# "yellow" in Romance Languages



## merquiades

Hello.  The term for yellow in Latin is "_Flavus_", yet contrary to other colors (red, black, green...) the words in the different Romance Language are different than the source and also don't resemble one another.   A few questions to answer if possible: what is the origin of all this variety, why did _flavus_ not get passed on and what are the origins of these words in themselves and/or the change of meaning they underwent to become yellow?
_
Amarillo_ (Spanish) and _Amarêlo_ (Portuguese).....  apparently from _Amar(ill)us_ = a little bitter?
_Jaune_ (French)..... from _Jalne_ < _G'albne_ < _Galbinus_ = light green

_Giallo_ (Italian), _Groc_ (Catalan), _Ghjallu_ (Corsican),  _Rossel_ (Provençal), _Galben_ (Rumanian).....


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## Dymn

Catalan _groc _comes from Latin _crocus _"saffron"

Italian _giallo_ and I guess Corsican _ghjallu _too come from Old French _jalne, _which along with Romanian _galben _comes from Latin _galbinus_. Lengadocian _jaune _is obviously from the same source.

Provençal _rossel _I suppose has to do with Latin _russus _"red" (cf. Catalan _ros _"blond").

There is also Gascon _auriòu_, which is derived from _aur_ "gold", Latin _aurum_.


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## merquiades

Dymn said:


> Catalan _groc _comes from Latin _crocus _"saffron"
> 
> Italian _giallo_ and I guess Corsican _ghjallu _too come from Old French _jalne, _which along with Romanian _galben _comes from Latin _galbinus_. Lengadocian _jaune _is obviously from the same source.
> 
> Provençal _rossel _I suppose has to do with Latin _russus _"red" (cf. Catalan _ros _"blond").
> 
> There is also Gascon _auriòu_, which is derived from _aur_ "gold", Latin _aurum_.


Mercès, Dymn
Interesting!  Saffron becoming the word for yellow is logical given its importance in Catalan-Valencian cuisine.  Can _groc _still have the saffron meaning?  It's a type of metonymy.
Do you have any idea why _amarillo_ (a little bitter) could transform to a color?  Would speakers still connect it at all to "bitterness"?
Right?  I had forgotten blonde_ ros.  _So I suppose _rossel_ would be "a bit blonde" in origin.

It takes a bit of imagination to see how _giallo, galben _and_ jaune_ come from the same source.  I've also imagined _yellow_ and _giallo_ somehow being related based on liberal phonetics, but I'm sure the former probably derives from the Scandinavian _gul_.


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## Dymn

"Saffron" is _safrà_ in Catalan. I think the etymology of _groc _and _amarillo _is obscure to most of its native speakers. I for one didn't know the origin of _amarillo_, and I do not connect them to "saffron" or "bitterness".

Apparently _flavus _was totally lost, but retaken (well, kind of) centuries later with the form of its PIE Germanic cognate, yielding _bleu _(Fr)_, blu _(It), _blau _(Cat), etc.


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## Gravos

_Do you have any idea why amarillo (a little bitter) could transform to a color? _
From what I have read the yellow is related to sadness, bitterness since this was the color of lots of sick people during long diseases in old times.

_It takes a bit of imagination to see how giallo, galben and jaune come from the same source._
With the Old French around 11th Century the latin _g+a_ group letters became in French either ga or ja, that could explain the galbinus->jaune. Same example with gamba (Latin)->jambe (French) (leg)


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## Sardokan1.0

*Sardinian :*

_yellow = grocu, grogu_

From Latin "glaucus"

glaucus -> glaucu -> glocu -> grocu -> grogu


The transformation from L to R is very common in central Sardinian dialects

example :

_ecclesia -> cresia (church)
clavem -> crae (key)
clavum -> crau (nail)
clavare -> cravare (to nail)
florem -> frore (flower)
plangere -> pranghere (to cry)_


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## Penyafort

Probably one of the reasons is that there were several words already in Latin to refer to yellow, or different shades of it.

But anyway, the topic of colours in the Romance languages remains an interesting one because, unlike in the Germanic ones, it has always been a more unstable element. I'd say that only green and black have had some consistencythrough the ages.



merquiades said:


> _Amarillo_ (Spanish) and _Amarêlo_ (Portuguese).....  apparently from _Amar(ill)us_ = a little bitter?





Gravos said:


> _Do you have any idea why amarillo (a little bitter) could transform to a color? _
> From what I have read the yellow is related to sadness, bitterness since this was the color of lots of sick people during long diseases in old times.



