Re: Color Terms

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Sylvia Sotomayor <kelen@...> writes:
>
> > I had a small epiphany regarding Kélen color terms. Currently in the lexicon,
> > there are a number that have very similar meaning, as in:
> > tiél    purple, lavender
> > tásh    purple
> >
> > It occured to me that the Kélen have a rather complex color scheme where the
> > name of the color changes according to what is being described. The way a Kélen
> > person would describe it is that they have 4 different sets of color terms, 4
> > being the sacred number of course. The 4 terms cover 4 domains and 9 colors. I
> > will try to lay this out in a table format and hope that the tab settings in
> > your browser/email-reader are the same:
>
> [list of terms snipped]
>
> Two questions:
>
> 1. How are the domains delimited against each other?  Which rules
> determine which set of terms is used on which objects?
>
> 2. I wonder about the full palette of colour terms for people.  Do
> people really come in such a variety of colours in your world?  Or do these
> terms relate to face or body paintings common in the culture, or to the
> clothes people wear?
>
> > As to the color of little plastic chips, those would (probably) be:
> > shé, ráél, nél, ló, málj, ún, tásh, éjká, ólná.
>
> Why do they oscillate between the earth, water and sky domains, and why
> in this particular way?
>
OK, let's start with the colors of people.
They are:
shé 'black' refers both to skin color and to hair color.
célná 'white' refers primarily to hair color and means 'pale' more than anything else.
súr 'red' is the color of blood
ló 'yellow' is an eye-color, and ranges from yellow to deep gold to pale brown.
ílpá 'green' is a skin color, a sort of brownish-green
tiél 'blue' covers blue, purple, and pink, and is an eye color.
énéj 'brown' is a skin color

The sky and water colors are:
ástá 'black' or rather 'dark' which refers to a black that has depth to it. So,
the color of the night sky and the color of the deepest ocean are both ástá.
ló 'white' or rather 'bright' ranges from white to yellow to light gray. It has
a sort of translucent quality to it, which is why it can be used for eye-color
in people.
síw 'red' also covers orange and is basically the color of the
sunset. It, too, has a tranlucent quality to it. In the sea, it refers to
red-stained water filled with algae.
For green and blue there are three words. The sky word cór refers to the color
of the day sky, usually a translucent light blue. The sea word há refers to the
color of the ocean. The earth word ún is used in the sea domain to describe
seaweed, even though it is usually more green than blue.
The sea word wúl is the color of sand. The sky word ólná is the color of
clouds.  The sky word néún is another sunset color, covering the pink and
purple range. The sea word tásh 'purple' is a borrowed earth word and is used
to describe the color of shells and coral, which are usually described with
earth colors.

The earth set is in many ways the default color set. However, The earth yellow
núál really only refers to new plant growth, and so is more of a yellow-green.

> As to the color of little plastic chips, those would (probably) be:
> shé, ráél, nél, ló, málj, ún, tásh, éjká, ólná.
Why do they oscillate between the earth, water and sky domains, and why in this particular way?

In the artificial situation of little color chips, these are all earth colors
except for ló and ólná. ló is used over the earth word núál, because it is the
older, more established word. As I said above, núál really only refers to new
plant growth. ólná is used for grey because the earth palette doesn't
distinguish white from grey. The word ráél usually describes snow and various
fungi, most of which are deadly and the rest of which are gourmet. So, if a
Kélen person were asked to name the colors white and grey as distinct colors,
she would use ráél for white and the color word for clouds for grey.

Keep in mind that this is a learned system, and that it is perfectly possible
for someone (usually a child or a stranger) to describe the sky as ún and still
be understood. There are four domains because four is the sacred number. Among
atheist Kélen (a rarity), there might instead be the idea that colors come
in two sets, a solid set and a translucent set, with a few specialized terms
for hair and skin color.

HTH,
Sylvia

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/
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