בֵּז׳ (bezh) — beige (and a spectrum of neutral colors)

Etymology

This column covers a spectrum of neutral and earth-tone colors that entered Hebrew from different sources. Beige, the palest, came from French; khaki, slightly darker, from Persian via English and Russian; amber from Arabic; and burgundy from a German dye company that named its product after a French city.

Beige first appeared in French as a color name in the mid-19th century. Before that (first attested c. 1220 in the poetry of Gautier de Coinci), it simply meant unprocessed, undyed fabric. Its ultimate origin is disputed: possibly from Italian bambagina (unprocessed cotton, from Greek bambax); possibly from Latin Baeticus (from the Spanish wool province Baetica, phonetically unlikely); or possibly from Latin byssus (luxury linen), itself borrowed from Greek byssos, which was borrowed from a Semitic language — probably Phoenician. Its Hebrew cognate, בּוּץ, appears in Esther 1:6 and several other biblical passages, translated in the Vulgate as byssus. If this chain holds, the word beige may trace back to biblical Hebrew.

Khaki (חָאקִי) entered Hebrew via Russian. The Persian word khāk means "earth" or "dust"; with the adjective suffix -i it becomes khāki, "earth-colored." The word traveled to India with Muslim conquest and was adopted in Hindustani. In 1848 the British Corps of Guides in India adopted khaki uniforms. During the Second Boer War (1899–1902) they became standard across the British Army. The word entered Russian journalism around 1901, spelled and pronounced kháki (not the English kháki), and that Russian pronunciation was adopted into Hebrew. The newspaper Ha-Tzfira (Warsaw) used it in October 1901. The British Army brought khaki uniforms to Palestine at the end of World War I, and the IDF adopted them at its founding.

Amber (עִנְבָּר) has been in Hebrew since the 9th century, borrowed from Arabic, in which it originally meant ambergris (the sperm-whale secretion used in perfumery), not fossilized resin. The Arabic word was also borrowed into European languages, where it gradually shifted meaning to denote fossilized resin (due to superficial resemblance), and eventually the color of that resin. Hebrew borrowed the color sense in the 20th century under European influence.

Burgundy (בּוֹרְדּוֹ) became a color name not in France but in Germany. In 1878 the German firm "Meister, Lucius and Brüning" (later Hoechst) developed a new red-purple dye and branded it "Bordeaux" for its prestigious connotations. By 1884 the name was in use as a color independent of the dye product, and spread across European languages including Hebrew.

Key Quotes

"חוּר כַּרְפַּס וּתְכֵלֶת אָחוּז בְּחַבְלֵי בוּץ וְאַרְגָּמָן" — Esther 1:6 (biblical בּוּץ, possible cognate of beige)

"שבויים אחרים אשר בעת הלקחם בשביה היו לבושים 'חאקי'" — Ha-Tzfira (Warsaw), October 1901

Timeline

• c. 1220: First attestation of beige in French (Gautier de Coinci)
• Mid-19th century: beige shifts from fabric name to color name in French
• 1848: British Corps of Guides adopts khaki uniforms in India
• 1899–1902: Khaki becomes standard British Army uniform in the Boer War
• October 1901: חאקי first appears in Hebrew press (Ha-Tzfira, Warsaw)
• 9th century CE: עִנְבָּר first attested in Hebrew (Rav Natrunai Gaon)
• 15th century: amber used as a color name in European languages
• 1878: German firm "Meister, Lucius and Brüning" registers "Bordeaux" as brand name for new dye
• 1884: בורדו in use as a color name independent of the dye
• 20th century: All four colors (beige, khaki, amber, burgundy) in active Hebrew use

Related Words

• בּוּץ — biblical fine linen; possible ancient cognate of beige
• חָאקִי — khaki; from Persian khāk (earth/dust) via Indian → British Army → Russian → Hebrew
• עִנְבָּר — amber; from Arabic (originally ambergris); in Hebrew since 9th century
• בּוֹרְדּוֹ — burgundy; from city of Bordeaux via German dye branding (1878)