The Ibero-Romance (or Western Iberian) group (Portuguese, Spanish) is probably the most conservative in terms of vocabulary, but when it comes to innovations of their own, a typical thing was creating diminutives (CARN-ARIU, COR-ATIONE, CIN-ISIA, CORD-ARIU, CENT-ENU, COLUM-ELLU, MANE-ANA...) and one of these already attested in Western Iberian Low Latin was AMARELLUS with the meaning of 'a little bitter, a little pale, pale in a greenish-yellow way'. According to etymologist Corominas, this would have been applied to the look of people suffering from jaundice. One of the biles was traditionally associated with the yellow colour in the past. What is more, already AMARUS 'bitter' was associated with 'green, unripe' in Latin.



Sardokan1.0 said:


> *Sardinian :*
> 
> _yellow = grocu, grogu_
> 
> From Latin "glaucus"
> 
> glaucus -> glaucu -> glocu -> grocu -> grogu



That might explain the evolution in Sardinian but not in Catalan. And _crocus _(_croceus_, _crocinus_) already had the meaning of yellow in Latin.


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## merquiades

Sardokan1.0 said:


> *Sardinian :*
> 
> _yellow = grocu, grogu_
> 
> From Latin "glaucus"
> 
> glaucus -> glaucu -> glocu -> grocu -> grogu


Interesting.  Thank you!

So _glaucus _originally meant gray, _russus_ was red, and _galbinus_ was green.  
In addition _flavus_ as a cognate could be related to blue.
Otherwise English has_ flaxen _to mean pale yellow, but the origin is apparently from _flax_,  Latin _linum_

Colors of every source change to yellow. 

Regarding bitterness, _amar(ill)us_... I guess lemons are yellow.


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## jazyk

Amarelo, not amarêlo, in Portuguese. Your spelling would alter the pronunciation from an open E to a closed E.


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## Sardokan1.0

Penyafort said:


> That might explain the evolution in Sardinian but not in Catalan. And _crocus _(_croceus_, _crocinus_) already had the meaning of yellow in Latin.



Couldn't be a loanword from Sardinian? When the kingdom of Aragona and after the kingdom of Spain ruled Sardinia (for 300 years) a lot of people travelled back and forth from Spain to Sardinia, maybe some of these travellers returned to their homeland after having spent many years or all their life in Sardinia acquiring Sardinian accent and pronounces?

the other colors in Sardinian :



Spoiler: colors



white =_ biancu, alvu, arvu, arbu_ - Loanword from the Italian "bianco" - Lat. _"albus"_
black = _nigheddu, nieddu_ - Lat. _"nigellus" (blackish)_, it's found also in Corsica as _"niellu (in the north) or nieddu (in the south)"_
green = _birde _- Lat. _"viridem"_
yellow = _grocu, grogu (glaucus)_
red = _ruju (pronounce ruyu)_ - Lat. _"rubius"_
violet, blackish = _biaittu _- ancient French _"jaïet" ? _similar to Italian _"giaietto"_ (is a black stone used to make jewels)
grey = _grisu, grisadu_ - from ancient French "gris"
blue = _blu_


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## merquiades

jazyk said:


> Amarelo, not amarêlo, in Portuguese. Your spelling would alter the pronunciation from an open E to a closed E.


Thank you very much.  Right I see there is no accent.  I'm puzzled as I was taught by a teacher in Portugal to use the ê and she said precisely it was closed but she did teach a norm with lots of accent marks and letters that are outdated.


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## jazyk

Amarelo doesn't have a closed E in any accent/dialect. Even if it were closed, it would still not have an accent mark, as it is a paroxytone (stressed on the second to last syllable) ending in a vowel other than I.


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## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> one of these already attested in Western Iberian Low Latin was AMARELLUS with the meaning of 'a little bitter, a little pale, pale in a greenish-yellow way'. According to etymologist Corominas, this would have been applied to the look of people suffering from jaundice. One of the biles was traditionally associated with the yellow colour in the past. What is more, already AMARUS 'bitter' was associated with 'green, unripe' in Latin.


 All right.  I see.  Corominas is the Spanish source _par excellence_. It seems to me like putting the cart before the horse.  I can see applying the color to the disease.  This is the way I have always perceived _jaundice _or yellow fever, the ill patients take on a yellow hue, so the disease was called _jaundice_ after _jaune_ (yellow).  Yet it is harder to relate naming the color after the disease.  The sunlight or the saffron reminds me of the bitter greenish yellow color or bitterness of people suffering from liver/ bile problems or jaundice.


