I think "khaki" is a good example of how a modern color term can encompass hues from different parts of the color spectrum. It can describe both yellow and green hues, as long as they're quite desaturated and light. Similar to "bleikr" for pink and yellow.
I think a good example to get across the difference between colors in different languages is that the light blue/dark blue distinction in russian might be like the blue/purple distinction in english. In some language purple might just be considered a shade of blue, like how in our language dark and light blue are shades of blue.
I remember the examples of gold being called "red" in east slavic languages (Russian and Ukrainian sources in particular), but nowadays most sources blame the copper content in the almost-pure gold tinting it rose. The pure gold also does have a darker yellow, almost orange hue to it, so if the lighting was mostly yellow-red (wood fires, sun to some extent), it appears reddish. I wonder if similar reasons could be used to explain the sun being red. Egg yolks being red makes sense, since they're more orange in Europe even today, compared to much more yellow ones in the US. It also doesn't help that a lot of the Russian perceived uses of red to mean yellow, such as the "red sun" (Кра́сно(е) Со́лнышко), actually comes from the word meaning "beautiful" rather than a color designation (as evidenced by the Ukrainian rendition of the same nickname as Красне Сонечко rather than червоне сонечко or some such).
this sort of stuff makes me realize how important Newton was for us seeing colors as ROYGBIV, and the fact that there was once a totally non-ROYGBIV way of looking at color
I see a beige colour under violet. Wondered recently if it was just me. But recently at an art gallery there was a photograph with a rainbow in the scene and I asked my Dad if he saw another colour under the violet and he saw the same as me. Anyone else?
@@zoymills9868 some of the "sight" genetics are X chromosome, so men can end up colorblind and conversely some women can be "super see-ers". its very possible that most of us are somewhere in the middle, but some might notice tones or shades or whatever, that others dont
Also may make senese to view Yellow as a bleak/washed-out/diluted version of Red in some contexts of pigments and liquids, as longer wavelengths gets absorbed quicker. Example, when you have a mug of coffee, tea or coca-cola, you'll see the shallow or diluted parts shift from deep red to pale yellow.
Here is a thought; it makes sense, not to distinguish between red's and yellow's. Here (Scandinavia) fire has always had a special place amongst us. If you think of people, during the long and dark winter months, their main way of lighting the world during that time, is mostly, if not solely, done by fire. In fire red and yellow is a unity. Dependent on what state the fire is in, you have light ranging from sparks = white, over flames = yellows, to embers = reds. In old Danish we used to use the frase; 'hjemmets arne'. - meaning the fire/flame/warmth that is in the center of our lives. A world reflected by the light from a fire is rendered in monochromatic hues shifting, organically, between yellow's and red's. It makes total sense, if you look at it this way.
From another etymology vlog on colour. It was stated that the colour of burnt embers were one word which is why we get both black and white from one word eg black, blanc . As burnt embers can be back or white. So this definitely supports your idea of categorisation from looking at fires.
Hi Dr. Crawford. I bought a copy of Wanderer's Havamal as a birthday present to myself. I'm researching the instances of mead and ale. I saw you translated øl as ale in some stanzas but as drinks in others. I'm hoping you would be so kind as to share your rationale the brought forth different choices in wording. Many thanks.
@46:45 I apologize for thought I had... I thought he was going to say. "Although you are no longer working for an institution, you could totally be institutionalized if you wanted." And I laughed and laughed, and had to pause the video because I did not want to miss out on what was actually being said.
It may be off topic for your channel, but it would be interesting to hear a little about how your index cards were organized when doing this research. You may not be aware, but the "Zettelkasten" method (and its digital derivatives) are making a bit of a resurgence lately, as until Sönke Ahrens published "Take Smart Notes" not a lot of people outside academia knew about these methods for doing research.
Now I understand why people (like myself) are said to have "red hair" even though it's more like orange. Perhaps Old English also had a broader red-yellow category like Old Norse.
Did they ever mention woad as a blue pigment used for clothes? It was mentioned in Old English (waad/wad/vad) a lot and there are many placenames derived from it. It was a hugely valuable crop and trade.
I have a new observation/question regarding color. Is it thought that certain colors universally are connected to emotions? Just as a way of learning I create little games to remember words in Icelandic and it occurred to me that svartsynn was remembered as "blue" to me, not the color but the emotion of being sad, but honestly svart is black, right? So, maybe there is a connection, like how darkness and overcast skies or polar nights (darkness) cause depression, and are linked to color...maybe blue and black are both just attempts at communicating a darkness. Maybe, like dressing in blue or black is dark? I had just adopted the idea yesterday that dressing in blue meant putting on "Sunday best", but in the light (forgive the pun) of referring to a deed of darkness, more questions arise.
