Etymology for Flags

8/14/2019 Etymology for Flags

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Etymology for Flags

Joannes Richter


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1 Etymology for Flags?

Are we allowed to define an etymology for flags?

Yes, we can: if the flags are carrying a language.

Flags may be seen as containers for symbols, applying

colours and various geometric figures to inform friend

and foe.

What kind of symbols are being used in flags?

Well, a study of religious symbols in the bookDyaeus

reveals the most prominent religious symbols are thecolourspurple, redand blue. For mysterious reasons to

be investigated the colourpurple is most unpopular in

flags, probably to avoid the sacrilege to apply a divine

colour in a public environment. No flag applying

genuine purple has been found in the overview.

Recently however the red-white-red flag of Latvia1 and

the white & maroon flag of Qatar2 have been found to

apply a colour resembling the genuine colour purple.

1In the 1860s Latvian student Jkabs Lautenbahs-Jsmi discovered a

written reference to this flag in a collection of 13th century rhyming verse

chronicles popular among the knights of the Livonian Order. After regaining

its independence, Latvia re-adopted on February 27, 1990 the same red-

white-red flag.2 The flag was officially adopted on July 9, 1971, although a nearlyidentical flag (only differing in proportion) had been used since 1949 .

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Why are purple, redand blue religious symbols?

The study of iconic and other medieval paintings

reveals red& blue have been prescribed for garments of

the saints. Purple has been well-known as a divine

symbol, being reserved for gods and divine emperors.

Red & blue are still being prescribed in the process of

writing an icon.

The colourspurple, redand blue may also be found as

divine commands in the books Exodus and Chronicles.

The biblical sources may have influenced thesymbolism, but in fact the weaving technology has

already been found at a Celtic grave in Hochdorf (530

before Christ). Other red and blue ceramic findings at

Gomadingen support the idea of red & blue symbolism.

The idea of red & blue symbolism may have been a

common idea, which has been spread along with Indo-

European language and religion.

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Ceramics dated at the Sternberg, 8th Century BC.

These colours purple, red and blue haven been

identified as the symbolic remains of an earlier versionof the religion, in which the red colour used to be a

female, blue a male and purple an androgynous

symbol3.

Where do we observe a concentration of symbolic colours?

It is hard to trace back the historical development for all

flags. Surely we may identify an overwhelming

abundance of the colours redand blue, especially in theold countries of Western Europe and their former

colonies. Let's investigate the original sources to check

how far we can trace back the identification process.

3see the bookDyaeus for details in androgynous religion

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Fig. 1: Red & Blue Ceramic Findings Gomadingen


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I once heard the colours red-yellow-blue symbolize the Trinity

God. Is there any proof for this statement?

Except for the Rado-Bible red & blue-combinations

prevail. The biblical symbolism of the header lines in

medieval Bibles alternates only red and blue letters. If

there is any Trinity symbolism in colours it most

probably should be found in red-white-blue

combinations. Red and blue probably are pairing-

colours symbolizing equality, whereas purple,

paars, pairsor peers represents the divine and

upper hierarchy.

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Fig. 2: Weaving the Words and letters


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Fig. 3: Header lines for medieval Bibles


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2 The Flags of Western Europe

By strange coincidence the flags of France, the Netherlandsand Great Britain, including the former colony USA are

applying genuine red-white-blue combinations in their national

banner.

As a strange coincidence in these countries we may identify the

concept of the peers, which may be defined as the noblemen insociety. These peers are quite well known in Great Britain,where a great number of words (such aspeerage,peerless, etc.)

refers to peers. Originally peerage covered the basic idea ofequality. This equality however never prevailed in the

hierarchical structure of society. Right now peerage is a

principle of the opposite idea, which is inequality.

In other countries these peers-words may have been used in

the Middle Age, but they have changed their symbolism or

disappeared completely. In the Netherlands we discovered the

word paars as a former definition for peers. The word

paars lost its medieval understanding and changed into asimple colour (purple), although the Dutch language in parallel

also provides the word purper for purple.

In French we identified the word pairs as a reference topeers, but it seems to be uncommon and has been found in

ancient dictionaries.

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Strange as it may seem no references to peers have been

identified in German speaking countries. In modern times these

German speaking countries avoid the use of red-white-blue

combinations in their national banner. There may be acorrelation between defining peers and the symbolism of red-

white-blue combinations in the flags.

Let's categorize a number of flags to check the idea.

