Blond

Blond () or blonde (), also referred to as fair hair, is a human hair color characterized by low levels of eumelanin, the dark pigment. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can be from the very pale blond (caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment) to reddish "strawberry" blond or golden-brownish ("sandy") blond colors (the latter with more eumelanin). Occasionally, the state of being blond, and specifically the occurrence of blond traits in a predominantly dark or colored population are referred to as blondism.

Because hair color tends to darken with age, natural blond hair is significantly less common in adulthood. Naturally-occurring blond hair is primarily found in people living in or descended from people who lived in Northern Europe, and may have evolved alongside the development of light skin that enables more efficient synthesis of vitamin D, due to northern Europe's lower levels of sunlight. Blond hair has also developed in other populations, although it is usually not as common, and can be found among the native populations of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji; among the Berbers of North Africa; and among some Asian people.

In Western culture, blonde hair has long been associated with beauty and vitality. In the Greco-Roman world, blonde hair was frequently associated with prostitutes, who dyed their hair using saffron dyes in order to attract more customers. The Greeks stereotyped Thracians and slaves as light-haired and the Romans associated blondness with the Celts and the Germanic peoples to the north. In the ancient Greek world, ''Iliad'' presented the mythological hero Achilles as what was then the ideal male warrior: handsome, tall, strong, and light-haired. In Western Europe during the Middle Ages, long and blonde hair was idealized as the paragon of female beauty. Sif, the wife of Thor in Norse mythology, and Iseult, the Celtic-origin legendary heroine, were both significantly portrayed as blonde. In contemporary Western culture, blonde women are often stereotyped as beautiful, but unintelligent.

Etymology, spelling, and grammar

Origins and meanings

The word ''blond'' is first documented in English in 1481 and derives from Old French , causing ''fair'' later to become a general term for 'light complexioned'. This earlier use of ''fair'' survives in the proper name Fairfax, from Old English meaning 'blond hair'.

The word ''blond'', taken from Old French, may derive from the wikt:Special:Search/fairfax">Fairfax, from Old English meaning 'blond hair'.

The word ''blond'', taken from Old French, may derive from the Medieval Latin , meaning 'yellow'. The feminine form ''blonde'' was introduced in the 17th century.

Usage

''Blond/blonde'', with its continued gender–varied usage, is one of the few adjectives in written English to retain separate lexical genders. The two forms, however, are pronounced identically. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language">American Heritage's ''Book of English Usage'' propounds that, as "a blonde" (just so, with "blonde" as noun) might not uncommonly be used to describe a woman, but less often "a blond" used to describe a man, the term is an example of a "sexist stereotype herebywomen are primarily defined by their physical characteristics." The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') records that the phrase "big blond beast" was used in the 20th-century to refer specifically ''to men'' "of the Nordic type" (that is to say, blond-haired).blonde, blond, a. and n."
''The Oxford English Dictionary''. 2nd ed. 1989. ''OED Online''. Oxford University Press. 5 August 2010. The ''OED'' also records that this term for fair hair as an adjective is especially used with reference to women, in which case it is likely to be spelt ''blonde'', citing three Victorian usages of the term. The masculine version is used in the plural, in "blonds of the European race", in a citation from 1833 ''Penny cyclopedia'', which distinguishes genuine blondness as a Caucasian feature distinct from albinism.

By the early 1990s, ''blonde moment'' or being a ''dumb blonde'' had come into common parlance to mean "an instance of a person, esp. a woman... being foolish or scatter-brained." Another hair color word of French origin, ''brunette'' (from the same Germanic root that gave ''brown''), functions in the same way in orthodox English. The ''OED'' gives ''brunet'' as meaning 'dark-complexioned' or a 'dark-complexioned person', citing a comparative usage of ''brunet'' and ''blond'' to Thomas Henry Huxley in saying, "The present contrast of blonds and brunets existed among them." ''Brunette'' can be used, however, like ''blonde'', to describe a mixed-gender populace. The ''OED'' quotes Grant Allen, "The nation which resulted... being sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette."

