Re: More stuff on colours

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:56:10 -0400, Trebor Jung <treborjung@...> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
> Poster:       Trebor Jung <treborjung@...>
> Subject:      More stuff on colours
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here's an idea I've been toying around with for a bit:
>
> The Kosi language has only five colours, equivalent to English 'white',
> 'black', 'red', 'blue', and 'green'. The lack of other colours could be
> explained by some sort of defect in the eyes. (The colours wouldn't even be
> independent lexical items: the word for 'red', for example, would be a
> compound meaning something like 'blood-coloured', a feature which IIRC
> Pirahã has).
>
> Is this system plausible? (I know next to nothing about such things...)
Well, I can tell you that from what I know, a language would either
call it noun + coloured, or it would classify it as a color close to
one of the colors the language already has. I don't have my book
handy, but one of my books has an example in Tagalog of "fry the fish
until red (golden brown)", as red is close enough to "golden brown".

Here's some of the colors:

 black:  itim ;  itím
black: maitim ; maitím
blue: asul ; asúl
blue: bughaw ; bugháw
brown: kape ; kapé
brown: kayumanggi ; kayumang-gí (this is only used to describe the
skin color of people... specifically Filipino skin color, i'm told.)
brown: tsokolate ; tsokoláte

colourful: makulay ; makúlay

grayish: abuhin ; abuhín
grayish: abuhan ; abuhan
green: berde ; bérde
green: lunti ; luntí'
green: luntian ; luntían
grey: abo ; abó

lavender: lila ; líla

orange: kulay-dalanghita ; kúlay dalanghíta (Dalanghita is a type of
orange fruit)
orange: oreynds ; óreynds (obviously from "orange")

pink: rosas ; rósas (this shows the interesting habit of Spanish words
taken into Tagalog, they often have the plural form)
purple: murado ; murádo (from Spanish "Morado")
purple: kulay-ubi ; kúlay-ubí (ubi, or ube is a deep, intensely purple
colored yam, used in desserts in the Philippines)

red: pula ; pulá
reddish: pulahan ; pulahán

speckled: bulik ; bulik
spotted: bulik ; bulik

violet: lila ; líla
violet: biyoleta ; biyoléta
violet: ube ; úbe

white: puti ; putí'
white: maputi ; maputí'
whitish: putian ; putián

yellow: dilaw ; diláw
yellow: amarilyo ; amarílyo
yellowis: manilaw-nilaw ; manílaw-nílaw


To indicate something is colored with the color of an object, one
simply writes kulay + object. So if I were to say something were the
color of the sea, i'd write kulay-dágat - sea colored.

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