Return-Path: Date: Mon, 17 Jun 91 15:38:15 EDT From: "Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Re: The 20 new gismu Message-Id: <9106171538.aa18965@COR4.PICA.ARMY.MIL> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jun 17 16:11:03 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin Folks, Ivan Derzhanski argues against two colors: > I have never used the English words "magenta" and "cyan", and I have > only seen them in PC reference manuals (two of the screen colours), > not in real life. and then unwittingly undermines his position by suggesting > that it is so easy to build a tanru for a particular shade > of any of the basic colours, Apparently Ivan missed some of the basic theory. The vast majority of humanity share certain physical properties, like only seeing three colors. Every variation we enjoy is really detected as some combination of those three. Given our limited ability to detect colors, every shape is forgable from mixing either three colors of light (red, green, and blue) or three colors of pigment (cyan, magenta, and yellow). Thus the eight fundamental colors ("basic colours") are white, yellow, red, magenta, green, cyan, blue, and black (other triplet are possible but these have been accepted as the standard world wide, by the graphic arts industry, the film industry, and all of video electronics. The momentary (on language evolution scale) failure of any natural language to establish terms for these concepts should not be taken as grounds for our failure to do so. I would be surprised to find that Russian did not have a word for tapioca. thank you, Art Protin Arthur Protin These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss or this installation.