Irish Translation Forum

I've often wondered why not "fear donn"? Most people of African or Aboriginal descent have brown skin, not black (or blue). Why are they referred to in English as "black" and in Irish as "blue"? What's the matter with good old "brown"?

When my daughter was in kindergarten, she described herself as "pinkish-tan." She couldn't figure out why she was supposed to be "white"...where she came from, "white" is much "whiter" than she is! She also described her best friend (who was African American) as being "brown."

Redwolf

I don't know, except "fear donn" would have meant a man with brown hair.

i think part of it is that the irish had never seen a "brown" man and fear donn was already taken. but blue doesn't make any more, actually less, sense than black does.

well, since the Irish like to name people for their hair colour, maybe it was for the blue-black sheen in their hair?

Méabh wrote:well, since the Irish like to name people for their hair colour, maybe it was for the blue-black sheen in their hair?

ah, that is actually probably right. good thought, a Mhéabh.

Actually, African-Americans use a variety of words to describe their skin color. High yellow, yellow, fair skinned, black, blue-black. I remember seeing the comedian Sinbad refer to himself as high yellow on television. Some African-Americans feel that these terms should be used only amongst themselves and others are less sensitive about them. The Black man I work most closely with (61 years old)doesn't mind what people call him as long as they don't call him African-American. Part of the reason is that he is 1/4th Mohegan Indian.

i just watched that movie (very excellent) and Im pretty sure she expains that the word fear gorm does mean blue man but then goes on to expain something about how its the same or something. Maybe re-rent the movie and go to that part Im almost positve she says something about that.

According to:

http://www.lincolnu.edu/~focal/backinst/focal123.htm

History: Old Irish "gorm" was borrowed from early Welsh "gwrm" (dark blue, dark brown, black), which had been borrowed from Anglo-Saxon "wurma" (purple; name of a type of marine mollusk, Murex trunculus, which was the source of a costly dye called Tyrian, or royal, purple). "Wurmu" came from Indo-European *wrmi- (worm), from the base *wer- (to turn, bend). English cognates include "worm" and "vermin".

So it's not that Irish uses blue as the the English word "blue", but that the word "gorm" spans several different colours. And that these days the word "gorm" has been narrowed down to equate to the English "blue".

When you think about it, the meaning of a name of a colour is only cultural. "Blue" in English spans across a certain part of the light spectrum, while "gorm" overlaps that region of the light spectrum.

go raibh maith agat, a Eoin. that makes a lot of sense.