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A legendary apple
Apple and power
Apple and beauty
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ORIGIN OF APPLE

The apple has appeared approximately two million years ago. By incredible chance, the apple and the man began their adventure on earth at the same time, and since this time, have always remained together.

The apple has followed the man in his migrations through the world, passing initially by Egypt, Greece, Italy… That is why, preserved dried apple slices in prehistoric clay pots were found in Switzerland and the North of Italy.

FAMILY TREE

Nature has not created the apple tree as we know it today. It would be the fruit of a non very usual marriage between the primitive plum tree and the meadowsweet. This hybridization gave apple a particularly rich genetic code and explains why there are so many varieties of apples.

ETHYMOLOGY

The history of words confirms that apple was the first fruit adopted by men. In Roman, Germanic and Celtic languages, it is almost always a term representing the fruit in general which was gradually used to designate apple.

French have built the word “pomme” on Latin “pomum”, i.e. on the term used to designate all the fruits. Then the word “pomme” was tighten within the meaning of “apple” in medieval Latin. Nevertheless, it kept a double meaning until the beginning of the XXth century, by indicating at the same time apple strictly speaking and every more or less round fruit, such as “pomme de grenade” (which became Pomegranate while crossing the Channel), “pomme de terre” (potato), “pomme de pin” (pine cone)…

Apart from Roman Europe, apple had an Indo-European name, abol, which gave the Germanic forms apel into gotic, appel in old Saxon and Dutch, apple in English and Swedish, apfel in German, aeble in Danish…

In the history of words, apple represents the fruit “by excellence”. It may be this common lexicon between apple and fruit which allows to attribute to apple several biblical histories or mythological legends.