Old Norse Colour Terms (and other topics) with Jackson Crawford

[@JacksonCrawford]

I had a great time recording this! Thanks again for having me, Simon.

[@Fricker112]

I hope to one day get a PHD and specialize in Old Norse, I will keep the enthusiasm and love for Vikings, and Old Norse topic alive as long as I live. Thank you for making your videos that helped me gain more knowledge of the subject and ultimately come to my decision. Keep up the great work and have yourself a nice day.

[@vorthora]

Come back Jackson! I love you and your host, Simon, together. Such knowledgeable and pleasant people!

[@osten14]

Interesting that in Danish (no longer in use) a black man - as in someone originating from Africa with a dark complexion - was called “Blåmand” (Blue man). I believe the term was also used in Islandic and Norwegian. I find this strange as the term was used at the same time as “neger” and “sort mand” which both clearly derive from the colour black. It just struck me as odd given the black/blue raven point you raised and I was wondering if @Jackson Crawford had some knowledge of what terms the Old Norse speakers used to refer to Africans and why this word “Blåmand” was used in Danish?

[@Fricker112]

@BoomDigify I Mean, your wrong but even if you had been right I don't see why it would matter.

[@adam-k]

@@osten14 The 10th century Danes most likely encountered North Africans who weren't black. Berbers and native North Africans are white and brown and rarely black (those are the Sub-Saharan Africans). Zinedine Zidane for example is an Algerian berber. What they had however is beautiful blue clothings. Just as berber tuaregs today.

[@catlinboy]

I love that Jackson's idea of a remote throwaway location is somewhere in Scotland, whereas I live in Scotland, so the idea of rural Wyoming is probs a wild and unknown accent for myself.

[@Glassandcandy]

Try rural south east US. Way cooler wildlife and regional accents imo

[@sebastianpye9328]

Wherever you go, there you are!

[@dangerouswitch1066]

@@Glassandcandy as a Cajun; Merci! lasaiz les bon temps roulez!

[@buckbell7784]

Hahaha - greetings from Wyoming, everyone!

[@sarahpassell226]

A new Roper-Crawford conversation always rocks my world. They are so much fun to listen to and ruminate on for days afterward. Next assignment, boys: Write a galactic maximum shit-post IPA paragraph with musical notation (Tuning may vary from modern equal temperament.) and plug into a voice synthesizer. You might aim for one of your grandfathers, either the voice Jackson remembers from his late grandfather or the voice of Simon's living Cumbrian grandfather.

[@krisinsaigon]

I teach English to Vietnamese people. Vietnamese has no term for green - they include it as a shade of blue. They split blue into “the blue of the sky” and “leaf blue”. When I ask the children I teach to call out the names of colours in English, green is usually one of the past they’ll think of. They’ll quickly come up with black white red yellow blue, then maybe pink or brown or purple or orange, and green comes after these. Which to me is astounding because green is so obviously a colour, but it can’t be a colour in the same way to them. I guess they are translating in their heads all the colour they know in Vietnamese into English and green is an afterthought

[@hoathanatos6179]

Japanese have Midori for Green and Ao for blue, but originally Ao meant both blue and green and green lights are still referred to as Ao today. Midori originally meant something along the lines of freshness or lushness and due to its connection to describing plants it evolved to represent the color of plants as well.

[@Galenus1234]

Try not to think of "Vietnamese blue" as blue. This word just encompasses the whole color space that we tend to split into green and blue. So in fact a more accurate translation of "Vietnamese blue" would be rather "bleen" or "grue".

[@hoathanatos6179]

@@Galenus1234 Usually grue is used for this grouping.

[@krisinsaigon]

@@Galenus1234 that’s a good point But when I ask them to recall colours or show flash cards they get blue as quickly as they get red or yellow, but green has more of a delay In this video he says every colour has a kind of center point that we associate with that colour and then shades that go off from it, like how our base point for red is blood red. I think the centre point the Vietnamese have for their blue/green is blue and not green

[@hoathanatos6179]

The Ojibwe language traditionally has Green-Blue and Yellow-Brown-Orange. Due to colonialism and European influence they have developed a much more diverse palette of colours and will often just refer to a thing based on objects of that specific colour, like ash-coloured (kaakazhe/aande (inanimate)/aanzo (animate)/aanzhe (luminate), which is light grey, and coal-coloured (akakanzhe/aande/aanzo/aanzhe), which is dark grey. Or Orange, which is derived from the fruit Ozaawamiin/Ozaawamishiimin depending on dialect (Ozaawa being Yellow-Orange-Brown and Miin being fruit or berry/Mishiimin being apple) so Ozaawamiinagaawaanzhe means the light is orange. While modern Brown is derived from the root Akii, meaning Earth, ground, soil, like in akiiwaanzo ma’iingan (the brown wolf).

[@setadriftonfishandchips]

Dropping H's and adding them on is a common feature of some dialects of Newfoundland English. As we say; " 'e drops 'is aches in 'oolyrood h'and picks em up in h'Avondale."

[@amandachapman4708]

And of course the letter "h" is called Haitch 😄

[@epicgamer9766]

Same thing in Cape Breton english

[@Ice_Karma]

I follow some Québecois/es on KZbin. (in English; sadly, despite being Canadian, I was taught Standard French in school, not any kind of Canadian French, and not having had a lot of exposure, I find the accent very hard to understand 😿) What I'm about to say is *_not_* meant as criticism towards their skill in speaking English. Some will drop H's from where they should be, and insert them where they shouldn't be... but not consistently! For example, they might say both " 'ave" and "have", or "habout" and "about", in the space of less than, e.g., 30 seconds. I kind of suspect hesitancy over whether there should or shouldn't be an H: "Oh, that sounded wrong. [...] Oh, that sounded wrong, too."

