Works of grant allen, p.702
Works of Grant Allen, page 702
Among such new terms of undoubted derivation, we may take as specimens lilac, lavender, and violet, which are borrowed from the concrete names of flowers; and orange, cherry, apple-green, which are borrowed from those of fruits. So, too, to go a little further back, we have pink from the well-known blossom; and the almost obsolete saffron, a favourite colour-epithet with Elizabethan poets. Again, we find the French words cerise, mauve, and écru in common use among drapers and their lady-customers; and when we inquire into their meaning, we see at once that the first is the same as our cherry, the second is the name of the marsh-mallow, and the third (literally unbleached) is a derivative of the Latin crudus; so that in every case, when we go back a little way, we see that the abstract colour-term is always a special application of a very concrete primitive object-name.
In fact, when we wish to express a hitherto unnamed colour, the simplest way of doing it is to take an object which possesses that colour, and apply its title as an adjective to the thing which we wish to describe. A particular shade of very light yellow has no distinctive name at a particular time; but we must call it something for some special purpose, and so we think of its nearest common representative, a primrose. Thenceforward, the new name becomes an adjective, and we ask naturally for a yard of primrose ribbon. Now, what we see civilised men doing to-day under our own eyes, primitive men did centuries ago, when they framed the earliest colour names. It would seem at present as though the various terms for colours might be divided into two classes, the truly abstract, such as blue, green, yellow, and the concrete used abstractly, such as lilac, orange, pink. The former class appear to have no other meaning than that of pure colour; while the latter class are clearly derived from the names of concrete objects. But in reality, the difference between them is merely one of time. Abstract colour terms are the names of concretes, whose original signification has been forgotten.
Yet another general principle of vocabularies must be considered, if we wish rightly to comprehend the growth of colour names. Words arise just in proportion to the necessity which exists for conveying their meaning. For example, to take the specific case of colours, we have seen a large number of colour terms introduced within our own memory, because the hues to which they referred had become fashionable as dyes for dress materials. Such are the instances of mauve, écru, solferino, magenta, and cardinal, every one of which has obtained a definite name only because it had been employed in the drapery trade. In short, we invent words as we need them.
Armed with these general truths, let us endeavour to trace out the origin and development of the colour-vocabulary.
Primitive man in his very earliest stage will have no colour terms whatsoever. He will speak of concrete objects only, and when he uses their names he will use them as implying all their attributes. He does not need to say red blood, for all blood is red; nor green leaves, for all leaves are green. Blood and leaf by themselves are quite sufficient for every one of his simple purposes.
But when man comes to employ a pigment, the name of the pigment will easily glide into an adjectival sense. The earliest colour terms will thus be produced. I learn from Mr. Whitmee that the Samoans use three kinds of pigment — a red volcanic earth, a molluscan purple, and a turmeric; and the names of these three pigments are applied as colour terms. So, too, many other informants have given me like instances with other races. A large proportion of our own colour terms are derived from dyes or pigments. Such are crimson (or cramoisi) from the Arabic karmesi, the kermes; vermilion or vermeil, from vermiculus, because it was supposed to be the product of a worm; gamboge, from Cambodia, the place of its export; indigo, from Spanish indico, the Indian dye; and saffron, from the common English plant.
