Orð og tunga - 01.06.2010, Page 120

110 Orðogtunga
guage contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple,
pink, orange, grey, or some combination of these.
Berlin and Kay's theory has been criticized among other things for
being anglocentric, and later modifications of the sequence have pro-
posed macro-categories at the early stages (for example, light, dark,
and warm) and different trajectories. In this paper, however, reference
to the sequence indicates the original Berlin and Kay sequence, which
seemed convenient for testing the use and frequency of green and yel-
low in Old Norse-Icelandic texts.
Old Norse-Icelandic has eight basic color terms (hvítr, svartr, rauðr,
grœnn, gulr, blár, brúmi, and grár), making it an early stage VII lan-
guage (Wolf 2006a). Modern Icelandic includes a ninth basic color
term, bleikur (pink) (Wolf 2005); lilla (purple), a tenth basic color term,
has very recently entered the language, and órans (orange) is in the
process of entering the language.1 For lack of data, it is, of course, dif-
ficult to assess precisely the evolutionary sequence of the first eight
terms, but in recent articles I have demonstrated through linguistic
categorization that grár (grey) should probably be assigned a stage be-
fore blár (blue), either stage III or stage IV (a stage clearly reached by
the time of the composition of the earliest Old Norse-Icelandic literary
works), and that blár should be assigned a fairly late stage, possibly
stage VI (Wolf 2006b and 2009).
Hvítr, svartr, and rauðr are by far the most frequently used color
terms in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, and there is no doubt that
the designation of these color terms as stages I and II, respectively,
holds true. This paper examines Berlin and Kay's stages III and IV,
that is, the introduction of terms for green and yellow. Its aim is to
demonstrate through linguistic categorization the objects about which
green (grœnn) and yellow (gulr) are used and to determine on the ba-
sis of their frequency, if grœnn was introduced before gulr or gulr be-
foregrœnn. An examination of Snorri Sturluson's use of color terms in
Gylfaginning, which has revealed not only a limitation of color terms to
include only a handful (hvítr, svartr, rauðr, grár, and grœnn), but also
a sequence, which more or less matches the one proposed by Berlin
'jackson Crawford and Susanne Fahn (pers. communication). Only lilla is in-
cluded in the íslensk orðabók (2007). The general terms for the colors purple and or-
ange in modem Icelandic arefjólubhír and appelsínugulur, respectively, both secondary
color terms.