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RICHARD OF YORK GAVE BATTLE IN VAIN

How many colors are there in the spectrum above? How many did I name?

red orange yellow green blue violet

The simple named colors are mostly monosyllabic English words red, green,

brown, black, white, gray. Brevity indicates an Old English (Anglo!a"on#origin. $onosyllabic words are generally the oldest words in the Englishlanguage head, eye, nose, %oot, cat, dog, cow, eat, drink, man, wi%e, house,sleep, rain, snow, sword, sheath, &od'. These words go back more than %i%teencenturies. ellow, purple, and blue are e"ceptions to the onesyllablee)ualsEnglish rule. ellow and purple are Old English color words with two syllables.Blue is a one syllable *rench word (bleu# that replaced a two syllable OldEnglish word (hwen# eight hundred years ago.

!ome o% the names %or colors are loan words %rom *rench (many o% which areloan words %rom other languages#. !ince the (+h# sound doesnt e"ist in OldEnglish, orange and beige are obviously *rench. (&arage is also a very *renchword.# The words violet and orange were the names o% plants (nouns# be%orethey were the names o% colors (ad-ectives#. iolet came %rom /0th 1entury*rench, which came %rom 2atin. Orange came %rom /3th 1entury *rench, whichcame %rom 4talian, which came %rom Arabic, which came %rom 5ersian, whichcame %rom !anskrit.

English arose when three &ermanic tribes the Angles, The !a"ons, and the6utes migrated %rom continental Europe to the British 4sles in the *i%th1entury. The language they spoke is called Anglo!a"on or Old English. ouwould hardly recogni+e this language i% you heard it spoken or saw it writtentoday. 7anes probably have the best chance o% understanding spoken OldEnglish, 4celanders the best chance o% understanding writtenOld English. O%the si" named colors in my spectrum, only %our were known to the Anglo!a"ons8 red, geolu, grne, hwen. 7o you recogni+e any o% them9

r:ad geolu gr;ne h

7/26/2019 Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain

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4n the year /=33, an invasion o% *rench speaking peoples the >ormans, theBretons, and the *rench swept over the British 4sles. The last Anglo!a"on?ing o% England, ?ing @arold 44, was succeeded by the %irst >orman king,illiam the 1on)ueror. The >ormans had an odd empire (i% thats the word %or

it# that included the British 4sles, northern *rance (appropriately named>ormandy#, southern 4taly, !icily, !yria, 1yprus, and 2ibya. illiam was a>orman, descended %rom >orsemen, but he spoke *rench not !wedish or>orwegian or 7anish. One %actor leading to the rise o% the >ormans in theirscattered empire is their ability to )uickly integrate themselves into the cultureo% the peoples they con)uered. *or purposes o% this discussion, we care aboutlanguage. hen the >ormans got to northern *rance, they started speaking*rench. hen the >ormans got to England they got the Anglo!a"ons to startspeaking *rench too (sort o%#. 4n about a hundred years, Anglo!a"on hadmutated into something closer to what we would recogni+e as English today neither *rench nor Anglo!a"on. Old English became $iddle English. This iswhen English ac)uired the words blue (which replaced hwen) and violet (whichnever existed as an English color word before).

rede eoluw grene blu violet

The ne"t change in the English language was one o% pronunciation the &reatowelShi (!"#$%!&$$). 'his is when silent e and other spelling rules that frustrate both nave andsecond language speaers arose. 'he noon of long and short vowels also changed. *t one me a longvowel was one that was pronounced for a longer me than a short vowel. 'ae the words pan and pane.

+efore the ,reat -owel Shi pan was pronounced /pan/ and pane was pronounced /paaaneh/ with a

literal looong vowel and a non0silent /eh/ at the end. +eing mostly a change in pronunciaon the rise of

1odern English around !##$ doesn2t a3ect our discussion of color words. 1ovable type prinng invented in

,ermany around !44# is probably more important. +oos became relavely plenful spelling became

standardi5ed and tracing down the 6rst occurrence of a word became easier. 'he 1odern English period is

when the words orange and indigo were 6rst used to idenfy colors.

red orange yellow green blue indigo violet