''Blond'' and ''blonde'' are also occasionally used to refer to objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. For example, the ''OED'' records its use in 19th-century poetic diction to describe flowers, "a variety of clay ironstone of the coal measures", "the colour of raw silk", a breed of ray, lager beer, and pale wood.

Varieties

Various subcategories of blond hair have been defined to describe the different shades and sources of the hair color more accurately. Common examples include the following:
* ash-blond: ashen or grayish blond.
* blond/flaxen: when distinguished from other varieties, "blond" by itself refers to a light but not whitish blond, with no traces of red, gold, or brown; this color is often described as "flaxen".
* dirty blond or dishwater blond: dark blond with flecks of golden blond and brown.
* golden blond: a darker to rich yellow blond.
* honey blond: dark iridescent blond.
* platinum blond or towheaded: whitish-blond.
* sandy blond: grayish- hazel or cream-colored blond.
* strawberry blond or Venetian blond: reddish blond
Artificially blond hair may be called bleached blond, bottle blond, or peroxide blond.

Genetics of blond hair

A typical explanation found in the scientific literature for the adaptation of light hair is related to the adaptation of light skin, and in turn the requirement for vitamin D synthesis and northern Europe's seasonally reduced solar radiation.Robins, Ashley H. ''Biological Perspectives on Human Pigmentation.'' Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 195–208.

Ancient DNA analysis (ADNA) has revealed that the oldest fossil known to carry the mutated allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene, which is responsible for blond hair in modern Europeans, is a 17,000 year old Ancient North Eurasian specimen from Afontova Gora in Southern Siberia.,

The precise genetic origin and spread of blond hair into its present-day distribution is a topic of debate amongst population geneticists.

Geneticist David Reich said that the hundreds of millions of copies of this SNP, the classic European blond hair mutation, entered continental Europe by way of a massive population migration from the Eurasian steppe, by a people who had substantial Ancient North Eurasian ancestry. Ancient North Eurasian admixture is present in Mesolithic fossils from Northern Europe, and is linked to the prediction of blond hair in Stone Age Scandinavians by ancient DNA analysis. Gavin Evans analyzed several years of research on the origin of European blond hair, and concluded that the widespread presence of blond hair in Europe is largely due to the territorial expansions of the "all-conquering" Western Steppe Herders; who carried the genes for blond hair. A review article published in 2020 analyzes fossil data from a wide variety of published sources. The authors affirm the previous statements, noting that Ancient North Eurasian-derived populations carried the derived blond hair allele to Europe, and that the "massive spread" of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists likely caused the "rapid selective sweep in European populations toward light skin and hair."

In contrast, geneticist Iosif Lazaridis questioned whether or not blond hair could have originated from the migration of Steppe peoples. He found evidence for blond individuals in ancient Southern Europe and the Levant, with no Steppe ancestry. He also observed that blond hair was rare in the available samples for early Bronze Age Steppe groups, yet common in the later Bronze Age groups, which is inconsistent with the theory that Steppe populations spread the phenotype for blond hair. However, this is consistent with a phenotype turnover occurring within the Steppe pastoralists, leading to a shift towards blond hair becoming a common hair color in the later Steppe-derived populations of Europe and Central Asia. Lazaridis further wrote that the frequencies of traits like blonde hair could have been shaped by mass migration or selection; but that it is more complex than "simple stories" of sexual selection, or of spreading by Steppe pastoralists.

A 2024 study found that both Neolithic farmer and Steppe-associated ancestries were more significantly associated with blond hair, while European hunter gatherers tended to have dark or even black hair.

Prevalence

General

According to the sociologist Christie Davies, only around five percent of adults in Europe and North America are naturally blond. A study conducted in 2003 concluded that only four percent of American adults are naturally blond. A significant number of Caucasian women who have blonde hair have dyed it that way.

