Re: NATLANG: Colours

_Neft'_ is _petroleum_ in Russian too. _Dark_ is
_temnyj_ in Russian (pron. tjomnyj). My wife agreed
about _salatovij_ (light green, from _salat_ = English
_salad_), although my dictionnary says  _salatnyj_
(she says children say so...)

We sometimes say _aile de corbeau_ in French to evoke
a very black hair (Mediterranean or Arabic aspect). In
ancient Greek, _black_ was _melanos_ (hence
melancholia, and the name Melanie), but in modern
Greek, it is _mavros_ (perhaps related to Spanish
_Mauro_ ? On the flag of Corsica, there is what we
call _une tete de Maure_, which is completely black,
although "Mauros" weren't black AFAIK. In Turkish,
it's _kara_ (Kara Deniz = the Black Sea).

There are vey many nuances for _green_ in French
(usually used by painters or decorators for ex):
- vert absinthe
- vert bouteille
- vert tilleul
- vert celadon
- vert Nil
- vert amande
- vert artichaut
- vert asperge
- vert epinard
- vert pistache
- vert bronze
- vert emeraude
- vert jade
- aigue-marine
- vert mousse
- vert pomme
- vert prairie
- vert printemps
- vert Veronese
(+ verdatre, glauque, olivatre, smaragdin,
vert-de-gris, vert dore, vert-jaune, vert fonce, vert
sombre, vert acide, vert brillant, vert cru, vert vif,
vert aquatique, vert vegetal, vert malachite, vert de
chrome, vert de cobalt, vert anglais [sic]). This list
came from my Thesaurus.

I would add _vert jardin_, _vert menthe_, _vert
d'eau_, and _vert turquoise_ (sometimes heard,
although more often _bleu turquoise_). But car
manufacturers, for ex, invent new color names every
year. I had a car described as _gris lunaire_ (Moon
grey), and I just can't remember what they called the
color of my present one (some dark blue with a some
red in it - actually, its color changes depending how
sunny it is).

I read that _vert_ was used in French heraldics too,
but there was a possibility of confusion with _vair_,
which is a "fur" in heraldics, that's why people used
_sinople_ later. We say _un vieillard encore vert_
about an old man still doing well (especially in the
domaine of sex). _Les verts-de-gris_ was used during
the war to name the German soldiers, because of the
color of their uniform (normally, it's copper oxyde).
_La langue verte_ is another name for _argot (slang).
To be _vert de peur_ means to be very scared (in
comics, faces of scared people are often coloured
green, for ex in Lucky Luke's stripes).

That's what we could say about green in French, so
far.

(By the way, I always wondered what could be the
colour _puce_ (flea) in French. What is the colour of
a flea ?)

--- Javier BF <uaxuctum@...> wrote:
> >By the way, this may have come up earlier in the
> thread, which I wasn't
> >following, but "azure" is a borrowing from the Old
> Spanish word that
> >became "azul" in modern Spanish.  OS borrowed it
> from Arabic
> >"al-la:zaward", which was in turn borrowed from
> Persian "la:Zward".  All
> >of the earlier words referred to the gem we now
> call "lapis lazuli", the
> >"lazuli" portion of which descends from the same
> Persian root.
>
> In Turkish, the root has given "lacivert", which
> instead
> of to light/sky blue like the derivations of the
> "azur"
> kind, refers to dark/navy blue.
>
> Turkish has also another interesting word for a dark
> colour: "nefti" (dark/forest green). It is
> etymologically
> related to "naphtha" and it's the only specific name
> for
> "dark green" that I know of so far. In English I've
> found
> as possible candidates the words "loden" (although
> this
> seems to refer rather to dull green) and "corbeau"
> (I
> guess from the French word for crow, but seems to be
> a fancy name thought up by some manufacturer).
>
> Specific names for "light/mint green" aren't very
> common
> either. I think I've heard Russian has "salatoviy"
> but
> my dictionary doesn't list it (is this a derivation
> from
> the word for salad? - I would guess because of the
> colour
> of lettuce leaves). Cantonese "cheng/ching" is
> sometimes
> translated as "light green", sometimes as
> "yellowgreen".
> Words derived from "glaucus/glaukos" are sometimes
> defined
> as "light green", like "glauco" in Spanish
> dictionaries,
> but I think the meaning can be broader to include
> the
> range of pale cold colours.

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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