas del bosque.


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## Rodal

Arándanos rojos ~ cranberries
Arándanos azules ~ blue berries
Bayas ~ berries


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## levmac

You have to bear in mind the average speaker is not necessarily an expert! I can identify a blueberry, cranberry, strawberry, raspberry... and not a million others. If you lined up a blackberry with a blackcurrant and a redcurrant and a gooseberry... I would have to make educated guesses.

In my experience in Spain, a lot of people say *frutas del bosque* and have even more limited understanding than I do of what different berries there are. I have seen more than argument about arándanos, with some people convinced there is another word, etc. I think it's just a common grey area of knowledge.


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## Mr.Dent

In the DRAE baya is defined as: 


> 1. f. Tipo de fruto carnoso con semillas rodeadas de pulpa; p. ej., *el tomate y la uva*.
> 
> 2. f. Planta de la familia de las liliáceas, de raíz bulbosa y hojas radicales, que son estrechas y cilíndricas. El bohordo, de diez a doce centímetros dealtura, produce en su extremidad multitud de florecitas de color azuloscuro.
> 
> 3. f. matacandiles.


Although botanically tomatoes and grapes are both berries, we never think of them as berries in the USA. Since several native speakers in this thread have identified the word baya to be a generic term for berries, I am wondering if Hispanics think of the tomato and the grape as types of berries. Or is this just a case of the DRAE being overly academic?

Secondly, as lilies and tulips are the most well known members of the Liliaceae family, are they commonly referred to as bayas?


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## Elixabete

Lilies and tulips are " bulbos". Nobody in Spain ( and I'd say anywhere else but you never know) says that tomatos and grapes are " bayas". For us grapes are fruit and tomatos are tomatos, if you push me to put them in a category I'd call them " hortaliza". Mind you, I'm not being scientifically accurate, just expressing what the average shopper would say.


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## Amapolas

I remember my secondary school botany classes, where we learnt the differences between, _bayas, drupas, hesperidios _and _pepónidos_. But that was botany; we don't normally use the word 'bayas'. It's something you might find in literature (as when Jane Eyre was lost in the moor and ate bilberries; a translation will probably say _bayas_) but it's not your everyday word. And many people don't even know that tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers or aubergines are fruits; or artichokes and broccoli, flowers. That's all very nice and technical, but you normally think of them as veg.


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## Johncbcn

All of the above posts are very interesting, as I also find it very difficult to distinguish between the various types of berry grown locally (and I'm a hobby gardener).
The general consensus, where I live, is that "arándanos rojos" are cranberries.


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## User With No Name

Para volver a la pregunta original: ¿Hay mucha gente, en México o en otra parte, que llame "zarzamoras" a los "cranberries" (los cuales, creo que hemos establecido, se conocen como "arándanos rojos" en la mayoría del mundo de habla hispana)?


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## MiguelitOOO

User With No Name said:


> Para volver a la pregunta original: ¿Hay mucha gente, en México o en otra parte, que llame "zarzamoras" a los "cranberries" (los cuales, creo que hemos establecido, se conocen como "arándanos rojos" en la mayoría del mundo de habla hispana?


No. Lo que sucede es que una vez que alguien aprende en su infancia  el nombre de una fruta, es difícil aceptar que no es así en realidad (que se llama de otra manera). Eso es lo que seguramente sucede con el problema planteado en el post original que abrió este hilo. La amiga de la forera llama “cranberry” al “blackberry”. Esto es un descubrimiento que la amiga está haciendo y aceptando, posterior a haber dicho lo contrario.


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## User With No Name

MiguelitOOO said:


> No.


Gracias. Me gustan las respuestas de ese tipo.


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## MiguelitOOO

Mr.Dent said:


> In the DRAE baya is defined as:
> 
> Although botanically tomatoes and grapes are both berries, we never think of them as berries in the USA. Since several native speakers in this thread have identified the word baya to be a generic term for berries, I am wondering if Hispanics think of the tomato and the grape as types of berries. Or is this just a case of the DRAE being overly academic?
> 
> Secondly, as lilies and tulips are the most well known members of the Liliaceae family, are they commonly referred to as bayas?



El *arándano* es una baya, y el DRAE dice que el tomate también. Pues, solamente el tomate salvaje sería una baya, porque ese tomate es más pequeño que un tomate cherry y más pequeño que una uva. Es pequeño como un *arándano*.

(He resaltado esta vez la relación con el *arándano, título de este hilo*, que también es una baya).


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## Aserolf

MiguelitOOO said:


> No. Lo que sucede es que *una vez que alguien aprende en su infancia  el nombre de una fruta, es difícil aceptar que no es así en realidad* (que se llama de otra manera). Eso es lo que seguramente sucede con el problema planteado en el post original que abrió este hilo. La amiga de la forera llama “cranberry” al “blackberry”. Esto es un descubrimiento que la amiga está haciendo y aceptando, posterior a haber dicho lo contrario.


Estoy de acuerdo con Miguelito. 
Por mis lares son también *arándanos* (_*cranberries*_). Nada que ver con las zarzamoras que, para empezar, tienen la superficie muuuy diferente a la de los arándanos.


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## Amapolas

Solo una aclaración, Miguelito. Si bien en la lengua habitual nosotros llamamos bayas a los frutitos pequeños, desde el punto de vista de la botánica el tomate es una baya, no por su tamaño sino por el tipo de fruto. Es un tipo de clasificación de los frutos. 
Para mayor información, mira aquí, por ejemplo, el punto *6.2.3 Frutos carnosos*: Fruto - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre


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## MiguelitOOO

Gracias Amapolas por el link. Adivinaste.  Yo pensé que era por el tamaño. 
Saludos


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