If blue, blár, covers the range for modern blue to black, then one could argue that they viewed black, svartr, as a variant of blue, making blue a base colour and black not.
8:50 I would like to challenge this a bit. I speak both Russian and Ukrainian and while they both have different words for light/dark blue (_блакиткий/голубой_ for former and _синій/синий_ for latter) they are still kind of perceived as one colour, light blue being a subset of average blue. So both languages have a seven coloured rainbow with "light-blue" included, but if you said that the sky is blue ("Небо - синее"/"Небо - синє"), nobody would rush to correct you. You can see it the Ukrainian flag, which is described both as _синьо-жовтий_ and _блакитно-жовтий_ , meaning blue-yellow and l.blue-yellow respectively. In theory, this may be a thing only in Ukrainian and Ukrainian dialect of Russian while in Russian proper the distinction is still maintained, but I've yet to see evidence for that.
i keep coming back to the icelandic 'appelsínugulur'.. it's such a terrible word, sounds like baby language (orange-yellow.. 'orange' like the fruit) the older word 'rauðgulur' (red-yellow) i always liked better
'Colour'. (Sorry, I'm English 😁). Really enjoyed the video. Big fan of your work, have your books on Audible and hard copy. But yeah, you Yankees and your phobia of the letter U 😂.
In the 1500s, before some of the English became American, we could spell it colloure, collyr, cooler, cooller, coollor, coollour, coollur, coolore, cooloure, coullar, coulloure, coulore, cowler.
I think "khaki" is a good example of how a modern color term can encompass hues from different parts of the color spectrum. It can describe both yellow and green hues, as long as they're quite desaturated and light. Similar to "bleikr" for pink and yellow.
These in-depth talks on something specific are my favorite.
I think a good example to get across the difference between colors in different languages is that the light blue/dark blue distinction in russian might be like the blue/purple distinction in english. In some language purple might just be considered a shade of blue, like how in our language dark and light blue are shades of blue.
I remember the examples of gold being called "red" in east slavic languages (Russian and Ukrainian sources in particular), but nowadays most sources blame the copper content in the almost-pure gold tinting it rose.
The pure gold also does have a darker yellow, almost orange hue to it, so if the lighting was mostly yellow-red (wood fires, sun to some extent), it appears reddish.
I wonder if similar reasons could be used to explain the sun being red.
Egg yolks being red makes sense, since they're more orange in Europe even today, compared to much more yellow ones in the US.
It also doesn't help that a lot of the Russian perceived uses of red to mean yellow, such as the "red sun" (Кра́сно(е) Со́лнышко), actually comes from the word meaning "beautiful" rather than a color designation (as evidenced by the Ukrainian rendition of the same nickname as Красне Сонечко rather than червоне сонечко or some such).
this sort of stuff makes me realize how important Newton was for us seeing colors as ROYGBIV, and the fact that there was once a totally non-ROYGBIV way of looking at color
I see a beige colour under violet. Wondered recently if it was just me. But recently at an art gallery there was a photograph with a rainbow in the scene and I asked my Dad if he saw another colour under the violet and he saw the same as me. Anyone else?
@@zoymills9868 some of the "sight" genetics are X chromosome, so men can end up colorblind and conversely some women can be "super see-ers". its very possible that most of us are somewhere in the middle, but some might notice tones or shades or whatever, that others dont
@@beepboop204 funnily enough my older son is colour blind and I'm a carrier.
Also may make senese to view Yellow as a bleak/washed-out/diluted version of Red in some contexts of pigments and liquids, as longer wavelengths gets absorbed quicker. Example, when you have a mug of coffee, tea or coca-cola, you'll see the shallow or diluted parts shift from deep red to pale yellow.
Blond wood is a thing - it's used for some kinds of finishes. But otherwise yes, "blond" is specific to hair.
There is a fish called a blonde ray.
In Georgian, red wines are black
Here is a thought; it makes sense, not to distinguish between red's and yellow's. Here (Scandinavia) fire has always had a special place amongst us. If you think of people, during the long and dark winter months, their main way of lighting the world during that time, is mostly, if not solely, done by fire.
In fire red and yellow is a unity. Dependent on what state the fire is in, you have light ranging from sparks = white, over flames = yellows, to embers = reds.
In old Danish we used to use the frase; 'hjemmets arne'. - meaning the fire/flame/warmth that is in the center of our lives.
A world reflected by the light from a fire is rendered in monochromatic hues shifting, organically, between yellow's and red's.
It makes total sense, if you look at it this way.
From another etymology vlog on colour. It was stated that the colour of burnt embers were one word which is why we get both black and white from one word eg black, blanc . As burnt embers can be back or white. So this definitely supports your idea of categorisation from looking at fires.
