Carole Patricia Biggam

This study comprises a colour semantic investigation into the greyness of Old English, forming a companion volume to the author's Blue in Old English (1997). The research is conducted by means of word-studies of graeg, har, hsau, and wylfen, and their context. The investigation makes use of etymology, literary studies, sociolinguistics, zoology, botany and ornithology, giving Anglo-Saxon' subtle use of grey to inspire a sense of the richly varied Anglo-Saxon world of frost, iron, ancient trees, stalking wolves, and hoary-headed saints and warriors.

An Interdisciplinary Semantic Study

Grey in Old English

C. P. Biggam

This book presents the basic principles of modern colour semantics and discusses the crucial differences between modern and historical colour studies.

A Historical Approach

The Semantics of Colour

Offers a perspective on the field, ranging from studies of individual languages through papers on art, architecture and heraldry to psychological examinations of aspects of colour categorization, perception and preference.

New Directions in Colour Studies

Blue in Old English represents the first thorough investigation of an area of the colour semantics of Old English, and the methodology developed for this study is believed to be appropriate for researching the colour semantics of any language which survives only in recorded texts. By means of a collection of in-depth word-studies, which suggest new interpretations of many well-known passages, an understanding of how blueness was described in Old English is developed. The approach is interdisciplinary, using evidence from subjects such as botany, manuscript illustration, etymology, early technologies, and others. The conclusion contradicts certain previously held views on Old English colour, and presents a hitherto obscured sociolinguistic picture of differing language use among various groups of Old English speakers.

Blue in Old English

Christian Kay

Nicola Pitchford

The study of colour attracts researchers from a wide range of disciplines from both the sciences and the arts. Along with its companion volume, Progress in Colour Studies 1: Language and Culture, this book offers a fascinating insight into current issues and research into colour. Most of the papers originated in a 2004 conference entitled 'Progress in Colour Studies' held in the University of Glasgow, U.K. Some additional invited papers are included from investigators exploring new and exciting avenues of colour research. The contributions to both books represent reviews of state-of-the-art colour research in various disciplines, and some new research findings are reported. This volume, principally psychological in content, focuses on the development of colour perception and colour language, from infancy into adulthood, across a diverse range of cultures, including English, Himba, Chinese, and Mexican, and on the intriguing yet perplexing condition of synaesthesia, thus bridging research from the physiology, psychology and anthropology of colour.

Carole Patricia Biggam

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