From: cbmvax!uunet!PRC.Unisys.COM!dave
Message-Id: <9108261604.AA01709@gem.PRC.Unisys.COM>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 12:04:02 EDT
To: nsn@mullian.ee.Mu.OZ.AU
Cc: lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com, lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com,
        nsn@mullian.ee.Mu.OZ.AU
In-Reply-To: nsn@mullian.ee.Mu.OZ.AU's message of Mon, 26 Aug 91 09:54:45 +1000 <199108252354.AA04337@munagin.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: response to korant on loopholes 
Status: RO


> 1. Not quite true that they'd see us talking about the same colour.
> People with less colour words than English (when one excludes French
> loans, Greek has only six) can still distinguish the other colours;
> it's just that the don't see the point in doing so. Don't extend Whorf
> to physiology, Bob! The attitude of such people to Lojban words will
> be simply that they are making oversubtle distinctions, which is also
> our reaction to magenta and cyan as gismu.

Remember ROY G. BIV?  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo,
Violet.  When is the last time you have ever heard anyone use the word
"indigo" (or used it yourself)?

As a fan of the blue end of the spectrum, I decided a year or so back
that "indigo" was getting short shrift, and decided to restore it to
my language.  (I have also joked about starting a "Society for the
Restoration of the Color Indigo.")

"Indigo," as everyone ought to know, refers to the "bluish" purples,
as opposed to the "reddish" purples, which probably should be called
"violet".  I started trying to make this distinction awhile ago, and
found it very difficult at first.  (Of course, the "real world"
persists in giving us colors with little regard for our labels.)
Lately I find it is much easier to make the distinction, to the point
that I find it almost silly to call both colors "purple."  Also, I am
finding that a lot of things I would have formerly called "blue" are
really "blue-indigo" ("indigo-blue"?).

In other words, by deliberately introducing a color word into my
vocabulary, and attempting to use it, I find that I have gradually
learned to make the distinction between it and other colors more
quickly and easily.  Probably this is not a physiological change.  But
while I could certainly "distinguish" indigo and violet before, I
didn't "see them as different" in the way that I do now.  (I guess
this is subjective evidence for Sapir-Whorf....)

I just observed in myself that, since I have been trying to use the
word "indigo," but not concentrating on other words, my subjective
feeling for "purple" has become largely identical to "violet."  I'll
have to correct that, because I think "purple" ought to be a general
term including both indigo and violet.  Right?

Sorry if this is a ramble; I'm not sure myself what point I'm trying
to make.  How about this one:  intelligent people acquire a large
vocabulary and learn to make fine distinctions.  English is an
excellent language for intelligent people because it provides that
rich vocabulary.  Deliberately rejecting words because they make fine
distinctions is going in the direction of Orwell's "Newspeak" (1984).
I don't want to learn or to support Newspeak, in any form.

[One of Lojban's claims is that it covers a large semantic space more
efficiently with its gismu than other langages do.  OK.  The limited
number of gismu is supposed to be compensated for by the ease of
constructing other terms ("lujvo," maybe?  I forget.).  This part I
have serious qualms about, but I'm nowhere near knowing enough Lojban
to have an opinion.]

BTW, I think "cyan" and "magenta" are important words to retain.
Modern artists are as likely to work with light as with pigments, and
these words are precise and necessary in that context.

  --dave