Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 256

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sion’s Ordbog, mean any of the hues listed above.5 Instead, it is suggested that
bleikr here means „?(lys) rød // ?(light) red.“ The suggestion is a bold one, for
in none of the other occurrences (approximately 80) listed by the Ordbog is
bleikr used in the meaning „(light) red.“6 Nonetheless, the suggestion offered
by the Arnamagnaean Commission’s Ordbog is not a far-fetched one, for the
history of bleikr, which should possibly be regarded as a macrocolor covering,
at least partly, the category of pale or light colors, is an interesting one.7 As
Old Norse-Icelandic developed into modern Icelandic, the term clearly lost a
fair portion of its semantic portfolio, including ‘pale,’ ‘wan,’ ‘bleached,’
‘blond,’ and ‘fair,’ and it now appears exclusively in the meaning ‘pink’ and
to describe the color of horses and cows. It is difficult to determine when the
semantic change took place. The 88 examples of bleikur listed by Or›abók
Háskólans8 indicate that it was not until the first half of the twentieth century
or maybe even the mid-twentieth century that bleikur appears in the meaning
pink and that it continued to denote also pale until the late twentieth century,
though here it is, of course, important to bear in mind that writers often have
a tendency to archaize. Certainly in the spoken language, it seems that bleikur
is no longer used in the meaning pale, but it continues to be used to describe
the color of horses and cows.9
The possibility that the Stjórn examples of bleikr mean ‘(light) red’ and
that they are the only examples of the adjective in that meaning that have been
preserved from the Old Norse-Icelandic period cannot, of course, be excluded.
But it would seem unlikely, for in addition to not including examples of bleikr
in the meaning ‘?(light) red,’ the Ordbog does not include a single example of
bleikr being used to describe the color of plants or food. In most of the ex-
5 Fritzner (1973) lists the occurrences under the definition „bleg, hvid, lysgul (jvf. blíkja)“;
regarding the latter occurrence (‘Edom flat er bleikr edr blodligr’), he argues that the color is
a result of wounds or loss of blood („paa Grund af Saar eller Blodtab“). Cleasby and
Vigfusson (1957) do not include the two occurrences.
6 I am grateful to Eva Rode for providing me with xeroxed copies of the slips of the Ordbog.
7 Biggam describes a macrocolor as follows: „Not every language has a single colour lexeme
per colour category, that is, a word such as N[ew] E[nglish] green for the green category. To
Modern English speakers, red, orange, brown and purple are separate categories with
separate lexemes denoting them, but speakers of other languages, although perfectly capable
of seeing these four colours, may denote them with a single lexeme. Such a colour concept is
a macrocolour“ (1997:18).
8 The reference to Or›abók Háskólans is to the dictionary’s website: http://www.lexis.hi./is/cgi-
bin/ritmal/leitord.cgi?adg=innsl
9 Gu›rún Kvaran (pers. correspondence 29th of June 2005).