Moreover, we saw that red is the earliest colour used in decoration, and accordingly it is the earliest colour which receives a special name. This fact has been fully brought out by the researches of Geiger, Magnus, and Mr. Gladstone; and it will not therefore be necessary to accumulate further proofs in the present volume. The early prominence of red, however, has left some curious traces in language, as well as in art, to the present day, which deserve a passing notice here. Thus the Indo-European dialects contain a number of words for this colour from a common root — e-ruth-ros, rubeus, russus, ruadh, roth, red, rouge, robbio, roux, ruddy, &c., while there is no such wide-spread and common root for blue — cæruleus, blau, azul — nor for green — chlôros, viridis, grün. Again, we English have a great number of subordinate colour terms in popular use to express the various shades of red, such as crimson, scarlet, vermilion, rosy, and pink, besides less definite words like cherry, ruddy, russet, carnation, blushing, sanguine or ensanguined, ruby, and roseate; but we have few or no words to express the shades of green, while physicists have had to introduce the conventional terms indigo and violet to designate the widely different but unnamed hues which result from the quickest light-waves. Once more, while the nouns of brightness and its opposite give us the verbs to lighten and to darken, to whiten and to blacken, and while the primitive art-colour, red, gives us the verb to redden, we have no such words in our language as to bluen and to greenen. And it is a significant fact, as regards the æsthetic position of green, that whereas the use of “blue” in laundries has given rise to a technical verb of washerwomen, to blue, we have absolutely no verb meaning “to green” or “to viridise.” Finally, the mixed colours, orange and purple, into which red enters as an element, have separate popular names, but no other mixed colours have any but technical designations; and while these red-like words, with yellow, the adjunct of red, yield us the verbs to purple, to crimson, to encarnadine, to ensaffron, and so forth, I cannot call to mind a single similar expression with reference to the less refrangible rays.
During the period or stage in which red forms the main or only decorative colour, red alone has a conventional or abstract name. All other hues are spoken of by comparison with well-known objects. It is not the habit of the early mind to refer to the sky as blue, or the leaves as green; on the contrary, it speaks of blue things as “sky-faced” (cæruleus), and of green things as “sprout-like” (viridis, connected with virere; grün, green, connected with grow). The primitive man would no more think of saying that the sky was sky-faced, or the leaves leaf-like, than we should think of talking about an orange orange, or a lilac lilac.
But so soon as blue becomes a recognised art-colour, either through the use of pigments or of decorative jewels, a name for blue springs up. One of the commonest in Europe is that of azure, azur, or azul, derived from the Persian lâzur, lapis lazuli. We have already seen that this stone was very early imported from the east, and it was natural that it should give a name to the hue in question, because it was largely employed for artistic purposes. Emerald and turquoise are similarly used at the present day to designate various shades of green.
At this second or red-blue stage, the word for blue seems often to be applied also to green. This is not surprising when we recollect how very little difference really exists between these two colours. Indeed, I am convinced that we only have separate names for them at all because the commonest green in nature, that of foliage, and the commonest blue in nature, that of the seldom-seen open sky, are so very wide-spread and so much more strikingly different from one another than most blues and greens. But if we look at a turquoise, it is very hard to say whether we should assign it to the former or the latter colour; while the sea is just as often the one as the other. The original assumption of some natural object on the borderland between the two as the concrete name-standard would quite sufficiently account for the common confusion between them in language. As a matter of fact, Mr. Whitmee informs me that the word for blue in Samoan is literally sea-colour. The Welsh use glas indiscriminately for both; and the Assyrians, according to Mr. Sayce, described green as either blue or yellow; but we know in each case that the colours themselves were or are accurately distinguished. The Quiché Indians had also one word, rax, for green and blue; yet there can be little doubt of their proper perceptions. I believe the same explanation must be offered of the alleged fact that the Burmese confuse these two central colours; but I have not been able myself to examine Bastian’s account, and the gentlemen in Burma to whom I addressed inquiries on the subject did not reply to my circulars. At any rate, in Burmese works of art, blue and green are accurately discriminated, and blended with great taste. Certainly, Professor Blackie showed, at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that the Highland Scots, who call sky and grass both gorm, could perfectly discriminate between the two colours when tried by practical tests. It may be added that certain hues which we ordinarily class roughly together as reds, for instance that of bricks and that of some light pink geraniums, are quite as far apart from one another in consciousness as the green of the emerald and the blue of the sapphire.
Yellow generally takes its first name from gold. Aurcus is the common Latin epithet, and golden hair still passes muster in everyday colloquial English. Von Bezold has shown that yellow seldom enters into decorative art except in a metallic form, and that it never rises to the same distinct æsthetic prominence as red, green, and blue.
