Colors in Old Norse

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  • čas přidán 20. 08. 2024
  • An Old Norse expert discusses the color vocabulary of the Old Norse language.
    Dr. Jackson Crawford is Instructor of Nordic Studies and Nordic Program Coordinator at the University of Colorado Boulder (formerly UC Berkeley and UCLA). He is a historical linguist and an experienced teacher of Old Norse, Modern Icelandic, and Norwegian. More about Jackson Crawford: www.colorado.ed... and his CZcams channel: • Video
    Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda is available now: www.amazon.com... and his translation of The Saga of the Volsungs with The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok is forthcoming: www.hackettpub...
    Jackson Crawford's Patreon page: / norsebysw

Komentáře • 323

  • @iddet8867
    @iddet8867 Před 6 lety +74

    I am Icelandic and becoming an old Icelander. I just stumbled onto your channel. I find this very interesting because we are still using these words a lot in Icelandic. The black and blue thing as an example. And horse colors are exactly as you describe them in Icelandic today. A white horse is not white, it is grey. And a raven black horse is brown. It is so fantastic to see how well you know this stuff. Good work.

  • @gearaltach
    @gearaltach Před 7 lety +160

    the black-blue thing for hair-skin colour is the same in Irish to this day, people with black hair are simply black, whereas if you want to refer to black skin colour, you use the term normally used for blue! Also the Irish had a distinction in references to the norsemen -they could be Danair (Danes), Dubhghaill (Black(haired) Foreigners) or Fionnghaill (Fair-Blonde(haired) Foreigners. I think the distinction might have been between the West Norse and the East Norse in a clumsy way (not certain)

    • @gearaltach
      @gearaltach Před 7 lety +16

      Im corrected -the Dubhghaill were the Danes, and the Fionnghaill were the Norwegians

    • @ruairimasun1073
      @ruairimasun1073 Před 7 lety +1

      didn't dubh when referring to people just mean evil or bad? "an fear dubh" means the devil. it's like how dearg sometimes means great or fierce.

    • @gearaltach
      @gearaltach Před 7 lety +1

      Rory Mason really secondary extended meaning fear dubh means black haired man to me

    • @JacksonCrawford
      @JacksonCrawford  Před 7 lety +39

      That's a very interesting observation, thank you.

    • @liamdoyle5363
      @liamdoyle5363 Před 7 lety +3

      My last name in Irish is O'Dubhghaill, and yeah, it refers to the Danish vikings, or dark stranger

  • @danielheggli6990
    @danielheggli6990 Před 7 lety +55

    It's interesting how you can just remove the ''r'' at the end of each word and it basically turns into Norwegian.
    Old Norse - Norwegian
    Svartr Svart
    Hvitr Hvit
    Raudr Raud/Rød
    Blâr Blå
    Bleikr Bleik
    Grâr Grå
    Grønn Grønn

    • @samykiel
      @samykiel Před 6 lety +22

      That's easy to explain! The continental Scandinavian languages lost the grammatical ending indicating the nominative, masculine in this case. Same for the nouns: hestr, hundr, fiskr, fuglr/foglr. The accusative was: hest, hund, fisk, fugl. The same happend with Latin/Italian/French: carrus/carro/char; Paulus/Paolo/Paul ! Masculine words in the Romance languages are derived from the accusative forms.

    • @thatgirl3960
      @thatgirl3960 Před 3 lety +1

      Very similar to Afrikaans as well: swart, groen.

    • @mattiasfaldt1725
      @mattiasfaldt1725 Před 3 lety +2

      ganska lik svenska

    • @Rullvard1337
      @Rullvard1337 Před 3 lety +5

      Old Norse - Swedish
      Svartr Svart
      Hvitr Vit
      Raudr Röd
      Blâr Blå
      Bleikr Blek (or Rosa if it means pink instead of pale)
      Grâr Grå
      Grønn Grön
      Norwegian is closer than Swedish though

    • @RTMarx
      @RTMarx Před 2 lety +3

      In Faroese, we have the added "u"
      Old Norse - Faroese
      Svartr - Svartur
      Hvitr - Hvítur
      Raudr - Reyður
      Blâr - Bláur
      Bleikr - Bleikur
      Grâr - Gráur
      Grønn - Grønur

  • @kokofan50
    @kokofan50 Před 7 lety +38

    Gold is a red metal. It's not that apparent today because we don't use it with red gemstones, like garnet that was extremely popular with Germanic groups at the time of the Old Norse. Furthermore, gold paint jobs on cars still get a red undercoat.
    I, also, think you've got a very good point about how black and blue were used. It's common for cars getting black paint to have blue undercoats.

    • @cesteres
      @cesteres Před 6 lety +1

      kokofan50 I like your car take on this. I'm sure the old Norse would share your interest

    • @aggese
      @aggese Před 6 lety +2

      Gilding in art also use a red/ocre undercoat unless you want it ti look realy sicly green

    • @LW-jw8yx
      @LW-jw8yx Před 5 lety +1

      I have to paint routinely red undercoats under gold paint! Maybe it shines though and gives it a "warm" tone in contrast to white as a "cold" tone.

