| Neutral | Thaumaturgist | On Sep 12, 2003, Thaumaturgist from Rockledge, FL (Zone 10a) wrote: The Portuguese was well entrenched in Goa, Daman and Diu on the Arabian Sea in the west coast of India before the end of the 16th century. Portuguese traders, missionaries and pirates were traveling back and forth between Brazil, India and Portugal.
The abundance of a colorful and tasty fruit the natives called MANGAY didn’t go unnoticed to the Portuguese. Trying to pronounce the word MANGAY for the fruit that they had never seen before, it came out as MANGO.
By 1811, Goa’s most popular Mango was getting exported to Brazil. Called PIRES in Goa, it got called PAIRI in Brazil. Later the name BOMBAY was added to PAIRI to identify its Indian origin, Bombay (modern day Mumbai) being the most recognizable name from India at that time.
From Brazil, BOMBAY PAIRI went to the West Indies and got well established and very popular there. The name then changed simply to BOMBAY. |