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Fig. 4: Napoleon's Standard


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3 A Rainbow built out of banners

From the rainbow (over Noah and his sons) we may insert a

flag or any number of flags to explain the flag's symbolism.

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Fig. 5: Rainbow in the Viennese Codex (6th

Century)

Fig. 6: Rainbow in the Viennese Codex (6th

Century)


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This image of a rainbow concatenated of Yugoslavian

respectively Serbian flags suggests the flags may have beenderived from the rainbow.

As a divine symbol the rainbow may have been a major source

for inspiration for banners. In the above concatenation the flag

of Yugoslavia / Serbia has been used. This symbolism

concentrates on the border colours red and blue.

Another idea may be the concatenation of red-yellow-blue

banners to include the yellow or golden sun-rays at the middleof the rainbow's spectre. A suitable flag would be the tricolour

of Chad4.

4 introduced at 1959

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Fig. 7: Rainbow in the Viennese Codex with flags


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4 Categorisation of national flags

I used a rather obsolete book from ca. 1960 to classify thesituation at the mid-fifties of the last century. I tried to avoid to

use the most recent data available. The use of ancient data may

cause problems in identifying the proper nation for the banner.

Not a single flag has been found using the colour purple or

violet. Vatican City does avoid to use red and blue colours and

only applies yellow and white.

The sections West- and East Europe

A West-European coastal area covering France, GB,

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Iceland applies

genuine red-white-blue combinations. I was unable to check

whether they all define the peers-concept, but certainly

France, GB, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands do.

Of course colonial empires may have influenced the flags in

their former colonies, either by approval or rejection of the

former symbols. Belgium obviously did chose the German

colours at the process of independence and virtually interrupts

the homogeneous area for red-white-blue from north cape to

the Pyrenes.

At the east side of Europe Russia, Yugoslavia and

Czechoslovakia form another area of genuine red-white-bluecombinations. Romania applies a red-yellow-blue combination.

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The corridor avoiding red-white-blue

In between the west- and east-areas of Europe a large block

ranging from the north cape to southern Italy may be identified

to avoid the red- & blue-combinations: Sweden, Finland,

Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Greece, Italy

and Malta. This corridor did not always avoid red and blue

as symbolic colours. In fact the German, medieval emperor

Henry VI and his dependent kings (e.g. the Bohemian king)

preferred red and blue as his imperial garments, which may be

identified and analysed in the Manesse Codex (available in theInternet).

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Fig. 8: Emperor Henry VI (detail Codex Manesse)


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This painting5 illustrates the red & blue clothing of Barbarossa

and his sons. Obviously the king is wearing a blue overcoatover red garments. His sons wear red overcoats with blue

interior colours over yellow garments. Barbarossa ruled the

empire between 1155 and 1190.

5 Miniature from the Welfes' Chronicles

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Fig. 9: Barbarossa and his sons


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The graphics in the Codex Manesse in Wikipedia display some

equivalent garments, e.g. Codex Manesse, fol. 10r, King

Wenzel from Bohemia (= Vaclav II.), wearing a blue coat over

red garments, while seated on a purple throne.

These details suggest the blue overcoat may have been

overruling the red overcoat. The purple throne indicates a

divine symbol.

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Abbildung 10: King Wenzel from Bohemia
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Codex_Manessehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Codex_Manessehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Codex_Manessehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Codex_Manesse


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A hierarchy for colours

From these graphics we may derive the following hierarchy for

colours at the Middle Age at the north side of the Alps:

Purple > Blue > Red

This hierarchy may have be different at other eras and for

other areas.

A loss of Symbolism

Originally medieval Europe may have been a large area from

the west coast to Russia, which unanimously accepted red and

blue as their basic symbols. Somewhere between the Middle

Age and today the central area lost the symbolism. One of the

possible causes may have been the religious reformations by

Luther and Calvin, who managed to replace most of the ancient

symbols by modern concepts. This may have caused a loss of

ancient symbolism and influenced an alternative choice of

fundamental colours for the banners in later eras.

Other nations

I did not investigate the origins for the symbolic colours for fareast countries and south American nations, which may have

inherited some symbolism from colonial eras. Others (e.g.

Philippines) are known to have been guided by Freemasonry.

