tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 29 10:38:55 1995
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Re: Colors? What colors?
- From: Adam Walker <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Colors? What colors?
- Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 12:33:06 -0600
- Organization: Dallas Baptist University
> Date sent: 28-Nov-95 23:29:08 -0600
> From: DWOOD @ INTERNET (David Wood) {[email protected]}
> To: TLHINGAN @ INTERNET (Multiple recipients of list) {[email protected]}
> Send reply to: TLHINGAN @ INTERNET {[email protected]}
> Subject: Colors? What colors?
> Ah well, the best-laid plans... For that matter, what is the word for
> "color"? Not that I expect it to come up much, since the only colors in the
> Klingon language seem to be black, white, red, and not-red. A high rod-to-cone
> ratio would indicate trouble differentiating colors and sensitivity to motion.
> Fair trade, in this case.
> I also suspect from the pronunciation guide that the Klingon tongue is
> about half an inch shorter than the Terran tongue ...but that's a story for
> another time.
>
The fact that Klingons have no special words for some of the
colors that English does says nothing about their visual abilities.
Many human languages have a color system which is VERY similar to the
tlhingan system. All known languages have at least 2 color words --
something like black and white or dark and light. If a language has
3 color words the third one is always red. The fourth is green or
blue and the fifth is the other one. Other languages may add even
more distinctions. English BTW has the maximum number of unique
color words that have been recorded for any language -- 11! (black,
white, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, brown, pink, grey)
The multitude of other color-words in English are dirrived from the
names of other objects and not concidered "unique."
As for the length of the tlhingan tongue, I don't believe that any
conclusion can be drawn from the language about that either. Tamil
for example includes numerous sound produced with the tongue
retracted in the same maner as the tlhingan D and others. Also the
tlhingan t & tlh are pronounced farther forward -- more like English
sounds.
Qapla'
Qogh.