    • @milestolin9330
      @milestolin9330 Před 4 lety

      Oh that makes sense I was wondering why so many kennings used for gold involved "red metal"

  • @NorskaFjordskaOfficial
    @NorskaFjordskaOfficial Před měsícem +1

    I’m a Norwegian person who’s trying to study Old Norse and I’ve found great help with your channel…
    I just wanted to say that it’s very cool seeing that Gold is described as Red(ᚱᚨᚢᚧᚱ/Rauðr) and Silver is described as White(ᚺᚹᛁᛏᚱ/Hvítr) in Old Norse.

  • @gearaltach
    @gearaltach Před 7 lety +14

    In Irish and Welsh, blue-green-grey form a slightly different continuum than English, you could say the blue leaks into green, and green leaks into grey

  • @obsoletepowercorrupts
    @obsoletepowercorrupts Před 6 lety +14

    If you "zoom in" far enough under a microscope, Gold (as in the element Au) is red.

  • @ruairimasun1073
    @ruairimasun1073 Před 7 lety +16

    "Red-gold" is present in Irish too. I've seen "dearg-óir" used a lot, and Irish colours do usually carry multiple meanings, dearg often used to describe things as very good, or a person as fierce, but I'm not sure if dearg-óir describes a certain type of gold or otherwise.

  • @ayszhang
    @ayszhang Před 6 lety +4

    Very insightful video. I studied psychology in university, and I think when we examine basic aspects of a language we can really understand the worldview of a culture. Colours, numbers, family members, directions, etc...

  • @mrwildman2607
    @mrwildman2607 Před 7 lety +74

    I think BLEIKR is the same as Norwegian and Swedish BLEIK witch means pale. People often describe people who are sick as pale beacause of their face color. So i belive it makes sense that bleikr can also mean bad or ill, but i think its strange that you describe bleikr as yello or pink. Both yello and pink can be pale throught a Norwegians eyes. Isnt bleikr just pale?

    • @frbo9002
      @frbo9002 Před 7 lety +5

      I agree with you!
      As a geologist, another interesting thing I came to think about is that we call myrkalk/sjökalk "bleke" in swedish, and it's obviously white or pale yellow (sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleke).

    • @HiddenXTube
      @HiddenXTube Před 7 lety +13

      It's the same with the German word bleich=pale

    • @toast2610
      @toast2610 Před 7 lety +9

      In Dutch or Afrikaans we have bleek = pale.. and the verb bleik meaning bleach.. thus to whiten

    • @IanSwart
      @IanSwart Před 7 lety

      frege Ja, ek het nou net daaraan gedink

    • @hoathanatos6179
      @hoathanatos6179 Před 7 lety +7

      The traditional Germanic word for pale is a cognate of both the English words bleach (to whiten) and black, but they both originally meant burnt or turned to ash (Related to the Latin Flagrare and Greek Phlegein - to burn). Depending on how a fire burns you will end up with black soot or white ash and the final result is most likely the origin of these colours derived from the burning process.

  • @HundredYearsBoar
    @HundredYearsBoar Před 7 lety +10

    Unique video. Freedom of information from a passionate scholar...I'm a fan!

  • @NidarosLP
    @NidarosLP Před 7 lety +26

    Bleikr seems to be similar to the modern word for "pale" or perhaps even "bleached" in Swedish which is blek. It can be used for colours that are just slightly worn out.

    • @Ninjato7
      @Ninjato7 Před 6 lety +3

      We have that in English too, "bleak."

    • @MikiV
      @MikiV Před 6 lety +4

      In Danish, pale is "bleg" and bleached or washed out is "blegnet" (the g being soft), and I also wondered if that didn't have something to do with it. If so, it would make sense that bleikr can be various "washed out" colours. We still have "bleg-rød" for instance, meaning pink. (There is no actual word for pink in Danish - we say "light red" or "pale red".)

  • @terjibeder6871
    @terjibeder6871 Před 7 lety +17

    I am from the Faroe Islands and we sometimes still use red when the thing described clearly is yellow. You mentioned egg yoke, which in faroese is "eyggjareyði", a combination of the word egg and the color red. When we speak of pure gold the word "reyðargull" or red gold is a common word. These are not the only cases, there are many more words where we use red instead of yellow and this has many people very confused, especially kids.
    In Færeyingasaga the main character Sigmund has a golden ring, which is described as a red ring. The reason for why we use red instead of yellow is typically explained when we read these stories early in public school.
    I thought you probably would find this interesting.
    Thank you for the video.

    • @MoJohnnys
      @MoJohnnys Před 6 lety

      Terji Beder But what is the explanation? 🤔🇫🇴

  • @dutchman7623
    @dutchman7623 Před 7 lety +11

    Remarkable, these names for colours are the same as in Dutch, if you take away the last r.
    Zwart, wit, rood, blauw, bleek, grauw, groen, bruin, xxx, guld, xxx, xxx.
    Pronounciation is even more closer i.e. wit is said as w followed by hit, whit.
    When something has the colour we use:
    Zwarte, witte, rode, blauwe, grauwe, groene, bruine, xxx, gulden, xxx, xxx.

