Re: Odp: Odp: Color Words - purple

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 317
Date: 1999-11-22

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Marc Verhaegen
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 1999 11:16 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Odp: Color Words - purple

....
>Of course colour terms evolve and Homer's "metallic" could be "blue"
several generations later. The Slavic languages have several different terms
for "blue", and Old English had no equivalent of Modern English BLUE (which
is a loanword from French).


Is it? French "bleu" is a loanword from Franconian (Dutch "blauw"), as are
several other color names (French<Dutch): bleu<blauw, blond<blond,
blanc<blank, brun<bruin, gris<grijs. Germanic "bl-" seems to have meant
something like "without colour": black, blond, blind, blue...

Marc
It is, despite the fact that the word is ultimately Germanic, as you correctly point out. So are many other French words that were borrowed into English in the Middle Ages (e.g. guard, while ward continues OE weard 'guardian').
 
Piotr