tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 17 22:37:56 1994

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: color: SuD



Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?

=Greetings, 
=I had hoped to work on TKD until I could make my first posting in 
=tlhIngan  Hol, but couldn't resist commenting on this.  A am an
=anthropologist, specializin g in Alaskan Eskimo languages and cultures.
=Colors, and the words or terms for describing them, are part of the
=language, and don't necessarilty correlate with the ability to *perceive*
=color.  For examp;le, most *human* languages have either three, four, or
=five "Basic Color TErms" into which the entire spectrum can be divided.
=This *does not* mean that people do not *percieve* f9iner distinctions,
=nor does it mean they cannot *describe* them in their languages (e.g., 
=in English, "you know, the color of a newly opened birch tree leaf."

EXCEPT (as I love to point out to people who always miss this fact, because
Berlin & Kay never mention it, but Kay & McDaniel do), humans never conflate
warm and cool colours together in one colour term (the Ancient Greek chlo:ros
*may* be an exception), so SuD hints towards a difference in Klingon physiology
as well as a difference in subdivisions of the spectrum.

-- 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Nick Nicholas. Linguistics, University of Melbourne.   [email protected]  
        [email protected]      [email protected]
            AND MOVING SOON TO: [email protected]



Back to archive top level