    • @purportedly
      @purportedly Před 6 lety +1

      Nice, Dutch Man, but it's not really all that remarkable. Rather, it's to be expected.

    • @iddet8867
      @iddet8867 Před 6 lety

      Our languages are very related. Svartur, hvítur, rauður, blár, grár, grænn, brúnn, xxx, gylltur, xxx, xxx. Icelandic.

  • @kniter
    @kniter Před 5 lety +2

    Love your videos!

  • @awaytoanywhere699
    @awaytoanywhere699 Před 6 lety +3

    in Danish we still have the terms Rødguld and Hvidguld (red gold and white gold). terms used in jewellery business, to categorize gold alloys with copper og other metal to make the product easier to work with in production and having a stronger longer lasting product in the end.

  • @Eli-ne3vu
    @Eli-ne3vu Před 6 lety +4

    This reminds me of a quote from Tacitus' Germania, "[The Germans] all have fierce blue eyes and blond hair". The word translated as 'blond' here is also often translated as 'red'... I believe the original text is 'rutilae comae' and can mean both colors. It can mean bright, color of the sun, and gold as well.

  • @johanpettersson5190
    @johanpettersson5190 Před 6 lety +14

    In Swedish we still sort gold by "red gold" and "white gold" and the red is the normal yellow gold color.

    • @stefan.holst65
      @stefan.holst65 Před 6 lety +1

      Johan Pettersson you are right! Maybe the color name is related to the feeling around them? Red is the color of heat and both love and rage. Bleach or bleikr is a calm color. My father says when it's calm on the sea, det är "blegg" på sjön. A person can be "blek" not only in his face but also as a non acting person. The sun can seldom be "blek", only in the coldest and shortest days. Normally the sun is red representing the heat. The red gold is also connected to a lot of feelings I'm sure.

  • @belldanime
    @belldanime Před 7 lety +4

    You should do audio books of your translations, you've got the voice for it.

  • @FarkunDarkrar1
    @FarkunDarkrar1 Před 7 lety +2

    Thank you for this video! As a conlanger, I find colour names extremely interesting!

  • @TaiganTundra
    @TaiganTundra Před 7 lety +14

    Oh this explains some things I've heard. There are several Scandinavian medieval ballads that describes gold as red, like the tune "Herr Mannelig" for example.

    • @andersmansfeldt3110
      @andersmansfeldt3110 Před 7 lety

      That's true. In Herr Mannelig the phrase 'reddest gold' is used, which sound strange to our modern ears. Someone proposed that 'red gold' was the name for copper, but apparently it is gold they mean.

    • @Rovarin
      @Rovarin Před 7 lety +5

      In Modern Faroese we still have an expression regarding red and gold - at goyma sum reyðagull (to hide something like red gold). Egg yolks are also considered red, as they are called Eggjareyðar (the egg red).

    • @vanefreja86
      @vanefreja86 Před 7 lety

      Geanos Uron indeed I have also writing some Danish examples above..one being from the song «Harpens Kraft».

    • @borjesvensson8661
      @borjesvensson8661 Před 3 lety

      @@andersmansfeldt3110 it makes more sense if you think of the practise of dilluting gold coins with silver. Or simply by thinking of red gold as a deep and warm gold.

  • @mysterioso2006
    @mysterioso2006 Před 7 lety +1

    I have to be honest, Professor. I didn't think, just based on the title, that a video on colors in Old Norse would be particularly interesting. But these classifications and definitions for colors give us interesting insights into Old Norse culture. Great video as always!

  • @straitmurph
    @straitmurph Před 3 lety +1

    I still come back to older videos to brush up. I’d like this one again if it could smash the like more than once, thanks Doc

  • @Landes1024rs
    @Landes1024rs Před 7 lety +2

    I have never before considered the grouping of colors. This is great for creative consideration.

  • @AverageGhostfaceEnthusiast
    @AverageGhostfaceEnthusiast Před 10 měsíci +1

    Is anyone going to point out how dapper this man is?

  • @Jamstaro1
    @Jamstaro1 Před 10 měsíci

    Just started my journey on this. I really love the sound of old norse and hope to teach my son this as hes growing up. Heres to a fun adventure! Svartr.

  • @charliesanders4396
    @charliesanders4396 Před rokem

    It is so awesome for you to teach us for free something I know took a lot of time and money to learn at your level. Thank you!

  • @SWEmanque
    @SWEmanque Před 4 lety +1

    Blek is Swedish for pale. It would make sense that less warm yellow are considered pale, as opposed to the strong warm yellow of the sun or gold.

  • @DwarfLordAirsoft
    @DwarfLordAirsoft Před 7 lety +10

    It would be super cool to see a video on the blue man!

  • @Brahmsonite
    @Brahmsonite Před 5 lety +1

    Couple of random trivia:
    In Heraldry white is also silver and yellow is also gold.
    In Japan the Sun is considered to be red and their word for blue is often used for things we'd consider green (eg traffic lghts and verdent grasses). Even more interesting, it seems that the word in old Chinese (I don't know the exact origin as my specialization is Japanese) was used to refer not to blue things and green things, but a particular blue-green color.

