Re: Mauve and a related conlang question

I got to confess I haven't spent much tought on what colour terms Tairezazh
ought to have. I simply invented them as I've needed them, which've resulted
in the following basic colour terms:

sasht    "red"
mek      "yellow"
tadz     "green"
skeiv    "blue"

paugz    "black"
thost    "white"

Likely, there'll be more. I read somewhere that the number of basic colour
terms tends to increase with the technological sophistication of the
society. If that's true, I guess the Tairezans should have a bunchload of
basic colour terms.

                                                    Andreas

Nik Taylor wrote:
>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: Mauve and a related conlang question
>Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 18:19:37 -0400
>
>Clint Jackson Baker wrote:
> > Okay, now here's a conlang question--how do your
> > conlangs deal with colour
>
>Six basic colors:
>Black: Vaziu (hmm ... just noticed it resembles _vazia_ "act out of
>        rage" or, as an auxiliary "angrily/in rage")
>White: Klau
>Red: Gazinu
>Yellow: Tadi
>Green: Maisiasa
>Blue: Mlal (or malau, dialectal variation)
>
>Reduplicating the color terms can be used to indicate "central" shades,
>for example, _tadi_ can include orange and yellowish brown, plus
>streches a little into what we'd consider green.  However, _taditadi_
>can only mean bright yellow.
>
>As it turns out, most of the color terms have slightly irregular
>reduplicants.  :-)  Green is _maisiasiasa_ because it ends in -iasa.
>Adjectives ending in -iasa regularly reduplicate only that suffix, which
>becomes -iasiasa (aia is illegal in U.)  Blue is _mlallal_, a phonetic
>simplification of _mlalmlal_, while red becomes _gazinuuzinu_
>
>Also:
>
>Light: Klauiasa
>Dark: Vaziasa
>(Based on klau and vaziu)
>These are placed after the color they modify, e.g., _mlal klauiasa_
>"light blue"  An example in context: _pivazin pimlal piklauiasa_ lit.
>"circle blue light" "A light blue circle"
>
>--
>"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
>you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
>overheard
>ICQ: 18656696
>AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42



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