[@lucie4185]

@@amandachapman4708And in Devon my dad asks for "an 'elping 'and with these hold happles"

[@markmayonnaise1163]

@@Ice_Karma I always interpret it as a case of making a distinction where there was none in the original language. Our /h/ in English, (as in most languages iirc) is more properly described as bare phonation rather than as a glottal fricative or approximant. So when you pick up a second language as an adult without much formal knowledge of phonology, foreign *distinctions,* rather than foreign sounds per se, are most likely to trip you up, in this case voicing/voicelessness before vowels at the beginning of words. For an example for English speakers, an English adult without any linguistic knowledge attempting to learn Mandarin would have a miserable time developing the listening comprehension to pull apart their palatal and retroflex consonant series and the four tones, since that's not *data* (to use a clumsy analogy) they're used to looking for. And so as they begin to learn the language they won't learn what words have what set of sounds. ...which basically describes the first few years of French class in my God-awful BC public education! You can reach Grade 12 and be completely ignorant of what vowels can be nasal, the front rounded vowels, the open-mid close-mid distinction, etc etc...

[@micayahritchie7158]

I think the media's effect on our language and Identity is interesting. Jamaican teenagers often use AAVE now instead of our creole, or heavily borrow prononciations and expressions from it and change them grammatically to match the syntax of the creole. I personally very much dislike hearing it but what can I say it's definitely interesting how their identity as being black influences their speech more than the local landscape. As an example we back t's and d's before l to k's and g's so the word bottle is typically realised and bakl and I think it's more common among teenagers to tap that t than back it now even in what is otherwise a creole sentence

[@dangerouswitch1066]

lassaiz les bon temps roulez! we must do more to save our dialects.

[@vorthora]

And Simon, Jackson says something at around the 1 hour mark implying that people may get bored with such a long video on the subject. No way! I love to hear both of you expressing in very down-to-earth terms all these concepts in such a casual, conversational way. Your styles of treating these concepts are laid-back, pleasant, knowledgeable, not stuffy and so friendly. Neither of you are up there in an ivory tower. Just the way I like to teach my students. I want them to feel comfortable in class, and don't want them to think I'm the know-it-all teacher who presumes to have answers to everything. You two also seem to get along like a house on fire, and it's a happy, contagious feeling. So happy you 2 linguists found each other on youtube and can speak about everything in such a friendly way! Thank you both!

[@theJellyjoker]

I could listen to you two ramble on about language all day.

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

The coming lawyer-liar merger will necessitate Americans start using the term barrister.

[@zekleinhammer]

I feel like we can just merge the terms as they mean the same thing! 😅

[@MatthewsPersonal]

Lol

[@fredhasopinions]

Fast forward a few hundred years and barrister and barista are floating dangerously close to one another…

[@LemoUtan]

@@fredhasopinions I believe bar-steward and bastard are already there

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@zekleinhammer fair enough

[@charlisparkles]

I hadn't heard of Dr Jackson Crawford before this video - I'll check out his work, thank you Simon 👍

[@sunnyday_lemonbars]

His channel is excellent to binge watch. Happy diving!

[@kniter]

Youre in for a treat

[@olafpayne]

Just going to point out we say someone has a black eye, when really it's dark blue.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Fastest 2 hours ever. :) Anyway, "Oh, you're Faroese, you'll get it eventually" had this Faroese person in tears. :D

[@sheilam4964]

@Weeping Scorpion - Now you've got me "in tears". Somehow your perspective adds more context to Jackson's experience making it very funny indeed.

[@nigelwiseman8644]

Talking of bleikr, you mentioned bleach but not the adjective bleak, which is the closest cognate. Bleich in German is the ordinary word for pale.

[@braaierman]

I was thinking the same thing. In Afrikaans we use "bleek" to describe a pale person.

[@sameash3153]

In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan; Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.

[@Bjowolf2]

Danish bleg [bligh], Norwegian & Swedish blek = pale D at blege [bligh-e] = to bleach (!)

[@clownworld5474]

Bleikers brand make smoked salmon in the UK. Never knew where the word derived from

[@islaymmm]

Interestingly the modern standard Japanese word for red (adj), "aka-i" comes from the old Japanese word "aka-shi" meaning bright. My great grand mother's dialect didn't distinguish the two 'words' or 'senses of one word' at least phonemically at all. She would say "aka-i" for both. My grandmother also has it to a lesser degree. Also the modern word for black (adj), "kuro-i" seems to be cognate or at least closely related to the modern word for dark (adj), "kura-i". It's such a shame I don't have any systematic knowledge of colour terms in Japanese but the possibility of a system of colour terms prioritising brightness that Simon mentioned certainly resonated with me.

[@dixgun]

What about ‘omoshiroi’?

[@islaymmm]

@@dixgun Don't know if you're asking about my great grandmother's dialect or the etymology of that word but it's been a while since she passed away so I may be lying but she probably wouldn't use that word. I think she'd instead say 粋な "sui-na" (not to be confused with "iki-na" which uses the same kanji) in most cases. As for the etymology it doesn't seem like there's an academic consensus.

[@dixgun]

@@islaymmm it means ‘interesting’ but also ‘bright’/’white’/’shocking’.

[@islaymmm]

@@dixgun Yes, I know. I'm Japanese.

[@midshipman8654]

I would love to hear more on that topic of increased abstraction in the modern world compared to the past. Because that is something thats really stuck out to me too when reading old texts, even in translation. “an honest man does” vs “honesty is”. And I feel that is a problem I often struggle with too, going on an abstract point to try and be more essential about it, but all the while losing the point because of how disconnected it came by using all these more etherial ideas.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Regarding Google translate: I recently used it to translate an official Chinese policy 15 page document, and the result was unbelievably clear and simple. Meanwhile, it still struggles translating simple sentences from English to Spanish.

[@merrymerryjerry6736]

Perhaps it works with isolating languages like English and Chinese better than it does with fusional languages like Spanish?

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

Another hypercorrection trend: “I” supplanting “me” in all cases.

