tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 21 12:42:28 1998

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Re: Upcoming Article

According to Holtej:
> 
> Lawrencevo':
... 
> > Look for the story by reporter Lee Lawrence in the May 20th issue of the
> > Christian Science Monitor...
> 
> The story has appeared:
> 
> http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/05/19/fp58s1-csm.htm
> 
> Before you go there, though, I must issue an apology for a mistake printed
> in the article.  Ms. Lawrence was asking me about what makes Klingon
> "alien," and I brought up the example of color terms.  As discussed in Nick
> Nicholas' article in HolQeD 5:2 "Klingon Colours" (see
> /cgi-bin/mfs/1997/Mar97/0167.html?40 for SuStel's
> summary), Klingon is strange in its grouping of "yellow" with "green/blue."
> Unfortunately, while I was on the phone with Ms. Lawrence, I couldn't
> remember which grouping was weird, and I told her so.  But she went ahead
> and printed it, and has me quoted as saying that Klingon groups "yellow"
> with "orange," which is a) wrong and b) not what I said.

It's even worse than that. She made it sound like you were
talking about specific colors. In other words, instead of
understanding that Klingon has one word that includes the
colors we call blue and the colors we call green, by using the
word "aqua", she makes it clear that she thought you meant that
they have a name for the color "aqua" as one of their basic
color names. Similarly yellow/orange is referred to as one
color, not as a word describing those colors (even though they
are wrongly combined).

And just to clarify it for beginners tuning in here, Klingon
has {SuD} which is used to describe colors we call "blue",
"gree" and "yellow", and the word {Doq} which is used to
describe colors we refer to as "red" or "orange".

And if you think it is weird to group together colors like that
without distinguishing between them, just try talking to an
interior designer using words like "red" or "green". They have
HUNDREDS of color words and consider the boundaries between
them to be quite distinct. It is all a matter of perspective.

> wejpuH.

Indeed.

> At any rate, the article is out, and in spite of this error, it's written
> very objectively, and is worth a read.  DaH yIlaD!

vIlaDta'. Nice picture of Lawrence, too, though the angle makes
him look small. Lawrence is not small. Whoever took that
picture must have been standing on a stepladder.

Oh, and I'm sure Lawrence winces at the reference to a copy of
HolQeD as a "pamphlet"...

> > Lawrence
> 
> --Holtej

charghwI'

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