  • @fugithegreat
    @fugithegreat Před 6 lety +1

    Fascinating lesson!

  • @xkmi5996
    @xkmi5996 Před 7 lety +8

    This with rauðr originally having a much broader meaning suddenly makes a tendency of my father's which has always seemed really weird to me make a lot more sense. He sometimes uses the word red to mean everything from deep wine red to pinkish beige and orange. For example, there's this cat that lives on our street which he insists on calling red, even though it's really more of a orange-beige-pink colour. We live outside of Gothenburg and his side of the family tree (if I recall correctly) comes from Småland. Anyone else recognise this wider usage of red (in Swedish or any other North Germanic language)?
    Also, maybe the usage of red referring to “red” hair can also be seen as a relic of this broader old definition, seeing as people seldom have *red* red hair? It's usually more orange-ish.

    • @hentehoo27
      @hentehoo27 Před 7 lety +3

      Interesting to know, the word 'rauðr' was borrowed into the Finnic languages as "rauta", meaning 'iron' in English.
      The inflection of the word remained almost intact, as you can see in the following example in Finnish:
      "Esine valmistettiin *raudasta* " (translation: "The artifact was made of iron")

    • @samykiel
      @samykiel Před 6 lety +1

      Reminds me of the (Old) Icelandic expression for bog iron: mýrarrauði.

    • @borjesvensson8661
      @borjesvensson8661 Před 3 lety +1

      Bit late but, orange is pretty new in Swedish. Before ww2 it was more often called fireyellow, brandgul. My dad grew up in skåne calling it brandgul in the 60s.
      But i have a feeling that altough brandgul is a modification of yellow it was often counted as a red coulor, as orange often are still.

  • @GazilionPT
    @GazilionPT Před 7 lety +6

    Blue vs. Black: it's funny you mention bruises as something "more obviously blue". In my language (Portuguese) that's not so obvious: in our categorisation of bruises we consider them black - "nódoa negra" (lit. "black stain") is the popular term for bruises, and when you have a blue eye we say you have "um olho negro" (lit. "a black eye").

    • @jonstfrancis
      @jonstfrancis Před 6 lety +1

      "Beaten black and blue" is a phrase in English as is "black eye".

  • @Irlandesaaa
    @Irlandesaaa Před 7 lety +3

    Interesting remarks! :) In Irish (Gaeilge) black and blue are also interchangeable in some cases, especially skin colour. A black person (duine gorm) is literally a "blue person" because of the blue hues that dark skin sometimes has.

    • @hanstrygviteirin6502
      @hanstrygviteirin6502 Před 6 lety +1

      In Faroese we have the word "blámaður" wich means blue man - a very black man.

  • @Ueberprivate
    @Ueberprivate Před 7 lety +2

    It's extra interesting to watch your videos as a german, comparing english, german and old norse. For example german "bleich" refers mainly to someone being or turning pale but sometimes also to describe pale colours like pink or beige. "Bleich" is very similar to "bleikr". I assume that "pale" also is related to the aforementioned words.

  • @F0nkyNinja
    @F0nkyNinja Před 6 lety +3

    Maybe svartr is more the absence of color, like matte black, whereas blár is just dark, or black with color in it, that has a tint that shows in light. Bleikr is similar to "blek" (in Swedish) which means pale. Pale gold, pale horses, pale skin, they're all different colors. Jarpr and Gulr is brunette and blonde respectively.
    Maybe calling a black person "svartrman" would be like calling them shadowmen. "Black" isn't really very accurate either, and neither is "White" for skin color.
    "Rauðr" is probably used to describe warm colors, warm yellow to orange to hot red.

  • @concernedcitizen6313
    @concernedcitizen6313 Před 6 lety +1

    Super informative and fascinating!

  • @Officialhelpkenet
    @Officialhelpkenet Před 7 lety +8

    An interesting point is that bleikr seems to cognate with Swedish "blek," which means pale.

    • @figandspade11
      @figandspade11 Před 7 lety +1

      Not surprising, but it's the same in Norwegian. Blek or bleik means pale, and not a specific colour.

    • @arnorkristjansson9532
      @arnorkristjansson9532 Před 7 lety +2

      I always assumed that the word bleikr meant something or someone being pale, like in modern Norwegian

    • @JanCarol11
      @JanCarol11 Před 6 lety +3

      Root of "bleak"?

    • @purportedly
      @purportedly Před 6 lety

      Exactly!

  • @hord81
    @hord81 Před 6 lety

    Svart,hvit,rød,blå,bleik,grå,grønn,brun,gul is the modern norwegian color names i use everyday,its very facinating too see that its not that far away from our old language.

  • @stigekalder
    @stigekalder Před rokem

    In modern Danish we have the word "bleg" which corresponds to "pale" in English. I think this word may still be close to the meaning of "bleikr" in old norse. A pale red, orange or yellow colour, possibly warm, but quite faint. In Danish often used for face colour, for example in summer if someone is not at all sun-burned, or if you are shocked and the blood leaves your face. Interesting that in modern Islandic it specifically means pink.