[@felixhaggblom7562]

I haven't seen that, although the opposite has become common in Swedish. Replaing the third person object pronouns "honom/henne" (him/her) with the subject pronouns "han/hon" (he/she) I find it very annoying

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

Exactly! Or "Her and me played tetherball at recess" being corrected to "She and I ..." Kids learned the wrong lesson because noun cases are no longer instinctive in English. They thought, "well, 'me' is always incorrect."

[@BobbyBermuda1986]

This usually happens in a conjoined phrase. Even the hypercorrectors won't say, "Join I", but they will say, "Join Tom and I". In other words, I will supplant me every time there are at least two participants in the pronominal phrase.

[@sameash3153]

@A B I hear supposed errors like "me and him are going" far more common than the hypercorrection

[@sameash3153]

@@anandashankarmazumdar but that is a legitimate example in standard english you gave. The me there is incorrect, but common, "she and I" would be a legitimate correction and not a hypercorrection.

[@Penetzi]

I can’t help but notice that you guys work so well together. It gets better and better.

[@marcdefaoite]

20:00 Re - Gold being red - In French a goldfish is literally a 'red fish' - poisson rouge. Black as a skin colour is 'blue' - gorm - in Irish. (Dubh is black)

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

I believe the American-British difference in pronunciation of “herb” is the the result of hypercorrection by Londoners.

[@bigaspidistra]

The h has been sounded in herb generally in English from the 19th century. Not sounding it as many but not all in North America do is conservative. The h was added to the spelling sometime in the 1400s by some scholar who knew too much about Latin.

[@indetif839]

After moving from the US to Canada, I noticed the 'h' is always pronounced.

[@cabbage0dusk]

Yeah nah, everybody in the UK pronounces the H, unless they're an American immigrant.. lol

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

That’s my point. “Erb” was the original British pronunciation. At some point the H became pronounced in Britain because of hypercorrection.

[@kesgreen4639]

The hypercorrection topic is interesting. See also the increasing use of "myself" in place of "me" (at least in UK English).

[@AFrogInTheStars]

As i get more and more interested in colour languages/expressions in different cultures, this could not have come at a better time! And as someone who is learning Russian, there are two words for blue, but one of them can be used as inappropriate slang (голубой).

[@neriah5126]

I’m learning Russian as well. Розовый (pink/rose) is also a slang term. Funny...

[@jen_sa]

I think pink as a slang term for lesbian might be outdated now, and light blue in the meaning "gay man" might be more neutral than it is rude, although i guess it depens on a person. I don't think it's considered a slur but i might be wrong; at the very least it is a lot less rude than a few other words russian has referring to gay people

[@TenositSergeich]

As a native speaker of Russian, I can point out that _голубой_ is a relatively neutral word - it is just that general societal attitude is crap. _Розовая_ was already pretty rare in '10s, though I cannot say how it is used in-group since I am not _from_ Russia. Here in Ukraine, neither is often used to my knowledge.

[@seamusmacconmidhe2491]

We still differentiate in rural mid Ulster between meat(mayte) and meet, beat(bayte) and beet, meal(mayle, cereal for animal consumption) and me, meal (dinner in a restaurant), tea (tay) and tee, seat (sayte) and see. Birds have baykes, which is a slang term in Belfast for face. We don't differentiate between sea and see.

[@amandachapman4708]

Ah, thanks for adding that. I did think of Ulster when they were speaking about that.

[@covenantalist]

I gave this video a like before it began, then watched the whole thing. It was a safe bet.

[@girv98]

On hypercorrection, /θ, ð/ are not a natural part of my dialect; I've "added" them (mostly just θ, really) to my speech over the years. Not only has this often led to me hypercorrecting /f/ to /θ/ at the start of words. The fact I know I'm doing it has further led me to "un-correct" /θ/ back to /f/. So the phrase "fingers and thumbs" can become "thingers and fumbs"

[@simonroper9218]

I think I've heard this in the speech of people I know! That's very cool. Do you mind me asking where you're from?

[@girv98]

@@simonroper9218 Born and raised in Leeds :) My parents are both from Wearside, but I don't know how much that has affected my language outside of vocab

[@raiknightshade3442]

The idea of you pronouncing the phrase as "thingers and fumbs" fills me with an indescribable joy, like idk why but that is just. 10/10 excellent unique dialectal difference

[@Ciiran]

@@raiknightshade3442 Without context I’d read it as cockney rhyming slang. It has that feel to it. (Im Swedish btw)

[@raiknightshade3442]

@@Ciiran admittedly I'm not super familiar with cockney slang myself (I'm Midwestern american) but I can kinda see it

[@buckbell7784]

As a lifelong Wyomingite I was thrilled to hear Jackson bring up the Popo Agie pronunciation. We’re a state with many linguistic peculiarities but that’s the golden example.

[@johnfenn3188]

Needs and wants plus past participle is common in Scottish English.

[@gnarzikans]

@Mr. Rich B.O.B not “all of america,” but point taken. I think it tends toward more “rural,” or perhaps better said, linguistically conservative language-dialects in the US. in any case, for sure super common

[@beckettmw]

43:59: “əspəzid͡ʒəstha̲ftəʃəʉðə̹mə ɫɛkə̹sːːː spɛʔktʃɚ spɛʔkt͡ʃɚgɹʷɑːfösɑmpθe̝ŋ” “wɪ̈θ d̪ɛsɨ̈bɫʷ dɛsɨ̈bɫʷ ɹʷydɛɐts d͡ʒəstfɚʷðɜ fɚʷðɪ̹gzæktvɔ̝ljə̹m ... I'm not talking about Maximum Shitpost IPA, I'm talking about Galactic Maximum Shitpost IPA.”

[@AnnaKaunitz]

Present day Swedish has the word “blek” - bleikr- which is used in a negative way like it was described in Norse. Or it describes something that is less colourful. Or weak. It makes sense that Norse speakers back them would describe certain colours as “bleikr”. Swedish colour words are specific and more varied compared to English is my impression when colours are described in English. Swedish separates dark from bright/pale colors/hues like “ljusblå” - light blue, “mörkblå”- dark blue, the “ljus”/“mörk” is used for every color except white and black. Swedish is also fond of more specifically detailing colours into sub categories like “vinröd” - red wine, ruby red, brick red, purple, violet, turquoise, moss green, copper, gold, silver, bronze, pink, grey. Look at the Swedish 🇸🇪 and it’s blue turns out to be a somewhat rare shade of blue. It’s in between dark and light blue.

