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Blond
Blond (or blonde, see below) is a hair color found in certain mammals
characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. From degrees of
almost light brown, to pale, almost white yellow, the various hues of
blondness are found in a little less than 1.8% of the world's human
population.
The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some
sort of yellowish color, going from the very pale blond caused by a patchy,
scarce distribution of pigment, to reddish "strawberry" blond colors or
golden brownish blond colors, the latter with more eumelanin. True blonds
have the thinnest strands of hair while the strands of tropical black hair
are the thickest.
Etymology, spelling, and grammar
The word blond was first attested in English in 1481 and derives from Old
French blont and meant "a colour midway between golden and light chestnut".
It largely replaced the native term fair, from Old English faeger. The
French (and thus also the English) word blond has two possible origins. Some
linguists say it comes from Middle Latin Blundus, meaning yellow, others say
it comes from Old Frankish *blund which would relate it to Old English
blonden-feax meaning grey-haired, from blondan/blandan meaning to mix. Also,
Old English beblonden meant dyed as ancient Germanic warriors were noted for
dying their hair. The linguists who support the Latin origins however say
that Middle Latin blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flavus, also
meaning yellow. The word was reintroduced into English in the 17th century
from French, and was until recently still felt as French, hence blonde for
females and blond for males.[1]
Writers of English will still distinguish between the masculine blond and
the feminine blonde[2] and, as such, it is one of the few adjectives in
English with separate masculine and feminine forms. However, many writers
use only one of the spellings without regard to gender, and without a clear
majority usage one way or another. The word is also often used as a noun to
refer to a woman with blond hair, but some speakers see this usage as
sexist[2] and reject it. (Another hair color word of French origin,
brunet(te), also functions in the same way in orthodox English.)
The word is also occasionally used, with either spelling, to refer to
objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. Examples include pale
wood and lager beer.
Many sub-categories of blond hair have also been invented to describe
someone with blond hair more accurately. Examples include the following:
* Platinum blond and towhead - nearly white; found naturally almost
exclusively in children, but occurring rarely among some adults
* Sandy blond - similar to sand in color
* Ash blond - usually quite fair, with some ashen (grey) tones
* Dirty blond or dishwater blond - dark blond
* Golden blond or honey blond - lighter, with a gold cast
* Bottle blond or bleach blond - artificially dyed blond hair
* Strawberry blond - reddish blond
* Pool blond - with green undertones, from habitual use of a chlorinated
pool
* Hazy blond or zebra blond - streaked blond and brunette
* Brownish blond - darkest shade of blond with sometimes looking light brown
and at other times dark blond or even lighter
Origins
Lighter hair colors, as a result of migration, followed by genetical
mixture, occur in humans of all ethnicities, as rare mutations,[3] but at
such low rates that it is hardly noticeable in most populations, or is only
found in children. In Nothern European populations, however, the occurrence
of blond hair is more frequent, and often remains throughout adulthood,
leading to the misinterpretation that blondness is an exclusively European
trait. It is quite likely, however, that it once was common in all of the
temperate climate zone above the 50th degree of latitude. In these areas,
the scarcity of sunlight would mean that having relatively little pigment is
an advantage, as one's skin and hair receive more essential elements.
Other theories
Based on recent genetic information, some scientists suppose, that humans
with blond hair became distinctly numerous in Europe about 11,000 to 10,000
years ago during the last Ice Age. Before then, Europeans mostly had black
hair and dark eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world.[3]
A long standing question has been why certain populations in Europe evolved
to have such high incidences of blond hair (and wide varieties of eye color)
so relatively recently and quickly in the human evolution timescale. If the
changes had occurred by the usual processes of evolution (natural
selection), they would have taken about 850,000 years.[3] But modern humans,
emigrating from Africa, reached Europe only 35,000-40,000 years ago.[3] A
number of theories have been proposed, as follows.
Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St
Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human
Behavior that says blond hair evolved very quickly at the end of the last
Ice Age by means of sexual selection.[4] According to the study, the
appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made
them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce
males. The study argues that blond hair was produced higher in the
Cro-Magnon descended population of the European region because of food
shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Almost the only sustenance in northern
Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and
finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males
died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. This hypothesis
argues that women with blond hair posed an alternative that helped them mate
and thus increased the number of blonds.
According to the authors of The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994),
blond hair became predominant in Europe in about 3000 BC among the recently
arrived Proto-Indo-European settlers though the trait spread quickly through
sexual selection into Scandinavia when that area was settled because men
found women with blond hair attractive.[5][6]
Relation to age and distribution on body
Blond hair is common in infants and children, so much so that the term "baby
blond" is often used for very light-colored hair. Babies may be born with
blond hair even among groups where adults rarely have blond hair,[7]
although such natal hair usually falls out quickly. Blond hair tends to turn
darker with age, and many children born blond turn from anything between a
light brown to dark brown before or during their teenage years.
The body hair of blonds is also blond, although terminal hair elsewhere on
the body may be darker than hair on the head, and even brown. Facial hair is
often reddish. Vellus, on the other hand, may be very light or even
transparent. Hair that grows from a mole or from a birthmark may be dark.
Distribution
Blonde hair is most common in Europe, with the Nordic Countries, as well as
other countries bordering the Baltic such as Poland, Latvia, and northern
Russia, being where most of the population has blonde hair. In other parts
of Europe such as England, Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands they tend
to be a very large minority. Apart from Europe, blond hair is present in
various regions in the world, although they tend to appear less frequently.
