color terms

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/30/99 11:29:43 PM, wrschmidt at adelphia.net wrote:

<<In fact, "blue" can also mean sad, as in, e.g., "He is blue," or
exasperated, as in e.g., "He talked until he was blue in the face.">>

And there's "true blue", "blue laws" and "my blue heaven".  But I believe
"blue in the face" refers to asphyxiation - "hold my breath until I'm..."

<<Moreover, Old Norse "bla" meant livid, synonomous with mad.>>

I think the reference in ON glossaries to "livid" has been misunderstood.

The "livid" being referred to is a COLOR.  Related in Latin first it seems to
the "color" lead leaves on the hands.  It came to mean discoloration, a
bruise or black and blue mark.  But it's also been described as a "leaden"
pale-blue.  To the Romans, livid was also later a metaphor for envy, spite
and maliciousness, based on an actual old Roman saying about your face being
the color of lead "with envy."
Another case like the Celtic where green and gray seem to merge.

"Livid" however meaning anger or rage seems to be very, very recent.

But "livid" has for a very long time in  referred to being bruised or being
"beaten black and blue."

Bla or blar (masc sing) in ON is definitely a bluish color, but it appears it
carries the grayish or discolored meaning you will see in definitions calling
it "livid."  Not the emotion.

In Greek (when in doubt, check the Greek) we see both "glaukos" and "kuaneos"
referring to what we would call blue coloring.  Glaukos first meant shiny or
glossy and referred to things like the surface on olives and grapes, but it
seems to have shifted by analogy to the color of eyes, eventually blue eyes.
Kuaneos referred to an early enamel and then to lapis lazuli and described a
different color than glaukos or the Hyacinth blue also in use then.  These
weren't lumped together as "blues" in any record until Plato.

I don't know there's anything between glaukos and forms like 'blao' or
'bla:k' but its always interesting to look.

<<Consequently, there are reasons for believing that people applied blue
pigments to their faces in antiquity to indicate madness.>>

When you look at it historically, this seems backwards.  We are told by Pliny
and others that both Celtic men and woman decoratively dyed their bodies blue
with 'woad,' Isatis tinctorum - but also "glastrum" - in Latin.  Classicists
therefore often refer to "woad-colored" warriors, but apparently it wasn't
special to warriors or to battle.  Cf., Picts.  So possibly Bla'mann referred
to people who dyed their bodies blue.  Or who were beaten black and blue from
too much fighting.  Like the old "black and blue" division of the NFL.   Or
specifically to Celts who retained the custom of using woad on their bodies.

A better explanation I think for Bla'madr, if we go the way of color, is that
it represented a more mundane association with the color or an insignia.
Long before Old Norse was recorded or possibly existed, color names were used
to refer to factions or affiliations.  E.g., the Venetiani in Rome were
members of the "blue party," who all wore a blue color called "Venetus,"
possibly from a dye made in the region of modern Venice.  Danes apparently
did the same sort of thing according to Saxo.  A little like communists being
Reds.  Or the Blue and the Gray.  Or the Purple Gang.

Perhaps as appropriate is the pigment/place connection.  "Armenia" in Latin
and (with an early hint in Greek) which not only referred to the country, but
was also the name of a blue made from dyes that were made in Armenia from
crushed bluestone.

I don't think Bla'madr actually referred to blue, but if it did I'd bet on
one of the above - rather than it meaning modern-Viking-myth berserker-style
"madness."  A word BTW that has an interesting history of its own.

Regards,
Steve Long