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## heterônimo

CNRTL website propposes that the French word _flou _(blurry) comes from lt. _flavus_.



> Du lat. _flavus_ « jaune » (_cf._ l'a. fr. _floe_ « jaune », _Courtois d'Arras,_ éd. E. Faral, 500, var., ms. 2emoitié xiiies.), *qui doit avoir pris déjà en lat. le sens de « fané, flétri » *(_cf._ le verbe _flavescere_ « flétrir »).


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## Cossue

merquiades said:


> All right.  I see.  Corominas is the Spanish source _par excellence_. It seems to me like putting the cart before the horse.  I can see applying the color to the disease.  This is the way I have always perceived _jaundice _or yellow fever, the ill patients take on a yellow hue, so the disease was called _jaundice_ after _jaune_ (yellow).  Yet it is harder to relate naming the color after the disease.  The sunlight or the saffron reminds me of the bitter greenish yellow color or bitterness of people suffering from liver/ bile problems or jaundice.



Actually Coromina's article in the _Diccionario critico y etimologico castellano e hispánico _is rather comprehensive -and probably exhaustive- in reference to proposed etymologies. 

As he wrote, the word is very frequent in Galician documents -since 919- applied as qualifier to horses... But, and this he didn't mention/know, it is also a personal name: ''Ego Rekilo una cum filiis meis nominibus _Amarellu_, Kagitus, tibi Gundulfus'' c. 969  (as a personal name is even present in 10th-century Catalonia, _Amarello_, _Amarella_, cf. _Repertori D’Antropònims Catalans: (RAC), Volum 1_, page 107) which in Galicia has left toponyms as *Amarelle *< *(villa) Amarelli (> surname Amarelle)_.
_
I mean, if Gl. and Pt. _amarelo_, and Sp. _amarillo_, have any relation to sickness, that relation has been already forgotten before the year 1000.

PD:
The earliest attestation I know is in Asturian document dated in 908:
"de uestimentis ecclesie frontales de auri filo margaritis insutis, IIIIor, id est: cardenum cum *aquilas amarellas*, alium album, tercium depictum et quartum uermiculum. (......) casullas numero XV: (...) *amarella frisisca Ia* (.....) item diaconorum dalmatice glosirice X, id est: uermiculas IIas; cardena, Ia; eluia, Ia; *amarella*, Ia; et quinque albe''

Is interesting that ''casulla (...) amarella frisisca'' = ''yellow(?) chasuble from Frisia''


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## Penyafort

Sardokan1.0 said:


> Couldn't be a loanword from Sardinian? When the kingdom of Aragona and after the kingdom of Spain ruled Sardinia (for 300 years) a lot of people travelled back and forth from Spain to Sardinia, maybe some of these travellers returned to their homeland after having spent many years or all their life in Sardinia acquiring Sardinian accent and pronounces?



You can check in the Corpus of Old Catalan (cica.cat) that the word groc groga is already attested in 13th-century texts, at least half a century before Catalans set a foot in Sardinia.

To be honest, I don't know of any 'Sardisms' in Catalan, at least not for common words. Except, for obvious reasons, in Algherese Catalan, where the influence of Sardinian -and now of Italian- has been really strong indeed.



merquiades said:


> All right.  I see.  Corominas is the Spanish source _par excellence_. It seems to me like putting the cart before the horse.  I can see applying the color to the disease.  This is the way I have always perceived _jaundice _or yellow fever, the ill patients take on a yellow hue, so the disease was called _jaundice_ after _jaune_ (yellow).  Yet it is harder to relate naming the color after the disease.  The sunlight or the saffron reminds me of the bitter greenish yellow color or bitterness of people suffering from liver/ bile problems or jaundice.



Well, Corominas has been by far one of the most respected eminences regarding Catalan -and also Spanish- etymology. This, of course, does not mean he was a god, and he has been contested in many specific cases. I myself don't agree with all of his proposals, but it's true that most of them are sensible, or at least, he usually states it when he is unsure, or explains it, as Cossue shows above. Etymology can't be a totally objective field, after all.

I see your point. But it's not as if the colour came from the disease. A diminutive of the word bitter associated to unripe or green could have been used first to mean 'greenish', later applied to that yellowish green hue of the disease. Obviously this is just conjectural and we are talking about great spans of time. As Cossue's post says, the meaning could perfectly be lost before year 1,000.

One of the great mysteries is why most Romance languages took such basic words as the colours from the adstrate languages, whether Germanic or Semitic. Association with the colours used for the horses at a first stage has usually been pointed at.


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