[@rykloog9578]

ig thats could be why we would describe things as “bleak” in english

[@hoathanatos6179]

English has bleak, black and bleach all from the same root. It is thought that bleach and black share a common root because of burning forming either white ash or black carbon, or because the root may have carried a meaning of colourless for ancient peoples and then evolved in different Germania languages to be associated with lightness or darkness in different words. We also had the word scimian (whence modern English shimmer originates) and that meant both to give off light or to grow dim, dusky, dark depending on context.

[@larsipsen3337]

In Danish : Bleg

[@davidlericain]

The point about the loss of concrete language really got me thinking. I had never considered how much more powerful and even nuanced prose can be when using more concrete terms.

[@tahnae99]

Something I find interesting in modern English is (from what I’ve observed) generational differences in the description of colours. For example, my Nan and I often disagree on if an egg yolk is yellow or orange, if certain shard like teal or aqua are blue or green, some reds vs oranges. When I’ve asked my Pop or other family friends of their generation, they’re much more likely to agree with my grandparents than with mine, my friends or my siblings definitions of the colours. This makes me wonder how much of this is a cultural thing and how much is taught. Now we don’t just learn colours based on examples in nature but in print outs and colour wheels etc. I wonder if the quality of colour printing in the 40s and 50s could have impacted the colours they associate with different colour terms on the borders of colours.

[@smittoria]

What about Harald Bluetooth? Was his name translated as Black tooth before?

[@aroundthenetinaday1015]

Never in any Danish that I have read. Always Harald Blåtand. Blå = blue. I have never heard it mentioned that there was a time we did NOT have a word for blue. But I agree, it would be interesting to hear if there ever was a time his name got translated as "Blacktooth" in English.

[@michaelessig6376]

I wonder how much standard American English color terms is tied to the basic crayola crayon set

[@gnarzikans]

lol, imagine thinking people not picking up after their dogs is because of “californians” 😂. nah dude, there are just careless people everywhere

[@kinusganyani8694]

Simon is 52 YEARS OLD!!! I would never have guessed !!!

[@kesgreen4639]

I thought he was in his twenties. He must have some seriously good genes (and/or miraculous skincare secrets).

[@midtskogen]

The linguistic evidence suggests 520 years.

[@vorthora]

Talking about Google Translate, I remember I took a doctoral course on machine translation. Now that was about 24-25 years ago and AI has advanced a loooot since then. But something still remains the same as my conclusions: it cannot translate jokes, humor, irony or poetry (including short poetic expressions). Maybe that's the big difference between being human or not.

[@mond5004]

Interesting as always. How languages change and evolve is always an interesting thought exercise. Having watched some their more recent videos as well, it has been interesting to see the rabbit holes their respective research has led them down. Side note: my Grandma also used to correct everyone with whom. Annoyed the hell out of us, but made us laugh, too. If anyone here wants to know the rule, if you can replace the word with "him", "her" or "them", use "whom". Who is used to refer to the subject; whom refers to the object. Thank you grandma.

[@anthonybennett4868]

As an example of hyper-correction, my grandfather reported that Spanish speakers in Panama (where he worked as a teacher), would hyper-correct their speech when speaking to him, whom they considered very proper and erudite. So for example, we tend to drop Ds in words (e.g. scraped/shaved -- raspado --> raspao), and he once heard someone say "bacalado" for bacalao (cod).

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

I love these discussions, speaking of Old Norse, Old English, Icelandic, Modern English, all good stuff

[@AllotmentFox]

You said 'mark-ed' rather than 'marked', something I thought was sort of out. I still use it but I realise it feels archaic. Belov-ed feels fossilised but 'aged' not 'ag-ed' just feels wrong.

[@zlessly]

this one was really good, im a huge fan of both channels and it was really fun and interesting to see the conversation devolve into analyzing different dialects and mergers.

[@chriflu]

Fascinating! In particular, I realized how much colour categorization differs between individuals and even within the same language, culture, and period. I grew up in Vienna as the child of Swiss expats in the 80s and 90s. Already back then, in kindergarten, I became aware that while to me all shades of purple were under the category of "violett", the other children would make a distinction between "violett" and "lila". And they would not consider "lila" to be a subcategory of "violett", but a completely different colour. Then, when I was in my teens, German started adopting the English loanword "pink" to refer to a particularly saturated, flashy and artificial shade of what, when I was 10 years old, we would still have called "rosa" or "rosarot". And when the word "pink" gained popularity in German, it first was, at least to me, a subcategory of "rosa"/"rosarot". However, today "rosa(rot)" seems to refer only to a light shade of pink while "pink" refers to a saturated, flashy shade of pink. So to my daughter "pink" is not a subcategory of "rosa(rot)" anymore. This is a change in the colour categorization system that happened within one generation. I also liked the discussion about how sometimes the concepts of colour are very much dependent on their context (e.g. hair colour, skin colour). Vienna is famously situated "an der schönen blauen Donau" ("on the beautiful blue Danube"). However, I challenge anyone to stand next to the Danube and tell me with a straight face it is not actually dark *green*. If you took a close-up picture of the water and then showed it to any German speaker without telling them that they are looking at water, they would certainly call the colour they see "grün". But in the context of rivers or lakes, we call this "blau". Or traffic lights: There's red, yellow, and green, right? In Switzerland, unlike in Germany and Austria, it's red, orange, and green. Even though the traffic lights themselves look exactly the same. I had discussions with non-Swiss German speakers about why they call the "yellow" light "gelb" even though it is clearly "orange". And they were like: Of course, it's orange, but in the context of traffic rules, it's called "gelb" - as in "bei Gelb fahren". Given that there is so much variation in colour categorization both diachronically and regionally just within the most Southern varieties of Standard German between 1980 and 2020, I would assume that there was a whole lot more variation in earlier stages of the Germanic languages just between villages and single generations. Therefore, I am always quite suspicious of sweeping statements about how "they" thought about colour.