  • @perborjel7928
    @perborjel7928 Před 6 lety +1

    If the feeling of the word "bleikr" was anything close to modern Swedish "blek" it's given that it cannot be used about gold. "Blek" means pale. So rather then yellow and pink combined I would assume "bleikr" to mean a pale version of any warm colour. Cheap gold might be pale but true gold is red.

  • @tamasmarcuis4455
    @tamasmarcuis4455 Před 4 lety

    The word Harr is Scots means a type of rainy weather and generally hair. It's when the rain is falling heavily with no little wind, so it looks like trailing grey hair. Particularly over sea or flat land.

  • @Yahyia-cv3sx
    @Yahyia-cv3sx Před 3 měsíci

    Þakka þér fyrir herra. Thank you, sir.

  • @PIANOPHUNGUY
    @PIANOPHUNGUY Před 6 lety +5

    In Danish if you get into a fight you may get "et blaat oeje" a blue eye and not a black eye.

    • @Rullvard1337
      @Rullvard1337 Před 3 lety

      Same in Swedish
      "Ett blått öga/Ett blåöga"

    • @MrTimurLP
      @MrTimurLP Před 3 lety

      same in german "blaues auge"

  • @Tsotha
    @Tsotha Před 3 lety

    Interesting observations about the differences there are between Old Norse and Modern Icelandic, that I had no idea until now. Until I discovered Crawford's channel I assumed the two were largely identical.

  • @tom_curtis
    @tom_curtis Před 2 lety +1

    I would conjecture that most Sub-Saharan Africans see by the Norse would have come from Nubia. The basis of that conjecture is that the route from Sub-Saharan Africa north was best developed along the Nile Valley; and because the Norse in the Mediterrainean context would mostly be in Constantinople, which is closer to Egypt than to Tripoli or Marakech (the outlets of the other trans-Saharan trade routes. If this speculation is accurate, an alternative explanation of the use of 'blár' to describe Sub-Saharns by the Norse would be the very distinctly blue-black skin of the Nubians.

  • @Ebenandre
    @Ebenandre Před 4 lety +1

    In Norwegian today Black(Svart) White(Hvit/Kvit) Red(Raud) Blu(Blå) Green(Grønn) Yellow(Gul) Gold(Gull) Gray(Grå) Brown(Brun)
    And bleik is today is term to kall something or someone Pale

    • @maia2259
      @maia2259 Před 4 lety +1

      Zerx You’re right, and «hvit» and «grønn» can also be written like «kvit» and «grøn» :)

    • @Ebenandre
      @Ebenandre Před 4 lety +1

      @@maia2259 yeah thats tru depends on the dialect i personally say kvit too

  • @Fulkvidr
    @Fulkvidr Před 7 lety +51

    In Swedish, we have the word blåneger(people in this day and age would most likely be offended by it) wich literaly means "blue negro ". It is used to describe a really dark skinned person.

    • @cesteres
      @cesteres Před 6 lety +4

      Indeed. Less offensive is the term "blåsvart" which could be used to describe something really black (so not just poetically but that too)

    • @awaytoanywhere699
      @awaytoanywhere699 Před 6 lety +3

      in Danish we have the word “blåmænd” (blue men); ancient word for coloured foreign people

    • @cesteres
      @cesteres Před 6 lety +2

      Away To Anywhere Swedish has blåmän too. Exactly the same meaning :)

    • @samykiel
      @samykiel Před 6 lety +2

      Old Norse has blámaðr; pl. blámenn to design people of a dark skin colour. This is still occasionally used in Modern Icelandic in an ironic way. Some ignorants will always be offended!

    • @Nightceasar
      @Nightceasar Před 6 lety +4

      In sweden we have "trolls" (people in this day and age who go around trolling by saying offensive borderline racist things and play victim when you call them out). They are adamant about using words like Blåneger or negerboll, instead of for instance "chockladboll", even though these words have no old norse roots and the word blåneger has nothing to do with the message in this video. Why, because they don't like change and when they were children it was "ok" to say racist things, so it is hard for their brains to handle changing that today (low IQ).

  • @oz_jones
    @oz_jones Před 7 lety

    Thank you, very interesting, as always. I am currently in the process of creating a naturalistic conlang to be used in a fictional, iron age Finland-esque setting and this has given me more ideas how to make my vocabulary more naturalistic.

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones Před 6 lety

      I didn't imply that it was.

  • @herreguda6199
    @herreguda6199 Před 4 lety

    As a Norwegian, I am excited to see that these colour names are very similar to modern Scandinavian colours!

  • @bringar8279
    @bringar8279 Před 7 lety

    Extremely intriguing.You use good examples.

  • @gabrielwotanbredvig6540

    A small thought about the old norse word 'bleikr'.
    In modern danish we have the word 'bleg' witch translate to the english word 'pale'.
    So from that 'bleikr' could be a pale color, like beige as you also mention.
    Just a thought.
    Thanks for some great videos!

  • @kaffekaffekaffe5225
    @kaffekaffekaffe5225 Před 6 lety +3

    I could recognise all of them without even listening. I’m danish

  • @plciferpffer3048
    @plciferpffer3048 Před 3 lety

    Love how we still have the same names to the basic colours in Scandinavia.

