Re: Color morphemes

I was just about to post my message about the
IAL and Morpheme Index project proposal for
colour terminology when you've posted this,
so I'll post my reply and my message together.


>> >I think that "pink" means "pale red".
>> >"Brown" is "dark yellow, orange or red".
>>
>> Pink can be light red without necessarily being pale,
Pink, if I'm not mistaken, includes also magenta and
lavander, which are not pale nor light kinds of red
but variants of a different spectral color.


>> the more relevant distinction for brown is low saturation.
>
>Note that CGA's BROWN (2/3 1/3 0) is entirely saturated;
>and also Windows' Maroon (1/2 0 0), which I consider as sort of brown.
By definition, saturated colours are the pure,
spectral ones, which do not include brown.
Thus, brown simply *can't* be saturated; it's
a "mixed" colour.


>First, let us resume how our 3D color system looks like:
>There are 8 main colors at vertexes of the color cube:
>K (blacK) = 0
>B (Blue)
>G (Greeen)
>C (Cyan) = G + B
>R (Red)
>M (Magenta) = R + B
>Y (Yellow) = R + G
>W (White) = R + G + B
>The hues are at the circumference of the hue&saturation triangle,
>so we have 6 main hues (R Y G C B M):
>3 primary colors at the vertexes of the triangle (R G B)
>and 3 secondary colors at the centres of the sides of the triangle (C M Y).
>5 of them are "rainbow hues" (R Y G C B) and 1 is "non-rainbow hue" (M).
My proposal for the IAL is to have 12 basic colour
morphemes, 6 for each of the 3 basic colours of RGB
screens and the 3 ones of printing (which are the ones
you've mentioned; I'll use capitals for these), and 6
more for each intermediate one between those:

- carmine red
- VERMILLION RED
- orange
- YELLOW
- apple green
- EMERALD GREEN
- sea-green
- CYAN
- Prussian blue
- INDIGO
- purple
- MAGENTA

Then, to divide the achromatic scale in 5 degrees:

- WHITE
- light grey
- MEDIUM GREY
- dark grey
- BLACK

By just combining those 12+5 basic morphemes you
can refer to most colours with more than enough
accuracy for everyday purposes, e.g.:

- maroon: medium-grey red
- brown: medium-grey orange
- cinnamon: light-grey orange yellow
- beige: white yellow
- khaki: grey yellow
- olive: dark-grey apple-green
- lilac: light-grey purple
- lavander: white magenta

There will be additional available morphemes in
case you need to be more specific about saturation
or brightness, e.g. to cope with the specific
purposes of dye or paint industries. Of course, to
describe very complex colour perceptions, such as
those of gold or wood, you can always rely on the
reference to real life entities that characteristically
feature them (gold yellow, wood orange, wood yellow),
unless you need to describe the colour perception
accurately using only colour terms, which would then
require a (much) longer name.

Cheers,
Javier

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