[@bb2021]

I have never known how to tell the difference between what others confidently call purple, mauve, violet, lilac and lately aubergine etc. Always thought I must have missed that day at school! 😁

[@niels.brouwer]

'Bleek' in Dutch means a pale colour, which if I'm not mistaken is cognate with Old Norse 'bleikr' being discussed here. In modern Dutch, 'bleek' can be said of any colour, not just red. I could see 'bleikr' initially being used as 'a pale shade of red', i.e. orange or yellow, and the term later being expanded to a lighter/paler shade of any other colour.

[@tatyanaparakhina6356]

Same in Russian

[@johnsarkissian5519]

It’s not only Russian that has two basic terms for light and dark blue. Italian, too, has azzurro and blu.

[@jacobandrews2663]

HEL YEAH! These videos are always a treat

[@johnmacdonald9861]

Needs done and wants done are two very common usages in Scotland !

[@psdeas7530]

Um, because there are neither buffalo nor antelope in the Western US? There are bison and pronghorn, though. Why not celebrate the actual critters? Pronghorn, in particular, are so much more interesting than they would be if they were just antelope, and the early European conflation of red deer, moose, and wapiti causes no end of confusion when discussing wildlife with European friends and the word “elk” comes up. There’s benefit in calling things what they are. Those pesky antlered hoppers are still called Jackalope, though, so I can understand the confusion. The discussion regarding the letter H put me in mind of what I call the Law of Conservation of R. Every R abandoned in the Northeastern US (“pawk the caw”) finds refuge in the Midwestern US (“warsh the car.”)

[@Strein86]

I love that banter at the start. It’s crazy how some people draw false associations with random things.

[@krisinsaigon]

I’m guessing an old Norse language channel might attract some strange QAnon/white power fringe elements looking to use the videos to bolster their lunatic cause

[@pepebriguglio6125]

So interesting to listen to the two of you talk. We are equally fascinated by every detail in every pattern of how languages behave. And how we observe and think is so much the same. So it becomes a pure joy to listen to your observations and study results.

[@PresbyDane]

Martin Luther Said “you do not really understand a subject until you can explain it to a child” kind of the opposit to sounding “smart”

[@davidfryer9359]

Martin Luther was probably as antisemitic as Adolph Hittler. I am almost certain his guile against the Jews instilled the seed of hatred in those of the protestant movement which lead to the attrocities of The Holocaust!!! As far as the Modern Luthrens are concerned, they are the Salt of the Earth.

[@twig5543]

"Have an orange day." I'm going to use that and not provide any explanation 😁 I really enjoyed this discussion - it was super interesting. To be honest, I'm binge-watching all the videos on this channel.

[@EaldRice]

We in West Michigan still have cot-caught unmerged and distinct, though with our own flavor of pronunciation due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift

[@brianne8254]

Same with W. NY. Do you guys have any local place name shibboleths? I'm wondering if any would be similar to ours. The towns of Medina and Lima are "Medeyenuh" and "Leyemuh." There are many other vowel shifts.

[@P.Ripper]

There are some truly interesting colors with stories behind, such as 'apricot' (it is, in fact, a tree yet it is used a lot as a color concept).

[@gnarzikans]

“maximum shitpost ipa 😂”

[@micayahritchie7158]

I find that hypercorrection caveat super intriguing. Living in a country where the most common tongue is an English creole that is perceived as a bad form of the standard, things like pronouncing that t in soften or often and the g in ing are quite commonplace in how we speak English. Because here how well you speak and how "correct" your English is possibly the most overt marker of status. It's not uncommon for people in Kingston even while speaking the creole (which they would not do primarily but for expression or para linguistic means or for the insertion of fixed Patwa phrases that don't exist in English) adopting a phonology and intonation that is a hypercorrection of the creole even for things that aren't of English origin. And ask any Jamaican and you don't see someone's social class, you hear it when they speak. I live in a fairly rural area and I have a friend who used to speak identically to me and she moved to Kingston a few years ago and the contrast between our speech now is striking not just in how much English vs Patwa we use but even just the intonation and phonology that she uses now being markedly different even when we say exactly the same thing.

[@rogerwitte]

Or, Argent, Sable, Gules, Azure, Vert, Pupure, Murrey, Sanguine, Tenné - Heraldic Colour Terms, but originally Norman French. Gold (Yellow) Silver (White) Black Red Blue Green Purple Mulberry Blood Tawny (Green/Vert is rare and there are arguments whether the others are valid. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_(heraldry)#List

[@Ciiran]

I was just going to add basically the same. Heraldry is very standardized and should be a good source for colours.

[@zak3744]

Now I'm interested as to what the twelfth colour is for people who potentially have twelve core colour terms in English. Silver was mentioned later in the conversation, but that can't be the answer can it? Personally, silver is a mixture of both colour and shininess: silver is shiny grey, and if you had included that you'd need to also include gold as shiny yellow on the same basis. Bronze would actually have more claim to be a basic colour than either silver or gold for me because it means "orangey-brown plus shininess," so the colour part of the definition at least doesn't map identically onto another core colour. I've only got eleven core colours, but if I had to propose a potential nominee for admission to their ranks, I think turquoise would maybe be the nearest contender for me?

[@raiknightshade3442]

Turquoise would make sense, as pure turquoise to me is not green, but not blue; it's somewhere in the middle. But in practice so many things are not that pure color that I would probably classify into blue or green based on which one they fall closer to. I think he might've meant pink; Dr. Jackson mentioned that he thinks pink is a form of red but also realized that some might consider it it's own basic color category in which pink items are not red. That's something that I'm personally stuck on; idk if I classify them differently or not. I think either pink or turquoise would be the twelfth category though since they can be considered quite distinct colors

[@zak3744]

@@raiknightshade3442 I thought the "standard" eleven were: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, brown, black, white, grey and pink. If pink is the twelfth, does that mean you have another one on your list of eleven?

