VEEL ÜHEST KANNIKESESINISEST
About one more violet blue

Summary/Abstract: The stem variants panksee, pankse(-), panks(i)-, pank-, ponks(i)- ‘certain blue, violet colour’ have been recorded in the western dialect of Estonian, in the island dialect of the parishes on Hiiumaa and in Muhu and Kihelkonna parishes (ac¬cording to the card catalogue of Estonian dialect words, held at the Institute of the Estonian Language in Tallinn, EMSUKA). This shade of colour was achieved by a dye bought from a shop and it was used for colouring yarn, fabric etc. The same word was used as a name for the dye itself as well. The stem may have been borrowed from Swedish or German, Swedish pensé [paηse:] ‘pansy’, German Pensée [pã´se:] ‘pansy’, pensée [pã´se:] ‘dark violet’. Swedish and German sources fit both phonetically and semantically. There is no record of the Estonian dialectal stem as a plant name. Thus the stem is borrowed only as a colour word, probably as the name of a dye shade bought from a shop. It is more likely that the stem in question is borrowed from German. There are other colour terms in Estonian dialects, e. g. neibla-, neiblusinine (German Neublau), ordjan, ordjon, ordenikollane (German Orlean(s)) which are German loanwords as well.

• Details
• Contents