Re: Colors in Czirehlat

In a message dated 7/30/01 7:18:36 PM, hmiller@IO.COM writes:

<< http://www.io.com/~hmiller/gif/colors.gif

The captions are in the Ljoerr alphabet; in romanized transcription the
basic hues (the second row of names) are: >>

    I know we were talking about color, but man!  I love that script!  It
reminds me of Arabic mixed with the Arabic-like script I created for my first
language.  It's so wild, and yet, very, very efficient!  I love it!

<<In theory the system can represent 679 different colors. But in practice,
it ends up being too complicated for everyday use, and it's plainly
artificial (brown as a shade of "copper", and no basic root for brown? does
anyone outside the printing or video industries use "cyan" as a color word
at all, much less a basic one?!). I think the Czirehlat system could be
more successful.>>

    You know, if this system were a real system, it could be used, but would
end up being used by artists and technical personnel, etc.  The speakers
themselves would develop a simpler system within the language, and that might
be interesting to explore.  The simplification of complex systems is one of
the most fascinating topics in historical linguistics, po moyemu (in my
opinion).

-David