[@raiknightshade3442]

@@zak3744 ....now I'm confusing myself on how many I counted initially 😂 I may have miscounted cause now I'm only getting up to 11 with pink, in which case 🤷

[@sigilmedia]

Huh, I think it was kind of alluded to but the big problem with the theory of color terms evolving is that languages don't just start from scratch except perhaps in some rare and catastrophic circumstances, languages evolve from other languages and so on. For example Proto Indo European is hardly more primitive than the modern languages that evolved from it, and with the exception of some creoles and pidgin languages there are probably no known languages that do not have thousands of years of development, and therefore none that would be so "primitive" not to have evolved a full set of colors already if they wanted one.

[@jen_sa]

Simon is how i imagine young Darwin must have been like. Weird sentiment but i hope you take it as a compliment))

[@jennadnelson]

I appreciate the discussion on abstract language...I was having a hard time figuring out what it is I dislike so much about the way some people speak (or write) at my work, and it's absolutely the throwing around of abstract terms as if they have some sort of universal meaning / application. They are always persons trying to sound smart....

[@oliver7901]

On the topic of mergers; my wife is from East Anglia and in her accent "ball", "bull" and "boule" are completely merged, as are "wool" and "wall", and also "fall", "full" and "fool", in all cases the L is dark. It has led to confusion on occasion!

[@Glassandcandy]

I never thought I’d ever hear a man this refined say a word like “shitpost” but hearing it makes me happy in a way I never could’ve anticipated

[@raiknightshade3442]

Oh the silver vs grey question is a good one; I'd definitely call metallic things only silver, never grey; but I'm with Simon on hair, silver and grey are the same with silver being more poetic. I don't?? Think?? I'd classify it as it's own basic category, in that case, I'd put it in the category of "colors that are basic but only in a specific field and nowhere else" like the hair colors and horse colors mentioned early in the video

[@Hebelios]

Whilst I'm usually watching recordings of my lectures in double-time and would still have plenty to catch up to, I'd rather watch a 2-hour video about a subject that's not even in my field of study in original speed. Thank you for this very insightful video with lots of humour! I'm german and also used to use lots of archaisms. Back then it was more conscious, these days it's mostly what stuck with me. Just as well I'm starting to become more and more aware and interested in changes that are occuring right now in my language. My sympathy to you both! Another thing that I noticed with my use of language: I find myself emphasizing a lot on the literal meaning of common phrases. A good analogy in english would be something along the lines of "I am sorry, in the most literal sense" (as it originally comes from sorrow, in german there is "Es tut mir Leid" - it does me sorrow / it pains me). It probably comes with the history (and it's mindset) of the language. I sometimes reflect on whether it goes down the way of hypercorrection and hope that nobody I know thinks that way as that is something I dislike myself (it's just as common in german, might have to do with globalization, might also have to do with the spirit of our time). I do that to bring back some of the deeper meaning hidden in now generously used phrases. It's probably connected to why we're using archaisms. I also find myself borrowing phrases from other languages in a literal translation, they often sound funny yet still have that "strangeness" about them. That way you won't just go over them but ponder, even a little bit about the meaning of otherwise common phrases. Anyhow, thanks to the both of you. They are really a blast to watch!

[@felixhaggblom7562]

About Simon's point on the width of meaning, like the example of "pebble" in Swedish we call an individual pebble "småsten" meaning "small stone". As far as I know there is no distinct word for pebble. Much like Jackson says afterwards, you can't fine a one-to-one relation

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

In Swedish "blek" just means "pale". Same as "bleak" in English, although I think in English the word has taken on more poetic connotations compared to modern Swedish. Also, I don't think using the word "bright" to signify beauty is that strange in a modern context. Saying someone is "radiant" or "glowing" would be a way to say they're beautiful even today. Otherworldly creatures in fantasy media also tend to have an inner light or sparkle to them to express their magical beauty.

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

@Rico Ten Yes. But the core meaning is still the same. It's only being used in the poetic sense and has lost its original use in the color sense

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

@Rico Ten Vad menar du? "Bleak" på engelska syftar ju ursprungligen på en blek färg precis som på svenska. Men det används inte i den moderna engelskan för att syfta på en fysisk färg, utan bara i metaforisk bemärkelse.

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

@Rico Ten Then I'm sorry for being unclear. I'm perfectly aware of what bleak means in modern english. But even when you use it in the poetic sense (yes, I hope by now you understand what I mean by that) it's still the original meaning, only applied in a poetic way. If the weather is "bleak" it is "pale" in the poetic sense. It's dreary and gloomy. Colourless. Even if people are unfamiliar with the original usage in a modern context that is still how the word came to be used in that way in the first place.

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

@Rico Ten Ok. I'm curious what your interpretation of how the word bleak came to have its modern meaning is. Was it just random happenstance that people decided the word was suddenly gonna have a totally different meaning?

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

​@Rico Ten Obviously you'd have to look at each word on a case by case basis. Which doesn't mean their transformations were random. I can definitely infer ways how the words you mentioned went from meaning one thing to another. (Whether I'd be correct or not.) But we (or I did at least) just watched a video about how colors are often used in poetic ways to describe more than physiological appearence. So is it really that far fetched to assume that bleak stayed around with that kind of meaning while losing its literal meaning as another word (pale) entered the language? Even in Swedish we can still use the word both ways, metaphorically and literally, as in "bleka utsikter" for example. Or "en blek morgon". So I don't really understand what's so controversial about what I said.

[@seamusmacconmidhe2491]

Dude comes frome Irish Gaelic, dúdach.

[@philippa5004]

Thanks for posting . Interesting for painters & First Nations people imo

[@donkeysaurusrex7881]

The whom people drive me crazy.