Generally, blond hair in Europeans is associated with paler eye color (blue,
green and light brown) and pale (sometimes freckled) skin tone. Strong
sunlight also lightens hair of any pigmentation, to varying degrees, and
causes many blond people to freckle, especially during childhood. Aboriginal
Australians, especially in the west-central parts of the continent, also
have a fairly high instance of bright yellow blond-to-brown hair,[9][10]
with as many as 90-100% of children having blond hair in some areas.[11] The
trait among Indigenous Australians is primarily associated with children and
women, and sometimes the hair turns to a darker brown color as they age.[11]
Blondism is also found throughout other parts of the South Pacific
especially in Melanesia in high numbers such as in the Solomon Islands again
higher incidences in children but here many adults too carry this indigenous
blond mutation.
Some Guanches populations, particularly the now extinct aboriginal
population of Tenerife, one of the Canary islands of the African Atlantic
coast, were said by 14th century Spanish explorers to exhibit blond hair and
blue eyes.[12][13] Blondness was also reported among South American Indians.
In Central and South Asia the same types of features were exhibited by
certain groups. It is still found in higher frequency among some populations
of Central Asia, particularly among the Kalash of Pakistan and the Nuristani
people of Afghanistan. Blonds are found in the Middle East as well, though
not as commonly among the Arabs. Iranians, and their related groups have a
higher frequency of blonds in the Middle East, which includes the Kalah of
Pakistan and Nuristani of Afghanistan.
In addition many mixed-race people, generally those part European mixed with
some other racial groups, exhibit blond hair or hues of blond often golden,
brass, or copper toned. Many examples are found in diverse countries with
various ethinic groups, such as in Latin America, like Brazil for example
which has a long history of interracial unions.
Extinction
In the middle of the nineties (20th century) more and more clear had become,
that even in Northern European countries the percentage of real blond haired
kept decreasing. In a Vogue-article a British scientist confirmed, that the
blond variety of mankind is becoming extinct. As the cause of this he
mentioned the fact, that in these days, due to migration and tourism, blond
people have more and more contacts with persons of dark haired races,
whereas in case these contacts lead to newborns of mixed race, the dark
haired element almost always genetically dominates.
For whatever a reason in 2002 there was a worldwide hoax that scientists
predicted blonds were eventually going to become extinct. The hoax cited WHO
as the source of the scientific study. See recessive alleles for more
information on the genetic basis of blond hair.
Culturally-related ideas
In northern Europe fairy lore, fairies value blond hair in humans. Blond
babies are more likely to be stolen and replaced with changelings, and young
blond women are more likely to be lured away to the land of the fairies.[14]
Blond hair was commonly ascribed to the heroes and heroines of European
fairy tales. This may occur in the text, as in Madame d'Aulnoy's La Belle
aux cheveux d'or or The Beauty with Golden Hair, or in illustrations
depicting the scenes.[15] Only Snow White, because of her mother's wish for
a child "as red as blood, as white as snow, as black as ebony", has dark
hair.[16]
Two notable bleached sex icons of twentieth-century America, who started
causing an unrealistic, more or less scandalous and otherwise negative image
of real blond hair, were Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. Monroe, who was
pale blond as a child though her hair darkened to a dark reddish blond, and
Harlow, a natural ash blonde, both frequently portrayed stereotypical dumb
blondes in their films.
Blonde jokes are a class of joke based on a stereotype of blonde women (or
rarely, blond men) being unintelligent, sexually promiscuous, or both.
In the early-mid twentieth century, blond hair was sometimes associated with
a Nordic race, promoted by Nordicists such as Madison Grant and Alfred
Rosenberg, while the "Aryan race" was conceived as a larger group, including
the non-blond "Alpine race". During World War II, blond hair was one of the
traits used by Nazis to select Slavic children for Germanization
Notes
1. ^ Origin of "blonde", from Etymonline.
2. ^ a b "Blond/Brunet" from The American Heritage Book of English Usage
(1996)
3. ^ a b c d "Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun", from The Times.
Note, the end of the Times article reiterates the Disappearing blonde gene
hoax; the online version replaced it with a rebuttal.
4. ^ Abstract: "European hair and eye colour: A case of frequency-dependent
sexual selection?" from Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 27, Issue 2,
Pages 85-103 (March 2006)
5. ^ Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca; Menozzi, Paolo; and Piazza Alberto The History
and Geography of Human Genes Princeton, New Jersey: 1994 Princeton
University Press Page 266 -- Map of the incidence of the gene for blonde
hair in Europe.
6. ^ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
7. ^ See http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/04/blonde-antipodals.php for
discussion of Melanesian and Aboriginal Australian children with blond hair.
8. ^ Naturally blonde blacks
9. ^ http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/vary_1.htm
10. ^ http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/04/blonde-antipodals.php
11. ^ a b http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/08/blonde-australian-aboriginals.php
12. ^ http://www.familytreedna.com/(czkb1cubrllp4y45bfy33aud)/public/Guanches-CanaryIslandsDNA/index.aspx
Familytreedna.com
13. ^ http://washingtontimes.com/travel/20050421-090747-8069r.htm
Washingtontimes.com
14. ^ Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies,
Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, "Golden Hair", p194. ISBN
0-394-73467-X
15. ^ Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales And Their
Tellers, p 362-6 ISBN 0-374-15901-7
16. ^ Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales And Their
Tellers, p 365 ISBN 0-374-15901-7
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