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Re: Moten's way of naming colours

From:Matt Pearson <mpearson@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 25, 1999, 18:56
>> Well, as I said, here is the way we name colours in Moten. >> >> Colours in Moten have no name by themselves. There is only the word >'va': >> colour, which can be used in compounds to name colours, after the colour of >> some known objects.
The Tokana colour-term system is pretty boring: has "white" kote "black" sane "red" lune "blue" kulhe "green" laite "yellow" aihne "gold, amber" lohne "brown" hiem "light grey, blue-grey" hemak "dark grey" These terms are mostly of unknown origin, except for "sane", which is obviously related to "san" = "blood" (the connection to French "sang" is purely accidental, I swear!). Also, "laite" is probably related to "lai" = "light, brilliance", and "lohne" is probably derived from "lo-", an old root meaning "tree" (the modern word for tree is "palahta"). (Also, any of you who are familiar with Tolkien's languages will recognise "lune" as out-and-out plagiarism - one of the few examples of such in Tokana.) Matt. ------------------------------------ Matt Pearson mpearson@ucla.edu UCLA Linguistics Department 405 Hilgard Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543 ------------------------------------