@@zoymills9868 really interesting, thanks for the information. Smile to you :)
Oh, hey - I’m one cohort behind Ryan in the VMS program!
Hi Dr. Crawford. I bought a copy of Wanderer's Havamal as a birthday present to myself. I'm researching the instances of mead and ale. I saw you translated øl as ale in some stanzas but as drinks in others. I'm hoping you would be so kind as to share your rationale the brought forth different choices in wording. Many thanks.
@46:45 I apologize for thought I had... I thought he was going to say. "Although you are no longer working for an institution, you could totally be institutionalized if you wanted." And I laughed and laughed, and had to pause the video because I did not want to miss out on what was actually being said.
Thanks for the video. I'd categorize it as excellent. ⛵
If you think about fire 🔥 it makes a lot of sense to group red through to yellow in one category
It may be off topic for your channel, but it would be interesting to hear a little about how your index cards were organized when doing this research. You may not be aware, but the "Zettelkasten" method (and its digital derivatives) are making a bit of a resurgence lately, as until Sönke Ahrens published "Take Smart Notes" not a lot of people outside academia knew about these methods for doing research.
Now I understand why people (like myself) are said to have "red hair" even though it's more like orange. Perhaps Old English also had a broader red-yellow category like Old Norse.
Did they ever mention woad as a blue pigment used for clothes? It was mentioned in Old English (waad/wad/vad) a lot and there are many placenames derived from it. It was a hugely valuable crop and trade.
There is a Native American language (in Texas?) that translates best to English as "Fall Colors" so Yellow, orange, brown, red.
I have a new observation/question regarding color. Is it thought that certain colors universally are connected to emotions? Just as a way of learning I create little games to remember words in Icelandic and it occurred to me that svartsynn was remembered as "blue" to me, not the color but the emotion of being sad, but honestly svart is black, right? So, maybe there is a connection, like how darkness and overcast skies or polar nights (darkness) cause depression, and are linked to color...maybe blue and black are both just attempts at communicating a darkness. Maybe, like dressing in blue or black is dark? I had just adopted the idea yesterday that dressing in blue meant putting on "Sunday best", but in the light (forgive the pun) of referring to a deed of darkness, more questions arise.
Bleikr became blek in modern swedish, which means "pale".
Presumably related to "bleach" in English, to make something pale, originally also a noun meaning paleness.
Same with bleikur in Faroese, and bleg in Danish.
"Bleich" in German, meaning pale.
"red gold" can be a euphemism for bronze.
How did the Norse talk of straw or hay?
If blue, blár, covers the range for modern blue to black, then one could argue that they viewed black, svartr, as a variant of blue, making blue a base colour and black not.
8:50 I would like to challenge this a bit. I speak both Russian and Ukrainian and while they both have different words for light/dark blue (_блакиткий/голубой_ for former and _синій/синий_ for latter) they are still kind of perceived as one colour, light blue being a subset of average blue. So both languages have a seven coloured rainbow with "light-blue" included, but if you said that the sky is blue ("Небо - синее"/"Небо - синє"), nobody would rush to correct you. You can see it the Ukrainian flag, which is described both as _синьо-жовтий_ and _блакитно-жовтий_ , meaning blue-yellow and l.blue-yellow respectively. In theory, this may be a thing only in Ukrainian and Ukrainian dialect of Russian while in Russian proper the distinction is still maintained, but I've yet to see evidence for that.
Is it true that the Vikings only had words for purple and yellow?
i keep coming back to the icelandic 'appelsínugulur'.. it's such a terrible word, sounds like baby language (orange-yellow.. 'orange' like the fruit)
the older word 'rauðgulur' (red-yellow) i always liked better
'Colour'. (Sorry, I'm English 😁).
Really enjoyed the video. Big fan of your work, have your books on Audible and hard copy.
But yeah, you Yankees and your phobia of the letter U 😂.
Well we do use a vacuum 😂. The spelling of which I have wondered.
In the 1500s, before some of the English became American, we could spell it colloure, collyr, cooler, cooller, coollor, coollour, coollur, coolore, cooloure, coullar, coulloure, coulore, cowler.
@@haveyouflossedtodayThe whole uu spelling is only used for new words. Otherwise it is w. (Source: John Larrysson of Ming Pao)
@@Mr.Patrick_Hung If you count 625 years old as new (menstruum).
@@pattheplanter 😃
F O R S T
Du är först! 😎
Bifröst has three colours and they are RED, WHITE AND BLUE! 🌈🏳🌈 AMERICA NUMBA 1!! 🇺🇸 or Iceland 🇮🇸 Or France 🇫🇷
Red, green and blue, surely? No countries with just those colours without including white.