_glas_ (was: Re: new names (was: Re: Bopomofo and pinyin))

At 14:58 -0700 21.1.2000, Aidan Grey wrote:

> the color really does have a bluish tinge.
>Sometimes described as glas in Old Irish or Welsh.
My Celtophile comparative philolgy professor said that _glas_ actually
describes the color of normal British Isles weather...  What we call a
"blue mood" is also _glas_.

It's the old universal of color terminology that sticks up its head: Old
Irish had only four color terms.  Two of them are simply white and black,
with the latter covering also what we would call brown.  Then there is
_derg" which is usually translated 'red', but actually covers all "warm"
colors, while _glas_ covers all "cold" colors.

He showed me an Old Irish verse about the sun setting in the _glas_ sea,
turning it _derg_.  Knowing that the terms were semantic opposites in the
language helped appreciate the poet! :-)



/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto: bpj@...> <mailto: melroch@...>
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