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Re: Nimrina colors updated

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Monday, September 4, 2006, 20:23
Javier BF wrote:

> My advice: Do not try to define your colors in terms of appearances on some > computer image, but instead define them verbally in terms of their > perceptual compositions (how something "should look like" for it to be said > to be that color). This is actually how colors are defined in natural > languages: English blue is not defined as the color on some standard sample, > and neither as some defined light frequency (as some dictionaries try to > do), but instead each speaker has an internal idea of what the elementary > percept blue "looks like" (an idea acquired through visual experience, which > a born-blind person doesn't have access to and so doesn't know what blue > actually "looks like"), and when some object under some lighting condition > appears to prompt that elementary color perception in their brains, they say > that object "is blue" or "looks blue". Given this essentially subjective > nature of colors, it is not surprising different people may argue about what > color something "is".
Obviously monitors differ in the way they display colors. On the other hand, seeing a color is a more direct way of creating a color perception than describing it in words. In particular, having the main color words illustrated on a chart, where you can compare one color with another and see how they differ, is very conveninent. Technically, you could say that "tavla" is the color that I perceive when I look at the lowest circle on the Nimrina color chart on my monitor. I might see a different color on another monitor, depending on how it is calibrated. The gray background should help to compensate for variations in color temperature. (If the background doesn't look perfectly neutral gray, nothing else will look right either.) Someone else could look at the "tavla" sample on my monitor and think that it doesn't look "green" to them. I could just say "tavla" = "green" and leave it at that. Nimrina speakers are close enough to human that they probably perceive similar colors. But if I want a better definition of specifically what kind of "green" is considered the most basic or prototypical "tavla", English words are inadequate.