Colors in Old Norse

[@iddet8867]

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]

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]

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

[@ruairimasun1073]

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]

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

[@JacksonCrawford]

That's a very interesting observation, thank you.

[@liamdoyle5363]

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

[@danielheggli6990]

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]

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]

Very similar to Afrikaans as well: swart, groen.

[@mattiasfaldt1725]

ganska lik svenska

[@rullvardi]

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]

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

[@NorðmaðrFráNoregi]

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.

[@kokofan50]

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]

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

[@aggese]

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

[@LW-jw8yx]

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]

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

[@ayszhang]

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...

[@terjibeder6871]

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]

Terji Beder But what is the explanation? 🤔🇫🇴

[@gearaltach]

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

[@HundredYearsBoar]

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

[@AverageGhostfaceEnthusiast]

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

[@ruairimasun1073]

"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.

[@studymusicforkaren]

There also fear ghoirm for a dark skinned person too!

[@mrwildman2607]

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]

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]

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

[@toast2610]

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

[@IanSwart]

frege Ja, ek het nou net daaraan gedink

[@hoathanatos6179]

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.

[@NidarosLP]

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]

We have that in English too, "bleak."

[@MikiV]

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".)

[@obsoletepowercorrupts]

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

[@straitmurph]

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

[@belldanime]

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

[@FarkunDarkrar1]

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

[@mysterioso2006]

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!

[@charliesanders4396]

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!

[@dutchman7623]

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]

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

[@iddet8867]

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

[@Jamstaro1]

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.

[@Fellow_Traveller1985]

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]

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]

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]

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

[@borjesvensson8661]

@@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.

[@kniter]

Love your videos!

[@Eli-ne3vu]

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.

[@awaytoanywhere699]

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.

[@DwarfLordAirsoft]

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

[@Landes1024rs]

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

[@fugithegreat]

Fascinating lesson!

[@johanpettersson5190]

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

[@stefan.holst65]

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.

[@Brahmsonite]

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.

[@GazilionPT]

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]

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

[@Fulkvidr]

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]

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

[@awaytoanywhere699]

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

[@cesteres]

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

[@samykiel]

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]

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).

[@hord81]

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.

[@xkmi5996]

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]

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]

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

[@borjesvensson8661]

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.

[@concernedcitizen6313]

Super informative and fascinating!

[@Tsotha]

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.

[@Irlandesaaa]

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]

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

[@stigekalder]

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.

[@Ueberprivate]

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.

[@Officialhelpkenet]

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

[@figandspade11]

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

[@arnorkristjansson9532]

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

[@JanCarol11]

Root of "bleak"?

[@purportedly]

Exactly!

[@plciferpffer3048]

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

[@Yahyia-cv3sx]

Þakka þér fyrir herra. Thank you, sir.

[@SWEmanque]

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.

[@bringar8279]

Extremely intriguing.You use good examples.

[@oz_jones]

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]

I didn't imply that it was.

[@williambilson1555]

This was extremely helpful!! Thank you so much!

[@tamasmarcuis4455]

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.

[@Ebenandre]

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]

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

[@Ebenandre]

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

[@kaffekaffekaffe5225]

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

[@herreguda6199]

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

[@Cetoniinae]

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!

[@rachael2180]

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

[@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!

[@pm71241]

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.

[@qboger]

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!

[@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!! 😛😛

[@danishviking8002]

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.

[@perborjel7928]

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.

[@jonko82]

Thanks alot for this video. I've always wondered about the usage of blár in blámaður/blámenn.

[@Allblinde]

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]

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

[@PIANOPHUNGUY]

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

[@rullvardi]

Same in Swedish "Ett blått öga/Ett blåöga"

[@MrTimurLP]

same in german "blaues auge"

[@cusid0]

Very interesting, thanks for the video!

[@Cyssane]

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?

[@benw9949]

Dr. Crawford -- Are you putting a ring over the A when it's pronounced as an O alone or before R in certain words, Åå ? The small descender hook on the O looks more like a g Maybe a slightly smaller c or fishhook on the center or left of the O? It would help if you could use a bolder (wider) marker for the writing on the whiteboard.

[@tom_curtis]

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.

[@SuddenlySolveig]

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

[@athilith]

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

[@GraemeMarkNI]

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]

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

[@buckystanton9139]

is svartr connected to the english word swarthy?

[@telchalone7115]

Yes)

[@ralphg.curtis9297]

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

[@masatwwo6549]

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

[@masatwwo6549]

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]

'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.

[@vp4744]

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]

But Krisna really is blue! Seen the art?

[@vp4744]

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

[@JanCarol11]

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

[@vp4744]

No

[@Brynwyn123]

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

[@leagillact-o-graphy1690]

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]

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

[@kalaharris8125]

Wow. This is amazing and interested and I'm hooked on every word but man..... I sure am confused

[@kjestineczech6479]

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.

[@Elin.Noller]

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.

[@AJarOfYams]

“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).

[@annhansen9339]

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

[@GustafStechmann]

yes, and german "bleich"

[@dezzfoxx3957]

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

[@thevikingvox1277]

The basics. I like it.

[@AndrishhRS]

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]

"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]

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]

That would be great!

[@vatterholm]

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]

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.

[@murdakah]

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.

[@philyragames]

Fascinerende! Hva med oransje og lilla?

[@danjustice1751]

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]

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

[@janeenebrowneblank8389]

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

[@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.

[@user-B_8]

*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.. 🤔🤷‍♀️

[@vikingtoaster2096]

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

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 ...

[@ilyasantonov212]

Dang now I wanna know about Norse and African contact

[@karpeth212]

Good video. Few things Tho, that I have checked with lingvists and anthropoligists in sweden: The colours on the left, you get bleikr wrong. It’s not yellow/pink. It’s just pale. Compare blek in Swedish. Like we today say that indigo, blue, and cyan can be different collors (which would just be blår), raudr is Both red and yellow. This persisted to early modern Swedish. I would not compare brunn to chestnut, as that’s a Brown colour, and not a colour in it self; I would compare it to the transition of orange. First used in Swedish and english, it meant ”the colour of the fruit”, but nowadays is it’s own colour in it’s own right. Otherwise, fantastic video!

[@daudzoss7628]

Bleikr as any warm color... coincidence that the top 2 highlighter marker colors are yellow and pink?

[@terifrolick1561]

How would you say a pied color dog? For example, a Grey and white dog ?

[@weepingscorpion8739]

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

[@iddet8867]

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

[@benw9949]

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?

[@ChrissieBear]

Where can I learn more about norse names for ethnic groups?

[@nicholasroldan3206]

How much longer will you be teaching there i wanna learn it

[@richardbennett4365]

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

[@markusnavergard2387]

Blue is also used to describe Draugr " bones turned evil blue"

[@vanefreja86]

About the gold - very interesting. I suddenly remember some danish folktunes...they do indeed also talk of gold as red - never thought about that before :) 2 examples: Det var herre Peder, drog i (tog på) sin hjorteham; og takker var af røde guld, for han var svigefuld. »Jeg græder ikke for Guld så rød, - Strengen er af Guld - det er og med min Vilje, jeg er blevet Eders Mø. Så liflig leged' han for sin Jomfru.

[@peder6909]

So people would Describe Red and Blond haired people has Rauði

[@PoloElefante]

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.