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Flags using genuine red-white-blue

Flags using genuine red-white-blue combinations (excluding

other colours) are:

The West-Europe section

France

Great Britain

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Norway

Iceland

The Mid- and East European section

Yugoslavia

Czechoslovakia

Russia (only for the current, re-installed flag)

Non-European countries

Burma

Cambodia

Chile

China (nat.)

Costa Rica

Cuba Dominican Republic

Philippines (red, white, blue and a yellow symbol)

Korea (North & South, including a Yin/Yang-symbol)

Liberia

Malaysia

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Nepal

Panama

Paraguay

Thailand

West Samoa

Former colonies using genuine red-white-blue flags

(These flags may have inherited their colours from others:)

Australia (as a former colony for Great Britain)

New Zealand (as a former colony for Great Britain)

Rhodesia (as a former colony for Great Britain)

South Africa (combining the British & Dutch flags)

USA (as a former colony for Great Britain)

Flags using genuine red-yellow-blue combinations

Andorra, which obviously combines the French colours

red and blue with the yellow Spanish symbol. Colombia

Congo (Kinshasa)

Ecuador

Liechtenstein

Malaysia (red-yellow-blue and white)

Ngwane

Romania

Venezuela (red-yellow-blue and white stars)

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Other Flags (for simplicity only an extract will be given)

Mid-European section

Belgium (black, yellow, red)

Denmark (red & white)

Germany (black, red, yellow)

Finland (blue and white)

Greece (blue and white)

Ireland (green, white, orange)

Italy (green, white, red)

Malta (red and white)

Austria (red and white)

Poland (red and white)

Portugal (red and green)

Switzerland (red and white)

Sweden (blue and yellow)

Vatican City (yellow and white)

Non-European countries

Canada (red & white)

Gambia (red, blue and green)

India (green, white, orange)

Indonesia (red and white)

Israel (blue and white) Japan (white and red)

Lesotho (red, blue and green)

Turkey (red and white)

South Yemen (red-white-black and blue)

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5 Categorized flags in Europa

Legend to the Map of Europe sketching the corridor between

areas using red-white-blue flags:

purple = areas using red-white-blue flags yellow = areas not using red-white-blue flags

Romania and Belgium are exceptional cases. At independence

Belgium chose the same colours as Germany (black, yellow,

red), whereas Romania applies red-yellow-blue.

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Fig. 11: Map of the categorized flags in Europe


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6 Conclusion

In the Middle Age Europe may have known a basic symbolism

ruled by the biblical colours purple, redand blue, which mustbe considered as androgynous symbols.

Although the divine symbolpurple has been rejected as a basicsymbol for flags originally the other androgynous elements red

and blue have been popular all over Europe.

In a post-medieval era, probably the reformation era, the

symbolism at some areas in central Europe vanished.

In western Europe the colours purple, red and blue refer to the

peers concept, to be identified by the Dutch word paars (in

medieval eras referring to peers, but in modern times merely

to the colour purple) and the French word pair (translated:

peer).

Red and blue probably are pairing-colours symbolizing

equality6, whereas purple, paars, pairs o r peers

represent the divine and upper hierarchy.

In the etymology for flags the colours red and blue are

symbolic elements as found in the rainbow's borderlines. The

colour combination paars (purple or pairs) found by

weaving red & blue threads or words (into towels respectively

manuscripts) resulted in the divine colourpurple.

6 Latin: pares (translating to the equal persons)

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7 References to related documents

Another Etymology for Purple

Paint It Purple - A short History of painting Red and

Blue

Genesis - Weaving the Words in Red and in Blue

Hochdorf Revisited - A reconstructed Celtic Site

The Sky-God Dyus

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/24852500/Another-Etymology-for-Purplehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24705032/Paint-It-Purple-A-short-History-of-painting-Red-and-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24705032/Paint-It-Purple-A-short-History-of-painting-Red-and-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24458609/Genesis-Weaving-the-Words-in-Red-and-in-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/20523783/Hochdorf-Revisited-A-reconstructed-Celtic-Sitehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/15463331/The-SkyGod-Dyushttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24852500/Another-Etymology-for-Purplehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24705032/Paint-It-Purple-A-short-History-of-painting-Red-and-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24705032/Paint-It-Purple-A-short-History-of-painting-Red-and-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/24458609/Genesis-Weaving-the-Words-in-Red-and-in-Bluehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/20523783/Hochdorf-Revisited-A-reconstructed-Celtic-Sitehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/15463331/The-SkyGod-Dyus

Documents

Etymology for Flags