Re: OT: terms for people with different hair colours

On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:48:40 +0200, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
wrote:
>[snip]
>Fair hair is a typical Germanic and Celtic trait, but not exclusive
>to them (or us).
Right, I didn't think it was.  In fact I think blue-eyed blonds are more common
among Slavs than among Teutons, aren't they?  I could be wrong.

>In ancient times, fair hair was pretty common in the
>Balkan - Anatolia region. The Greeks thought yellow hair was typical
>for Thracians. Possibly, Democritus was a blond.
>[snip]
>Homer used various epithets to characterise his gods and other
>characters, and some of them were about hair colour. It won't take
>you long to find them in the Iliad at least.
>LEF
It might not take _you_ long, but _I_ don't read Greek and don't have a copy
of a translation.
:-(
But I'll try to look.
Thanks.

Anyway; a language is likely to have color-based person-terms for the most
frequently encountered different colors, and not for the most rarely
encountered ones.  Thus no language on Earth, as far as I know, has terms
for blue-skinned (though Icelandic Varangian guards apparently
used "bluemen" to mean Moors) or green-skinned or purple-skinned or orange-
skinned people, nor for green-haired nor purple-haired people, nor for yellow-
irised nor red-irised people.

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