Re: Sensory Infixes in rtemmu (was Mauve and a related conlang question)

Steg Belsky sikyal:

> > cool) is nothing like any wine that I have ever seen! It's a very
> > beautiful shade of blue! In fact, I've never seen a purple sea!
> > (I've never seen a purple cow, either   ;-)  but that's something
> > else!   )
>
> >         Dan Sulani
> -
>
> According to www.tekhelet.co.il , Porphyra was the Greek name for the
> Murex source of "Tyrian purple", otherwise known as Hebrew |tekhelet|.
> So, if |tekhelet| can vary between purple and sky-blue, it makes sense
> for Homer to say that the sea is the color of Murex dye.
According to the commentary in my copy of Iliad I, this isn't quite so
simple. To begin with, the adjective "porphureos" predates the noun
"porphuron", which refers to the shell.  The shells appeared to have been
named after the color, not vice-versa.  Therefore, the fact that the
shells may be blue does not argue about the original value of the color
term. Other evidence which I can't remember now also points to the
interpretation of the word as meaning "purple."

What's more interesting is that the adjective "porphureos" is related to
the verb "phuro" meaning "to churn, to be turgid." Some people have thus
suggested that "porphureos" means "turbulent," or by extension
"shimmering." This makes sense for the sea, but not so much in other
contexts.

The final answer is that "porphureos" seems to mean "purple", but could
mean other things, too. Even if we knew about the adj. "porphureos," we
still wouldn't know for sure about the Homeric color of the sea, which is
often called "wine-dark," which could be a variety of colors, but probably
not blue. So the question remains.

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton