tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 29 15:41:40 1995
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Re: Colors? What colors?
- From: "James F. Bisso" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Colors? What colors?
- Date: 29 Nov 95 14:29:49 -0800
Mark E. Shoulson <[email protected]> writes:
>But I'm surprised to learn that English has the current
>known maximum, and that there are only eleven. I notice this particularly
>when I try translating the colors you mentioned into Hebrew, which divides
>its colors up similarly to English.
I took a semantics class from Paul Kay (the second half of the team that wrote
_Basic Color Terms_, see citation below). The way he explained it was English
has 11 basic words for color. These words had to be morphologically simple
(ie, no compounding or derivation from other words, so sky blue and orange are
out). They also couldn't be specialist words, (scratch vermillion), . I was a
little skeptical about their criteria, but it's a fascinating book.
Author: Berlin, Brent.
Title: Basic color terms; their universality and evolution [by] Brent
Berlin and Paul Kay. Berkeley, University of California Press,
1969.
Description: xi, 178 p. illus. 24 cm.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 164-171.
Subjects: Colors, Words for.
Polyglot glossaries, phrase books, etc.
Other entries: Kay, Paul, 1934- joint author.
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