Re: NATLANG: Colours

"Mark P. Line" wrote:
>
> Philippe Caquant said:
>
> > Yes, but the fact is that usually there is much less
> > red in our environment than blue or green for ex. Thus
> > red carries attention. And as fire and blood are red,
> > it often carries attention in a dramatic way.
>
> I believe that the "redness" of fire is a cultural construct. Most fires
> in a natural environment have at least as much orange and yellow in them
> as red. Fresh blood is indeed red, briefly, but relating that fact to
> color naming "universals" seems awfully tenuous.
Yet, in very many language, _red_ translates literally as
_blood-color_.  And yellow and orange are very often included in the
color _red_ in languages with small numbers of basic color terms.

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