Re: Color Terms

Herman Miller wrote:

> Interesting. Jarrda seems to violate these rules, with 17 basic words for
> colors. The English equivalents are, more or less: red, coppery (incl.
> brown), orange, gold, yellow, lime, green, turquoise, cyan, azure, indigo,
> violet, magenta, rose (incl. pink), white, gray, black.
Actually, no difficulty.

> But then, Jarrda
> speakers are non-human. As originally designed, only the colors red,
> yellow, green, and blue were considered primary.
And black and white, presumably.

> However, "rul", the word
> for "azure", started being used as the more generic counterpart of English
> "blue", and the original word for "blue" became specialized to mean
> "indigo". A basic root for "orange" also replaced the compound
> "red-yellow", but the word for "brown" is still considered a shade of
> orange-red. So even eliminating the rare secondary colors (lime,
> turquoise), Jarrda still doesn't quite follow the pattern of human
> languages, since "brown" is supposed to be more basic than "orange" or
> "gray".
Not so.  Once we get past black, white, red, blue, yellow, and green,
the others can be added in any order.

--
        John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan      cowan@ccil.org
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                        -- Coleridge / Politzer