[@anieth]

What I noticed with older Celtic languages was the trade aspect. They had a huge tendency to borrow words and so many color words were similar to who they traded with, like coccineal for purple. Cocra, cocur, etc. I was wondering if you see a great jump in borrowed color words as the Norse began to trade very widely? I also noticed a HUGE difference in the Celtic and Norse/Germanic tongues in the way of abstraction. I think that English and French were influenced hugely by the Celtic love of abstraction, metaphor and, well, hard to convey "dream time" feeling in the Celtic languages.

[@elizabethspence9260]

"Brown" in Welsh is "yellow" or "red."

[@satsumamoon]

What do you mean? Welsh has its own word for brown, itc called brown :) The same as in English. Im Welsh, I grew up in Wales and speak quite good Welsh.

[@elizabethspence9260]

@@satsumamoon Oops, wrth gwrs! Ha ha! Doniol Iawn!!! I found Jackson's research really informative. The "melyn" or "rhudd" or even "llwyd" for brown is now fully explained. Thank you, Jackson Crawford! I remember an aged man referring to his brown shoes as "melyn" - yellow - and always wondered why. Now I know --- Diolch.

[@torbjornkallstrom2316]

That's interesting. It's counterintuitive to us to think of them that way since we're used to thinking of orange and brown as separate, but brown is really just a darker shade of orange. And I was wondering whether there were languages that didn't make that distinction. Calling brown yellow or red makes a lot of sense in that context.

[@elizabethspence9260]

@@torbjornkallstrom2316 And there's "llwyd", grey, as well. The Welsh colour constellation for "brown" seems to be enormous! There is a Welsh word for "orange" - "oren," - but it's obviously a loan word.

[@rykloog9578]

In Toki Pona, there are 5 (7) colour terms. Pimeja = black, walo = white, loje = red, jelo = yellow/lime, laso = green/blue, kapesi = brown, and unu = pink/purple

[@KusacUK]

Is jelo a loan word? Just asking due to its similarity to yellow.

[@rykloog9578]

@@KusacUK Yes. You didnt know this, but Toki Pona is actually a constructed language with vocabulary derived from existing languages. So they are all loan words, technically

[@rykloog9578]

I really like the language and so try to spread it unto the internet whenever I can. (also its minimal colour system would be interesting to other, I feel)

[@blakewinter1657]

Dropping the infinitive also happens in parts of PA, I believe. My wife, from northwest PA, does it.

[@jacobandrews2663]

What is interesting about the norse "red gold" term is that we do kind of already have this distinction in moder English. Consider redheaded people and Golden retrievers. When you actually look at a regular meduum tone golden retriever's fur up close. You'll notice that it is generally the same color as that of a regular Biritish redhead. I know this because when observing my girlfriend's red locks against my golden retriever, they have pretty much the same color... so what I'm saying is that, is not that hard to see where the norse where coming from with their color categories

[@smittoria]

Interesting observation. I guess that shows the important of background and, in more cultural terms, context.

[@davidlericain]

Maybe also goldfish, which is more red than yellow. Also in french it's a poisson rouge, a red fish.

[@toffthe]

Two of my favourite KZbinrs in one vid xxx

[@originalashloki]

On the subject of, “Needs washed,” I’ve lived in Northwestern Colorado, Northeastern Wyoming, Western Michigan, and Southwestern New Mexico. I’ve heard it from a very small minority in Colorado, never in Wyoming, never in Michigan, and very often in New Mexico. It was jolting when I first heard it in New Mexico as a teenager and seems most prevalent from Texan transplants. I believe all the Coloradoans I met who used the phrase were somehow related to Texas. So I believe in some capacity it seems to have come from Texas or some part of the American South, recently. I originally was very upset about hearing it because I took it for intense conversational laziness. But maybe that’s an oversimplification. My argument was (and has been for many similar subjects), “it literally saved you milliseconds to skip over that!”

[@MrTrilbe]

@Simon Roper talking about the future of British English, what do you think the effects of a year and a bit of lockdown will have on the language? Will all the time spent with mostly TV and internet will arrode accents and dialects or opposite? will the hopeful end of lockdown see a pick up of local accents and dialects as people over compensate (?) for the lack of social contact?

[@ladybirdlee3058]

enjoyed this conversation. Just wanted to mention that Dude and Dud were used as first names for men, especially in the southern US in the mid 1800s. One of my ancestors first name was Dude and he would have been born in the early 1800s. I always assumed it was a nickname or short for something like Dudley but can't find anything to suggest that.

[@over7532]

This is an unbelievably excellent interview/exchange! If I had to suggest an improvement, it would be an aspect ratio adjustment such that the two windows fit neatly within a 16x9 display. Regardless, this is peak fucking youtube! Well done lads!

[@beaver6d9]

I live in Ohio, USA and we are known for saying something 'needs xed'.

[@roceb5009]

Agreed. I live in AZ but my family's from Illinois, and that construction is very common in my speech

[@enochrockwell7202]

The blue black thing seems like it should be common sense and that it isn't to most scholarship demonstrates why I don't have any faith in any academic establishment

[@bb2021]

Interesting about dropping to be, ''needs done" for example. I hear it often in the Scots lady who introduces Homes Under the Hammer, also Two Doors Down on BBC, also set in Scotland - and sometimes in speakers from Cumbria. I'm in my mid 60s in the UK and I'm only aware of hearing it in the last few years. Then, once noticed, it seems to be everywhere!

[@elissafanzo1124]

Thank you both for doing this again!

[@elizabethspence9260]

"Whom is it?" she asked, for she has been to night school.

[@helenamcginty4920]

Blue didnt exist in ancient Greek either.

[@gabbytriestomakethings]

I've auditioned for French speaking roles in the US on television, and they often have us, the actor, translate from English. And I often have the thought when I am translating it, that I feel as though I am not sure how to determine their intent in the many variations that the translation could have which very much changes the way the character would think, for instance formal versus informal, and that nuance which you mention. Especially since we are only getting a single scene from the show, and not the whole script.

