Re: Colors

>I discovered recently that my conlang has a word for the 'color' of
>something that looks black because there is too little illumination, which
>is not the same as the word for something that is actually black.
Something like "shadowed"?


>I'm curious whether there are other examples from natlangs of color words
>that are actually about something other than color. The only ones I can
>think of now are "silver" and "gold", which describe things that are grey
>or yellow, and also shiny.
In fact, it has been argued that a focus on lightness
over hue, and on other non-chromatic aspects such as
texture, material, freshness, etc., predates the focus
on hue that is now commonplace in modern Western languages.
'Colour' words in the languages of ancient and 'primitive'
peoples seem to deal more often or primarily with features
other than hue, which can be rather vaguely defined if
at all. Think of having words for "blonde", "gold", etc.
and not for hue-based concepts like "yellow", and in
concepts like say "pastel", that refers not to hue but
to insaturation.

I've read somewhere on the web an argumentation supporting
that there are contexts where the apparently bizarre use of
the ancient Greek word for "purple", applied to things that
we know that definitely aren't purple, would be explained if
the word is interpreted to actually mean "iridescent", that
is, used to refer to a general similarity in appearance to
the iridescence of the internal layer of the shell of Murex
mollusks, instead of to the hue of the Tyrian dye. The use
of several other ancient Greek colour terms (such as glaukos)
pose similar puzzles when trying to interprete their actual
recorded use if you make the assumption that they to refer
primarily to a defined hue like the colour terms of modern
Western languages, but that if you try to understand them
as referring primarily to other aspects, such as brightness,
freshness, etc., the true meaning those words probably had
for the speakers of those ancient language becomes more
clear and their actual use in recorded texts no longer
puzzling.

Cheers,
Javier