Green, above all other colours, has few names derived from pigments, because it is so seldom employed for decorative purposes. Most of its designations are directly derived from grass or leaves; the remainder belong originally to fruits, to the sea, or to precious stones.
And now we have reached the point in the development of the colour-vocabulary at which most semi-civilised nations, all children, and the mass of uneducated adults, always remain. Six colours are commonly recognised by the popular mind — black and white, red and blue, green and yellow. The first pair, of course, are merely words for the total beam and its negation; the second pair form the earliest æsthetic analytic colours; and the third complete the ordinary differentiation. Add grey and brown for the intermediate or muddily-mixed shades, and we have the full colour-vocabulary of everyday life. Even the educated only speak of scarlet, crimson, lilac, and purple under exceptional circumstances, as in literary composition or for technical purposes; but to the mass of mankind these lesser distinctions of language are wholly unknown.
Heraldry has stereotyped this conception of colour in its set language of or and argent; gules, azure, and vert; and sable. Here we have two metallic colours, those of gold and silver; and four non-metallic, black, red, blue, and green. Of the latter, one name, gules, is of oriental origin, and, doubtless, points to some imported Arabic pigment (perhaps vermilion); one, azure, is also oriental, and has been already explained; the third, vert, is Latin and imitative; while the fourth, sable, is derived from zibellino, sibelino, or siberino, the Siberian fur. The only compound colour known in heraldry is purpure, while vair and ermine are, of course, mere names of light and shade in material.
The further differentiation of the colour-vocabulary depends, as before, upon the practical needs of intercommunication. It is most developed among three classes of persons. The first class is that of dyers, drapers, milliners, and others who have to deal with coloured articles of clothing; their vocabulary includes numerous words, such as cherry, cerise, lavender, lilac, mauve, solferino, magenta, écru, primrose, and cardinal, besides purely technical names like Paris-in-flames. As might be expected from the usual course of fashion, a large proportion of these are French. The second class includes painters and other artists, whose colour-vocabulary consists largely of pigment names, such as lake, madder, ultramarine, carmine, Prussian blue, gamboge, and ochre. The third class is that of scientific physicists, whose language comprises terms like cyanogen-blue, carnation, indigo, apple-green, and sulphur-yellow. It may be added that the introduction of fresh pigments from time to time produces a direct result in enlarging one or other of these various lists. Thus, the common use of aniline dyes at the present day has given rise to a considerable number of new colour-terms.
Furthermore, special technical colour-words are used in restricted senses as applied to animals or other objects by different trades. Thus the names chestnut, bay, sorrel, and roan are only used of horses; while black, white, grey, and cream-coloured are employed with specialised significations of the same animals. Cats claim a monopoly of tortoise-shell; and tan (in the phrase black and tan) forms the peculiar property of terriers. Hair alone is auburn, and only eyes are hazel.
It may be interesting, before we pass away from this part of our subject, to give a brief formal classification of the various concrete origins from which abstract colour-adjectives have been derived. I shall take my examples only from the commonly-known English words.
Two main classes may be distinguished — the Pigmentary and the Metaphorical.
Pigmentary colour-names fall under three heads. First, the material — as vermilion, crimson, saffron, indigo; second, the local — as gamboge, Prussian blue, Paris green; third, the conventional or artificial — as magenta, solferino, cardinal. The last-named head is quite modern, and of slight philological value. It belongs to the conscious stage of word-making.
Metaphorical colour-names fall under four heads. First, elemental — as sky-blue, sea-green, muddy. Second, vegetal — as green, from foliage; as pink, violet, rose, lavender, primrose, lilac, from flowers; as orange, cherry, chestnut, hazel, from fruits. Third, mineral — as golden, silvery, azure, sapphire, ruby, emerald, turquoise, amethyst, amber, and jetty; with which we may fairly class certain animal epithets, such as coral, ivory, and pearly. Fourth, miscellaneous — as sable, sanguine, snowy, chocolate.
And now we must pass on to a second question, the reason for the great vagueness of all colour terms.