[@domsjuk]

2:04:00 genius! I love these kinds of brilliant flukes xD. I once met a couple of fit elderly Genovese blokes on a tiny alpine hut in northern Italy, but none of our German group could actively speak Italian, so I tried to make up some pseudo-Italian sentences from Latin and Spanish (both of which I learned in school), and it actually worked amazingly well with certain things, and not at all with others. I guess that was mostly due to my rusty Latin, but apart from that, unfortunately and perhaps unsurprisingly, it is often the words and phrases you use most that also change the most, which I find particularly hard to "reconstruct" or deduce.

[@aubemilagrosa6074]

I think, English and German colour terms might have subtle differences, indeed. I've found English "purple" a strange one and hard to pin down for me as a German native speaker. Most of it would probably be "lila" in German but purple seems somewhat more stretched towards the red end than my "lila", which is cooler and more blue-ish. And I find the blue pile in the colour chart at 5:45 a bit strange, two of the dots there look quite distinctively green to me. For 56:46, I agree with your sister: I'd call that one yellow, too (or more specifically, "neongelb").

[@maddiebarker4643]

As a fellow German, I totally agree with that. When I think of lila, I think of a different shade than purple. That translation never made sense to me.

[@caejones2792]

I find the talk of basic color categories kinda interesting. I remember when I was like 2-4, learning the colors, and my parents had this maroon car, and I was fascinated trying to figure out if it was red or purple (and that's how I learned the word "maroon" before I learned to spell "cold"). I still couldn't tell you if maroon falls more into the red or purple category, but I do definitely think of pink and purple as distinct categories. I also had this shirt around that time, and IDK if it had a red-pink gradient, or it was faded or partly faded in the sun, or if I was looking at it in weird lighting, or what, and I don't remember what clerification I was given when I asked, because then someone started teasing me for wearing a pink shirt. I guess to me, pink is like, pink Starbursts, or the pink Power Ranger, or strawberry icecream. Magenta is more a shade of pink than purple (yes I know that magenta is just bright purple in RGB; the point is, I intuitively put purple and magenta in different categories). I know that hot pink is a thing, but I'd be hard pressed to describe it. The transition between red and pink is a little weird, in that I've seen faded red tanktops that I'd rather describe as pink, or maybe a reddish pink, rather than pinkish red or faded red. Yet, calling skin pink has never made sense to me, other than, like, tongues and lips. Skin has always been on a spectrum from dark brown to whatever you call pale caucasian, with some wiggle-room in the middle for more olive/red/brown that I just called "tan" back in the day. But I've never found a term that covers skin colors specifically, so it remains in this weird nameless limbo.

[@CharlesHatley-e9h]

Johnson Nancy Moore Margaret Wilson Steven

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

I've picked up "apropos of nothing" into my casual speech recently without even trying, and I can't even construct how I would express that idea in my old ideolect anymore.

[@davidlericain]

Out of nowhere?

[@KusacUK]

For no reason?

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

@@davidlericain I don't think that really conveys the same idea. Though I think David Woods may be on point with "No reason in particular, but" as a more reasonable way to say it without the "trying at sounding smart" bug.

[@nisc2001]

my first thought at what the other phrase might be was "out of the blue" but i'm not sure if that still attempts to sound smart or not

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

Can you add subtitles?

[@syystomu]

On the topic of trying to translate abstract phrases into Old Norse, I feel like those kinds of translation issues crop up a lot even in modern translation work. Especially when it comes to stylistic concerns, what is considered good writing might be thought of as bad in another language. Some languages prefer elaborate sentence structures, some prefer simple and straightforward expression. Some favour loanwords, some detest them. Some expect you to learn specific phrases that are perceived as the correct ways to word things, others would think of those as cliché. Some favour directness, others subtlety. There's also things like topics that are considered rude, or actually politeness and formality in general. There's also languages that rely very heavily on context and languages that are very specific in comparison. Are puns considered clever or low humour? Etc. And of course all of these things are in constant flux, these preferences might even change within a few generations. There might be more direct comparisons to the abstract vs concrete phrasing thing too, I just can't think of any right now. Although there might even be languages now that have a similar attitude to abstraction as Old Norse.

[@MatthewsPersonal]

Hypercorrection gave us ridiculous bastardizations like policewoman and congressperson. Is that even hypercorrection or just bad puns or folk typology gone mad? Anyway, hypercorrection is going to give us gendered and then re-non gendered nouns xD

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

Gender matters are not hypercorrection.

[@MatthewsPersonal]

@@anandashankarmazumdar I think I meant over correction

[@olafpayne]

One of these beards needs brushing.

[@katewilmot4375]

These language channels are fantastic...I am learning so much and you can make your videos as long as you like!

[@tatyanaparakhina6356]

Russian really has two words for "blue", because these are two different colours to us - dark blue (siniy) and light blue (goluboy).

[@tahnae99]

English sort of does too. Indigo and violet can both be considered blue, even if violet is also a term for purple

[@stefansoder6903]

Fantastic! Interesting! Thank you! Question regarding black/blue: Why was black people called blåman (blue man)? And Africa called Blåland? Why Harald Blåtand?

[@annemorgenstern6070]

Great video! Dissertation handed in? Pressing my thumbs for you, as we'd say in Germany.

[@elimalinsky7069]

In Semitic languages only white, L-B-N, seems to be inherited from Proto-Semitic. In Hebrew, for example, all other colours are descriptive: Black = Shahor = lit. Charcoal/burnt-like Red = Adom = lit. Blood-like Green = Yarok = lit. Plant-like Yellow = Tzahov = lit. Gold-like Blue = Kahol = lit. Pigment-like Grey = Afor = lit. Dust-like Brown = Hum = lit. Clay/earthwork-like Orange = Katom = lit. Rust/stain-like Purple = Sagol = lit. Violet-like Pink = Varod = lit. Rose-like