Welsh Word of the Day: Porffor (purple)

Do you have a hoff liw (favourite colour)? A lot of people go for porffor (purple). In Welsh as in English, this word functions mainly as an adjective, though it can also be used as a masculine noun.

It’s no coincidence that porffor starts with the letter p, just like the English translation. They both come from the Latin purpura, which itself ultimately derives from ancient Greek porphura, the name of a fish which produced a certain purple dye. Porffor has existed in Welsh for nearly a millennia, sometimes in variant forms such as pyrffyr.

The other important thing about this word starting with p is that it responds to all three kinds of mutations, like this:

An example of a time when porffor takes the soft mutation is when it’s being used to describe a feminine noun. A purple coat, for example, is côt borffor, since côt, coat, is feminine. Aside from this porffor doesn’t change for the noun it’s describing – there is no separate feminine or plural form.

Most adjectives in Welsh feature special forms to compare the degree to which that adjective is applicable. This isn’t the case for porffor, so it has to be paired with other words to produce a comparative meaning. Mwyaf porffor means the most purple, mwy porffor is more purple, and mor borffor means equally purple.

Porffor isn’t the only word for purple in Welsh. You can also use piws (puce) or, if you want to sound more poetic and old fashioned, glasgoch / cochlas (blue-red / red-blue). And one word that has sadly become obsolete is ehöeg, which, interestingly, was historically used to describe both purple and green.

But especially recently, porffor has become more standard; it corresponds more closely to the way colour is perceived and described in English and in other languages. Still, different words can be used to describe different shades of porffor. One of these is piws, as mentioned, but there’s also:

• fioled = violet
• rhuddlas = violet / purple
• dulas = dark bluish purple
• indigo = indigo
• môf / piwswyn = mauve
• browngoch = maroon
• lliw lafant = lavender
• lelog = lilac
• majenta / coch Lerpwl = magenta

Lots of synonyms for porffor involve variants of the words glas (blue) and coch (red), two of the three primary lliwiau (colours) which are used to make porffor.

In fact, some people argue that porffor isn’t even a colour in its own right. This is because it doesn’t refer to a scientifically definable segment of the sbectrwm (spectrum) of visible golau (light) – unlike fioled, which is the lliw with the shortest tonfedd (wavelength). It’s just a broad term for how humans perceive certain mixtures of glas, coch, and fioled.

This hasn’t stopped porffor for being a culturally significant lliw throughout human history. It’s often been associated with brenhindod (royalty) and moeth (luxury). This may be because blue and purple dyes are harder to come across and often more drud (expensive).

This is also reflected in language. In English, the phrase born in the purple originally referred to a royal child born while their parent was a reigning monarch, but over time, it has come to mean anyone born into privilege and high status. In Welsh, this concept is captured more succinctly by the word porfforanedig.

On the other hand, more recently, it’s become associated with seicedelia (psychedelia) and various kinds of counter-culture, showing up in the titles of caneuon (songs) by musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Prince.

So you can choose to buy a ffrog borffor (purple dress) or a bag porffor (purple bag) if you feel the colour represents your values or interests, or you just like the way it looks. But of course some things are purple no matter what!

• wylys = aubergine
• grug = heather
• hiasinth = hyacinth
• betysen goch = beetroot
• llus = blueberries
• eirin = plums
• porffor mawr y derw / boneddiges borffor = purple emperor butterfly
• llinos borffor = purple linnet

Have I missed anything? Let me know if so!