I believe the solution of this difficulty is to be found in the nature of the colour sensations themselves. They are nowhere clearly marked off from one another by definite lines. The solar spectrum contains an infinite gradation of hues, each of which fades into its neighbour by imperceptible degrees. It is impossible to name them all, because their number is really incalculable. Hence we are reduced practically to inventing names for the most prominent.
A glance at the other senses will throw much light upon the present problem. In taste, we distinguish a fairly large number of sensations by separate names — sweet, bitter, pungent, sour, acrid, and so forth; but we have no separate word for the flavour of a peach, a strawberry, and a grape. We refer to them by the concrete name of the object as a whole, just as primitive man does with the colours. In smell, we have even a smaller number of distinctive terms, for we only speak of them as sweet or stinking; and these words refer, not to the intelligible qualities of the scent, but simply to its emotional aspect. In hearing, we generally employ the two expressions high and low, or their equivalents, treble and bass. But here we have elaborated for special technical purposes a far more accurate and quantitative nomenclature; a nomenclature infinitely superior to that of any other sense, not excepting the sense of colour. The division of the audible gamut into octaves and notes, further divisible into semitones, and for very discriminative ears into minor fractions, down to one-sixty-fourth of a tone, enables us exactly to express in language the very minutest possible varieties of sensation. This admirable system of nomenclature is rendered practicable by the peculiar constitution of the ear, and by its special adaptation to the regular harmonic intervals.
In sight, however, no such minute discrimination is possible. We can indeed divide straight lines into inches, half-inches, and eighths-of-an-inch; while the microscope further enables us to discriminate decimals, hundredths, and so forth, down to extremely minute fractions. But in colour our eye is not fitted for noting at once the relative distance of rays in the spectrum, as our ear is fitted for noting the relative distance of tones in the gamut. Accordingly, we must have recourse to some artificial system.
Such a system was proposed by Chevreul in his “Exposé d’un moyen de définir et de nommer les couleurs d’après une méthode rationale et experimentale;” but, unfortunately, that great chemist took for his basis the mixture of pigments, not that of rays; and his method is consequently incorrect and insufficient.
Another plan, in common use amongst physicists, is to designate the colours by their proximity to one of the lettered lines in the solar spectrum. Thus cyanogen-blue may be approximately defined by saying that it lies a little to the violet side of the line F. But this plan is, of course, too indefinite and too little numerically accurate for scientific use.
The only perfect method would consist in an artificial division of the solar spectrum into a number of equal parts, say one hundred, and the invention of a separate name for each such hundredth part. This system has been partially carried out, though in a very complicated manner, in Lambert’s colour-cone, adopted as a basis by Helmholtz and Clark Maxwell. The only further modification required, is that of an extended numerical nomenclature.
Before we go on to examine the application of the general principles here laid down to the special cases of the Hebrews and the Homeric Akhaians, adduced by Dr. Magnus and Mr. Gladstone, it may be worth while to glance briefly at the special poetical effectiveness of the colour-vocabulary. As the authors of the Akhaian epics, and of many among the Hebrew books, were themselves poets, the use of colour terms by other poets may help us to estimate more correctly the true value of the evidence in their cases.
Red is pre-eminently, and beyond all comparison, the poetical colour. It is applied to every object which by any straining of courtesy can possibly be conceived as possessing it; and it is often attributed to other objects which have no claim whatsoever to the title. Thus we have red gold, red lions, red right hands, red kings, the red Douglas, and even red wrath. The great red sun sinks nightly, amid red clouds, into the red waters of the sea. Rosy-fingered dawn spreads crimson glories over the empyrean; the scarlet flush of eventide encarnadines the fiery sky. A great many reasons conspire to produce this effect. In the first place, red, as we have abundantly seen, is the most universally pleasing of all colours. Then again, it was the first colour employed in art-workmanship, and so, as Mr. Gladstone graphically puts it, “got the start” of all the others. This further secured it a certain poetical prescriptiveness, especially as a stock epithet in some well-known conjunctions, like those noted above. Finally, its special use as an adjunct of royalty or state ceremonial gives it a peculiar claim to poetical use.