  • @rachael2180
    @rachael2180 Před 7 lety +1

    I could figure all these out using Dutch color knowledge :)

  • @Cetoniinae
    @Cetoniinae Před 7 lety

    Where I live we have a few stories about people encountering "blåmenn", but I had no idea the term was used for dark skinned Africans as well. Very interesting!

  • @williambilson1555
    @williambilson1555 Před 7 lety

    This was extremely helpful!! Thank you so much!

  • @benw9949
    @benw9949 Před 3 lety

    In English, we still may describe things as "red-gold," such as a red-gold mane or beard. Where this is a deeper, richer bright gold, sometimes reddish or coppery, sometimes yellow. -- "Harr" or "Hårr" -- I take it this is cognate to English hoar and hoary as in hoar-frost, or a hoary beard or visage, for grayish or whitish and implying cold or ice or old age?

  • @AndrishhRS
    @AndrishhRS Před 7 lety +10

    It's interesting to me how hvítr is pronounced, as a lot of modern Norwegian dialects say kvit with a hard k. I would have guessed that the original Old Norse pronounciation would have been "kvítr" or something along the sort, but I guess not.

    • @vatterholm
      @vatterholm Před 7 lety +7

      "hv" was more like "hw", as it still is in for example Jutland and south Iceland.
      It became V or w in most of Sweden and Denmark and parts of Norway.
      It also became "kv" many places, such as most of Norway, Iceland, and even Finland Swedish. And gv in small parts of Norway and Sweden.

    • @aronjanssonnordberg8379
      @aronjanssonnordberg8379 Před 7 lety

      How do we know which way of pronouncing it was the earliest? Depending on the dialect in Norway, you say either "hvit" or "kvit", but in Icelandic most people say "kvitur" despite spelling it "hvitur". It's a bit confusing, and I still don't understand how we can date these variations. How do we know that the "kv" pronunciation came later?

    • @aronjanssonnordberg8379
      @aronjanssonnordberg8379 Před 7 lety

      That would be great!

    • @vatterholm
      @vatterholm Před 7 lety +3

      You can know the "kv" came later becuse otherwise Old Norse would spell it "kv", like they did in "kvinna" :P
      Also compare the relatives. English, German, everyone has had a hw sound historically. "Kv" developed many places, while "hv" was also kept many places (H is not silent).

    • @samykiel
      @samykiel Před 6 lety

      Spelling is the answer! In former times spelling was not standardized and thus you can follow sound-changes through changes in spelling in old manuscripts. The older ones all have hv, kv is much younger and occurs only in the regions where that pronunciation developped.

  • @dylanlandry4996
    @dylanlandry4996 Před 7 lety +1

    my guess about rauðr is that the fehu wealth gold is a wealthy thing and wealth can cause bloodshed so perhaps a play on words?

  • @qboger
    @qboger Před 7 lety

    The Blue descriptor could be a reference to the Tuareg people of the sahara, who are often quite dark in complexion and because of their heavy dark-blue dyed clothing that they wear, become a little bluish from the dye staining their skin.
    I'm quite shocked to learn that Sub-Saharan Africans were employed in medieval king's retinues. This has got me wondering, in which ways did Old Norse Speakers interact with distant foreigners like Arabs and Native Americans, and what words did they use to describe them? I know Skraeling was used to describe the native Greenlanders, but I don't remember finding any words for the Arabs when reading the one saga I've read in Old Norse, Thidrikssaga, even though I do remember some characters went at least to Constantinople at some point.
    This video was much more interesting than expected, I'll definitely keep an eye out for these subtle uses for color terms next time I get around to reading another Saga! Thank you!

  • @Brynwyn123
    @Brynwyn123 Před 7 lety +1

    Peach is often a pink-yellow colour, as is most white people's skin. Makes sense to me

  • @SolveigsSong
    @SolveigsSong Před rokem

    Ahh true! We say egg yolks are "eggja-rauður" (pleural word). Enjoying your channel!

  • @kjestineczech6479
    @kjestineczech6479 Před 6 lety

    rauðr makes me think of the sun. There is a clear link between the colours gold and red here, also taking into consideration, how important the sun was in mythology, life and fare. Also, melted gold is red.

  • @danishviking8002
    @danishviking8002 Před 6 lety

    It makes sense. In Danmark theres an old folk song I think, thats star with singing " Solen er så rød mor " The sun is so red mother. But if its simply referring to the sun in the morning only I dont know for sure.

  • @pm71241
    @pm71241 Před 6 lety

    In Icelandic (AFAIK) , a horse is also only classified as "svartur" if it's completely black. Including inside the ears where many black horses can have light fur.

  • @Elin.Noller
    @Elin.Noller Před 6 lety

    In Sweden we call it red gold and white gold, so not surprised at all about that. And like others have mentioned with blåneger/blue negro. A really dark black person does have a blue undertone in their skin so not surprising either. So the term blue negro might just be a left over from the vikings and is now used offensivly.

