I’ll never forget the time we were reading an Irish text in class that suddenly mentioned daoine gorma. Blue people? The whole class looked at each other; Smurfs, Sonic, Avatars? My teacher quickly clarified that blue people refers to people of darker skin tones.
Colour is fascinating because colour is a function of light. So when astrophysicists try to gather data from the sun, the only way they can measure the intensity of its light is through colour. Specific wavelengths reflect specific colours.
Similarly, language reflects ontology. Language gives us data about the sun which lies at the heart of a culture’s solar system. So I wonder about the type of sun, the type of solar system, which the term daoine gorma reflects. What’s fascinating is that in Sudanese Arabic we also refer to darker skin tones as azraq, blue. This overlap between Gailege and Arabic propelled me on a voyage of discovery in pursuit of new eyes.
I couldn’t find many written sources on the subject, so I talked to various scholars, artists, writers, family and friends about this anomaly for five months straight. The theories I encountered stretched far and wide, from links to the vibrant blue dress of the Tuareg people to the Blue Nile. Strikingly, a painter explained that she uses a combination of blues for darker skin tones.
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Finding no direct leads, I wondered if the answer lies in how the Irish and Sudanese refer to themselves. I turned to the focloir and found that the modern term “white people” translates to daoine geala, bright people. A derivative of geala, is gealach meaning the moon. Ghrian geal means the bright sun. Similarly, the majority skin tone in Sudan is described as t asmar, the roots of the word originally signifying moonlight but is also “the colour of what is exposed to the sun”.
Both terms are associated with moonlight and sunlight. Now, how does this circle back to daoine gorma? Many dark surfaces, dark birds for example, reflect an iridescent blue in intense light. Similarly, when some dark skin tones are in intense light, they reflect a blue. Both Gaeilge and Arabic seem to proactively direct us to this blue that shines through, propelling us to the heart of the issue.
We are faced with the questions: What light do you see yourself in? What light do you see me in? Is that the same light? Is that light bright enough to illuminate both our common humanity and our simultaneous diversity? In his wondrous theatrical performance, Arán agus Im, Manchán Magan highlights the how the multidimensional world which Gaeilge plunges us into is vast. In Gaeilge the unseen world is as real as the seen world.
Gaeilge and Arabic launch our consciousness onto a cosmic stage. Demanding we see through the greatest light above us, they make us aware of how the human heart sees, chooses and acts on a cosmic stage which stretches beyond. They reorient us, one splash of colour at a time, insisting on nuance and sclimpíní (making light dance before your eyes).
In 32 Words for Field, Manchán highlights that when giving directions in Irish, we must orient ourselves in relation to the sun. The term, deiseal, means to travel sunwise. So I wonder whether the language’s orientation relative to the physical world represents inner hope. A hope of cosmic orientation. It seems to me that both Gaeilge and Arabic unite our humanity in the light of what is above us. So the pressing question remains: what does it mean to see the universe inside us, in the light of what is above us?
...Lights singing...hope springing...we voyage on ....
Sarah Babiker sat down with Manchán Magan to discuss her insights into race and the Irish language. The pre-recorded interview will be shared during the upcoming Scoil Scairte series, which takes place online from March 2nd until April 27th. thetrailblazery.com
