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Originally Posted by Powersurge
No doubt about it Allen.
Heh, colour me paranoid, but I think you did that on purpose, but in case not, my name isn't Allen, it's Allan. I get irked when ppl spell my name wrong. Since this is the first time you've used it, I'll let it slide.
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However, we are not talking a foreign tongue, we are talking the ancestor (or immedaite relation anyway) of the very tongue we are currently speaking right this instance.
Which I would argue would still be a foreign tongue, just as, although routed in Latin, French is not Latin. There are significant differences between modern English and ancient Saxon going back four thousand years. Enough of a difference that the integration of new 'slang' into canon-language changes everything as you go. Not to meantion, despite the root of words, meaning change through time, so what I read as 'red' is not necessarily the same thing as 'red' in the original context.
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And, we are not talking an abstract, culturally specific concept, we are talking a simple colour. Just like in the modern tongue, blonde is blonde and red is red, even as one is one and two is two, plainly and simply. There is zero obscurity or debate surrounding this.
as nice as that is to believe, that is completely wrong. There is no such thing as 'zero obscurity' in something as ever-malleable as language, because, as stated prior, meanings to words DO change over millennia. Not to meantion, how many different words do we have that mean 'red'? How many of them mean the same NOW as they did even a thousand years ago? When I say 'sanguine', you automatically think of the Latin 'Sanguin' - for blood - (or even 'Sangre' in Spanish and 'Sang' in French), and automatically think 'red'. Little do people realise is that 'Sanguin' actually got its name from somewhere else entirely, a guy who was one of the pioneers in gemology in Persia nearly 4,500 years ago. (okay, I'll admit, obscure point, but still, see my point?)
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Also, while I mistakenly thought it would go without saying, I have read the academic opinions of Stephen Grundy, HRE Davidson, Wilhelm Gronbech, Jacob Grimm, and a wide and varied host of others ... all of whom hold PhDs in the subject.
As much as that may be true, you can't claim only the 'pure' sourses as the 'soul' sourses of the notion as you had in your previous post, since, you know as well as I, that they are only one drop in the ocean of potential sourses
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None of them ever thought that t Nordic word for blonde or red could be mistaken for one another. All credible scholars and academics seem to be of the unanimous opinion that word used to describe the colour of Thor's hair was red. And this word was used with fair consistency in describing things ew know to be coloured red.
We could get into an obscurity debate surrounding the specific *meaning* of the colour .... for instance, the vikings meant very different things when they called, say, Heimdall "White" (ie. pure, exceedingly holy)
as opposed to when they called Christ "White" (ie. lacking spirit, vigor, lily-livered), but that is not the issue here.
It's about time, you hit the nail on the head! And YES, that IS the issue! You just answered your own arguement, and emphasised one of my points: multiple meanings for the same word. Synonyms. Top it off, you have the ideas of metaphor. I have seen it said that Thor had 'fiery' hair - which, to a 21st-century brain would come to mean 'red' - the same was said of Aphrodite (whom mythological scholars primarily agree that her hair was blonde as well). It doesn't necessarily mean that his hair was red, just that it was vibrant. Thus, one could possibly read it as either blond (yellow) or red, both colours prominent in fire.
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Of course, when it comes down to it, folks are free to perceive the Almighty's hair colour in whatever way they deem appropriate for them. What some modern person believes or imagines is more relateable or whatever however, was never the issue. What the ancients believed was.
Now THAT is beside the point. This discussion has little or no bearing on what the original Ancients saw and wrote, but how we, the students of a long-dead language, are inclined to translate what they said to be as fact. The contention was not that the Ancients thought Thor's hair was this colour or that, it's that, according to the various translations of the myths we're lead to believe his hair was this or that, and how that applies to modern envisioning of said personage. Stick with the program, man!
Edit: Following posts have been split and a new topic started in 'The Cupboard' - Phil