  • @weepingscorpion8739
    @weepingscorpion8739 Před 7 lety +31

    Oh, another place where Faroese is more archaic than Icelandic: in Faroese, jarpur only refers to human hair colour.

    • @iddet8867
      @iddet8867 Před 6 lety

      Hér er það notað um lit á hestum, en horfið sem hárlitur á fólki.

  • @leagillact-o-graphy1690

    So cool, that comment about the “blár” and “ravnar”, lols. They do often shine! What an eye for detail - however, most people don’t even differentiate between ravens and crows!! 😛😛

  • @PoloElefante
    @PoloElefante Před 7 lety

    chesnut to me as a modern english woman more typically means a person's hair color, or the wood or wood varnish, or a chesnut as in the nut, and only after that as i'm not a horsey person, a horse color. all the comparisons are to the shiny warm color of the nut itself.

  • @Allblinde
    @Allblinde Před 2 lety

    Very nice video! It helps explain why Snorri says Bifrost, the rainbow, only has three colours in the Prose Edda. Snorri mentions that one of the colours of Bifrost is red. I wonder what the two other colours were in his mind...

    • @TeddyKirkegaard
      @TeddyKirkegaard Před 5 měsíci

      I know this comment is very old, but I had the same thought about Bifrost being three colors, which led to me finding this video. I would guess Snorri considered the rainbow to be red, blue and green

  • @richardbennett4365
    @richardbennett4365 Před 3 lety

    Shiunin in Ainu language means yellow/green/blue, whichever the color is.

  • @GraemeMarkNI
    @GraemeMarkNI Před 7 lety +2

    Lol "a glass of buff wine please". I remember being a kid and finding out that navy is considered a kind of blue. Before that I thought of it as a different colour... Still doesn't look blue to me at all...

    • @Brynwyn123
      @Brynwyn123 Před 7 lety

      GraemeMarkNI I once had an hour-long argument with my grandma because I saw something as purple and she saw it as royal blue. Navy is also such a non-blue blue. Colours are weird

  • @user-B_8
    @user-B_8 Před rokem

    *Bleikr*
    In Norwegian *bleik or blek means a pale/whitish type of colour (light colour),* which makes me wonder if it could possibly derive from and/or mean that?!
    We might for instance refer to someone who's skin colour is very light/pale as: *en person som er veldig blek/bleik.* Or for instance if we refer to a lighter colour blue or pink, we might say *blekblå* or *blekrosa* which then indicates a very light/pale version of that colour. Its just a thought.. 🤔🤷‍♀️

  • @leagillact-o-graphy1690
    @leagillact-o-graphy1690 Před 6 lety +2

    It’s weird with the blue, but we also do tend to forget that we often call “Browns” Blacks and we do not think it weird, we do not imagine a completely actual coal black human being there, we just think of Africans (as a generic term, of course they could be African-American, African-German, etc...!!!! No racism intended.). This stuff is so cool an makes you think!

    • @jonstfrancis
      @jonstfrancis Před 6 lety +2

      Also "yellow" for East Asians and "red" for Native Americans. Seems exotic races were often given exaggerated descriptions as to colour.

  • @alexandredumont8651
    @alexandredumont8651 Před 6 lety

    Horners ( East Africans ) used to describe themselves as red whereas South Sudanese ethnic groups talked of themselves as being blue. I think it might still be the case. Little plus : South Arabians saw themselves as green, in a olive skintone sense.

  • @Cyssane
    @Cyssane Před 7 lety +1

    I was a little surprised that "gulr" wasn't some form of the colour red, as I assumed that it would've been related to "gules", which is the term for red in heraldry. If it's referring to human hair, might it have meant someone with red hair?

  • @murdakah
    @murdakah Před 6 lety

    With regards to bleikr, in Afrikaans there is a word "bleik" which means to lose colour, essentially bleach, which is exactly the same. It might be related via some earlier root, possibly via german or most probably Dutch as Afrikaans is extremely young.

  • @athilith
    @athilith Před 7 lety

    Very interesting topic. Would like to hear more about the warrior blue-men ! :)
    Cheers,
    Tristan.

  • @vp4744
    @vp4744 Před 7 lety +2

    Yes, very informative. Thanks much.
    Two related questions/speculations:
    Isn't there a certain "order" to the way each color term enters the language? The say in English it is black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, orange, and so on. Does Old Norse have a similar order?
    As for blue and black confusion, I've noticed something similar in old Vedic literature referring to Krishna as "that blue one" using the unmistakable word for blue, "nila". It seems more certain than a poetic license to fudge the colors.

    • @JanCarol11
      @JanCarol11 Před 6 lety

      But Krisna really is blue! Seen the art?

    • @vp4744
      @vp4744 Před 6 lety +1

      Here the art is imitating the poetic language, which predates art by several centuries if not millenia.

    • @JanCarol11
      @JanCarol11 Před 6 lety

      But - even in the literature (and I'm no expert) are there not other qualities associated with "blue" that Krisna embodies?

    • @vp4744
      @vp4744 Před 6 lety

      No

  • @buckystanton9139
    @buckystanton9139 Před 7 lety +15

    is svartr connected to the english word swarthy?