Europe

The pigmentation of both hair and eyes is lightest around the Baltic Sea, and darkness increases regularly and almost concentrically around this region.

In France, according to a source published 1939, blondism is more common in Normandy, and less common in the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean seacoast; 26% of the French population have blond or light brown hair. A 2007 study of French females showed that by then roughly 20% were blonde, although half of these blondes were fully fake. Roughly ten percent of French females are natural blondes, of which 60% bleach their hair to a lighter tone of blond.

In Portugal, the national average of the population shows 11% of varying traces of blondism, peaking at 15% blond people in Póvoa de Varzim in northern Portugal.

In Italy, a study of Italian men conducted by Ridolfo Livi between 1859 and 1863 on the records of the National Conscription Service showed that 8.2% of Italian men exhibited blond hair; blondism frequency displayed a wide degree of regional variation, ranging from around 12.6% in Veneto to 1.7% among the Sardinians. In a more detailed study from the 20th-century geneticist Renato Biasutti, the regional contrasts of blondism frequency are better shown, with a greater occurrence in the northern regions, where the figure may be over 20%, and a lesser occurrence in Sardinia, where the frequency in many of its districts was 0.5%. With the exception of Benevento and the surrounding area in Campania, where various shades of blond hair were present in 10–15% of the population, Southern Italy as a whole averaged between 2.5% and 7.4%.

Africa

A number of blond naturally mummified bodies of common people (i.e. not proper mummies) dating to Roman-Christian period have been found in the Fagg El Gamous cemetery in Fayum, Egypt. "Of those whose hair was preserved 54% were blondes or redheads, and the percentage grows to 87% when light-brown hair color is added." Excavations have been ongoing since the 1980s. Burials seem to be clustered by hair-colour.

Oceania

Blonde hair is also found in some other parts of the South Pacific, such as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji, again with higher incidences in children. Blond hair in Melanesians is caused by an amino acid change in the gene TYRP1. This mutation is at a frequency of 26% in the Solomon Islands and is absent outside of Oceania.

Asia

The higher frequencies of light hair in Asia are prevalent among the Pamiris, Kalash, Nuristani and Uyghur ethnic groups.

According to geneticist David Reich, blond hair has ancient roots in Asia. The derived allele responsible for blond hair in Europeans likely evolved first among the Ancient North Eurasians. The earliest known individual with this allele is a Siberian fossil from Afontova Gora, in south-central Siberia. Reich has written that the derived SNP for blond hair entered continental Europe by way of a massive population migration from the Eurasian steppe, by a people who had substantial Ancient North Eurasian ancestry. Blond hair has been discovered in human burial sites in north-western China and Mongolia dating to the Iron Age.

The Hmong people, originally from northern China, were historically recorded as having blonde hair and blue eyes by the Chinese in ancient times, but their features became darker as they migrated out of China and in to Southeast Asia. The ethnic Miao people of Guizhou province from China, a subgroup of Hmong people, have been described as having blue eyes and blonde hair. F.M Savina of the Paris Foreign missionary society wrote that the Miao are "pale yellow in complexion, almost white, their hair is often light or dark brown, sometimes even red or corn-silk blond, and a few even have pale blue eyes."

Chinese historical documents describe blond haired, blue-eyed warriors among the Xiongnu, a nomadic equestrian culture from Mongolia, who practiced Tengriism. The Shiwei people were a Mongolic-speaking ethnic group who were blond-haired and blue eyed. Blond hair can still be seen among people from the region they inhabited, even today. Some Xianbei were described with blond hair and blue eyes according to Chinese historical chronicles. The Uriankhai tribe of Mongols, to which the military generals Subotai and Jelme belonged, were described by Mongol chronicles as blond haired in the 2nd millennium CE. The Tuvans are a Turkic ethnic group with an occasional occurrence of blond hair with freckles, blue-green eyes.

Asia