Weird little color system
From: | Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...> |
Date: | Friday, August 6, 2004, 5:15 |
I came up with a weird little color system for Dublex-. There are only four
core color words:
ner [From Italian 'nero', from Latin 'niger', extant in Romance (Spanish,
Portuguese, Esperanto, Novial, et al).] black
run [From Hindi /arun/, with initial /r-/ in English 'red' & 'rouge',
Spanish 'rojo', German 'rot', Dutch 'rood', Italian 'rosso', Esperanto
'rug^a', Novial 'red', et al.] red
nil [From Sanskrit /nila-/, "indigo, dark blue", extant in Arabic 'nil',
Bengali = 'niil', English 'anil', Hindi 'niilaa', Indonesian 'nila', Malay
'nila', Papago 'anihl', Portuguese 'anil', Panjabi 'nilla', Persian 'nil',
Spanish 'añil', Swahili 'nili', Tagalog 'anyil' and Urdu 'nil'.] blue
jel [From Russian /jelt/, reinforced by pattern of /y/ being borrowed as /j/
from English 'yellow', Italian 'giallo'.] yellow
Combining these with each other and with two affixes (_duls_, a diminutive,
and _con_, "opposite"), there are 26 derived colors.
nerner: coal black, ebony, jet black, pitch black, sable, soot black
nerrun: dark red
nernil: dark blue, navy blue
nerjel: amber, gold
runner: charcoal gray, oxford gray
runrun: cardinal, carmine
runnil: violet, reddish blue
runjel: orange, saffron
nilner: iron blue, steel gray, Davy's gray
nilrun: purple, reddish purple, royal purple
nilnil: ultramarine
niljel: green, canary yellow
jelner: ash gray, silver
jelrun: orange, reddish orange
jelnil: green, greenish blue, aquamarine, turquoise, cobalt blue, peacock blue
jeljel: gamboge, lemon yellow
dulsner: gray
dulsrun: pink
dulsnil: azure, cerulean, sapphire, lazuline, sky-blue
dulsjel: brown, brownness
conner: white
The word _conner_ carries on the Dublex tradition of turning the tables (the
word for "left" is core but "right" is derived).
The interesting thing about this system for the English speaker is that the
concepts of "green" and "orange" are each split into two. For instance, the
language doesn't have a word for the full continuum of "green" but has words
for "blueish yellow -> canary yellow" (_niljel_) and for "yellowish blue ->
aquamarine" (_jelnil_).
What's especially weird is that green is my favorite color! Or should I
say, that _niljel_ and _jelnil_ are my favorite colors?
Best regards,
Jeffrey
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