Incognitus
Member
psiclone":6e586lek said:colour
that's spelled as if you were saying 'call our.' it makes no sense.
"top o' the morning to you, laddy. do these call ours tickle your fancy?"
Only because spelling/pronunciation has changed over the years (read "centuries").
I think in the original Latin it was actually "color" - it came into English via French and it's origin in English is tied in the whole Anglo-Norman invasion. From the Latin "color", it became the early Saxon "culur", and the early French "colour". The spelling obviously follows a lot of French rules - and is obviously the one that was adopted during the coupe of centuries that French was prestige-language in England.
As Wyatt points out, the pronunciation of the word by the unwashed masses hasn't really changed much. It would most likely have been pronounced "call our" by the educated classes before the Victorian period; it was certainly the pronunciation adopted during that period, and still remains in the idiolect of some Received Pronunciation speakers.