    • @telchalone7115
      @telchalone7115 Před 6 lety

      Yes)

    • @ralphg.curtis9297
      @ralphg.curtis9297 Před 6 lety +3

      Actually, the modern English cognate for 'bleikr' is 'bleak', not 'black'. The German cognate would be 'bleich'.

    • @masatwwo6549
      @masatwwo6549 Před 6 lety +2

      "Schwarz" is German for black. Or in North German dialects "schwatt"/"schwaat"
      "Blass" as well as "bleich" means pale

    • @masatwwo6549
      @masatwwo6549 Před 6 lety +1

      I found in Plattdeutsch (Low German) "blaken" which means to smake/to soot (Ex.: a fire that creates a lot of smoke/soot)

    • @ralphg.curtis9297
      @ralphg.curtis9297 Před 6 lety +1

      'black' does not come from Old Norse or German. It has cognates in both languages but the word itself is not borrowed. 'black' comes from Proto-Germanic *blakaz (“burnt”), 'bleak', and 'bleach' come from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale, shining”). If something burns, it can become black (e.g. meat) or white (e.g. wood). That's probably how the words are related.

  • @janeenebrowneblank8389

    i am a browne related to english jacksons, and welsh jacksons.

  • @mettejakobsen7017
    @mettejakobsen7017 Před 2 lety

    In old danish texts gold is often referred to as det røde guld, = the red gold

  • @annhansen9339
    @annhansen9339 Před 6 lety +3

    Isn't bleikr the same as 'bleg' (pronounced blai) in Danish, meaning pale?

  • @timoloef
    @timoloef Před 2 lety

    nice. in dutch: zwart, wit, rood, blauw, "bleek", grijs/grauw, groen

  • @thevikingvox1277
    @thevikingvox1277 Před 7 lety

    The basics. I like it.

  • @AJarOfYams
    @AJarOfYams Před 3 lety

    “Bleikr” sounds alot like the adjective for pale in modern Faroese, “bleik” which is used as a root-word for bleaching, someone very pale, and something or someone having lost their colour (faded, going/gone pale).

  • @danjustice1751
    @danjustice1751 Před 6 lety

    It's interesting to me that à was used for that sound, since å is now used for it in Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. For example in Danish (and probably others), blå meaning blue

    • @dianelindsay5651
      @dianelindsay5651 Před 4 lety

      I so enjoyed this. I am looking at my royal blue curtains now, against the light on a dull day, with trees and fields outside. The curtains look nearly black and so do the trees but the grass is clearly green. Have just turned the light off and it's almost monochrome. Wonderful food for poetic thought! Thank you

  • @vikingtoaster2096
    @vikingtoaster2096 Před 7 lety

    -wakes up at 4 am-
    -binges Jackson crawford-

  • @Ogargadon
    @Ogargadon Před 3 lety

    Some areas in afrika the people do have a blueish or purpleish tint to them.

  •  Před 7 lety

    Though Hungarian is not related to Germanic languages, we have two basic words for "red": "piros" and "vörös". Blood (actually "vörös" is even a related to word for "vér" - compare with Finnish "veri" - which means "blood") and mainly "natural" objects are "vörös" (including the red hair), but something like the red traffic light is never "vörös" but "piros". Though these two words also have meanings about shades of red, at the other hand with more "scientific" manner for describing shades of red. If you categorize colours, the "main" category is still more like "piros" for the notion of "redness" ... well, or something, that's surprisingly hard to express, it seems ...

  • @worldtraveler930
    @worldtraveler930 Před 4 lety +1

    The Ukrainian people are Very adamant about their being two wholly different and separate blue's, not being a lighter or darker shade of the same color and they also view Gold as red and believe that the yellow Gold is an lesser grade of Gold.

  • @cusid0
    @cusid0 Před 7 lety

    Very interesting, thanks for the video!

  • @h6502
    @h6502 Před 3 lety

    one thing about egg yolks.
    wild bird yolks tend to be much redder than any chicken egg.

  • @holandreas
    @holandreas Před 4 lety +1

    "Ble(i)k" means pale in Norwegian - any chance that this can refer to a pale colour? Pink and beige would match that, I suppose.
    Also maybe rauđr refers to what we think of as orange?

  • @dezzfoxx3957
    @dezzfoxx3957 Před 7 lety +1

    Where would purple fall within these? Or would it just be considered a variant of blue?

  • @sciencefictionisreal1608

    Also from reading the comments from people who say "Bleik" meaning "Pale" in their language, I wonder if it's cognate with the word "Bleach" in english.

  • @j.b.4340
    @j.b.4340 Před rokem

    I knew white, red, blue, grey, brown. Missed, or couldn’t tell the rest. I figured bleikr was black, but it was obviously svartr.

  • @algismalickas632
    @algismalickas632 Před 5 lety

    Lithuanian and latvian languages are both of baltic family.In latvian 'melna' means black,in lithuanian 'mėlyna' means blue.I was surprised when I saw form 'raudr' for red as we have in lithuanian 'raudona' (rawd-oh-nah).

  • @annicaesplund6613
    @annicaesplund6613 Před 6 měsíci

    I'm Swedish and recognize all of them.