Re: Quest for colours: what's basic then?

Javier BF said:
>>Similarly, orange may well be red + yellow in scientific
>>or artistic terms, but no natlang is going to see it that way.
>
> Why are you so sure about that? I think it's like stating
> that no natlang is going to see purple as red + blue (German
> does: blaurot).
AFAIK, the term 'blaurot' is from Goethe's Farbenlehre in which he tried
to derive all colors from yellow (light) and blue (dark). German has a
habit of incorporating the lexical inventions of famous thinkers into
their everyday language.

The Third Reich further solidified the situation by placing great emphasis
on the use of "natively German" words as opposed to loan words from Greek
or French or whatever. There was a whole generation of Germans who grew up
learning that words like "blaurot" are more patriotic (and therefore
better) than words like "violett".

I don't think it's a very good data point for a discussion of whether or
not a language *without* the input from something like the Farbenlehre or
nationalist language policy would ever see purple as red + blue.


Also, "redyellow" does not usually mean "orange" in English, although it
wouldn't be a stretch for poetic license to use it that way. It usually
means "red and yellow mixed", as in a sunrise.


-- Mark