Today, someone inquired about the connection between the word orangutan and the color orange. While it would be convenient if they were related, the true etymology is much more captivating. The term entered English in the late seventeenth century via Dutch orang-outan, which was adopted by sailors from the Malay phrase orang hutan referring to forest-dwelling people (not the ape, which had its own term, mawas). The literal translation of the name is “forest person,” derived from orang meaning “person” (from Proto-Malay urang, meaning “outsider”) and hutan meaning “forest” (from a Proto-Malay reconstruction with the same spelling and definition). Interestingly, the genus name, pongo, originates from a Kongo word for “gorilla” due to initial confusion between the two species.
