Bleikr, Gulr, and the Categorization of Color in Old Norse

Abstract

It is well known that human languages classify the experience of color in various ways, but this is a matter of conceptualization, not of perception (the physiological exceptions imposed on blind and color-blind speakers excepted). For instance, an English speaker, a Russian speaker, and a Welsh speaker will likely agree that a clear sky, a sapphire, and a blade of grass are not identical in color. but in classifying these color perceptions, their native languages will differ. In English, the color of both the clear sky and the sapphire is classified as blue, though perhaps distinguishable as light blue and dark blue, while in Russian, the distinction between light blue (goluboj) and dark blue (sinij) is codified in two different categories; goluboj and sinij are not merely shades of a larger color category but are categorized differently just as English blue and green are. Meanwhile Welsh categorizes the color of all three objects under one color category (glas)—so English blue and green are both types of glas. this phenomenon was recognized as early as the second century bC, as witnessed in the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, where it is reported that the philosopher Favorinus said: