From cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Tue Sep 24 22:58:08 1991 Return-Path: Date: Tue Sep 24 22:58:08 1991 Message-Id: <9109242330.AA01597@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!jrk Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!jrk Subject: Re: Color terminology X-To: conlang@buphy.bu.edu, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , List Reader Status: RO Bruce ("61510::GILSON" ) writes: >dave@PRC.Unisys.COM writes: >>In a language constructed in a modern scientific society, there would >>seem to be absolutely no reason not to have standards for color names. >>Instead of saying that "blanu" is "more or less like the English >>'blue'", it could be precisely defined. BS alert! "A modern scientific society"? What on earth is that? Must we, in "a modern scientific society", call oxygen "element 8", a tiger "tigris longipilis", and bronze "an alloy of 60% tin, 40% lead"? Loglan once flirted with this trap, but (even before the Schism) avoided it. Flame off. Colour words name perceptions, not spectral composition. If you want words for the latter, go ahead, but they will not be "colour words". Different spectral compositions can appear the same colour; light sources of identical spectral composition can have very different colours. This was studied by Land (he of the Land camera) but I don't have references. As for the supposed imprecision and idiosyncratic use of words like "blue", this is no different from many non-colour words. Go on, define "brass". Or "vegetarian". Or "computer". Or "honour". Etc. It is true, that in a conlang the meanings of the colour words (and all the others) must be decided by fiat of the designers, instead of, as in a natlang, there being a consensus which is both discovered by new speakers through experience and influenced by them. But giving the official definition in terms of CIE or Hickethier numbers is, IMHO, as absurd as basing words for everyday animals on Latin biological nomenclature. I would recommend Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things", for his chapter on the colour systems of various languages. It suggests to me that a set of colour words can be defined in terms of human perception rather than relative intensities of this or that electromagnetic frequency - the "focal" colours which he describes. It appears that colour perception is language-independent (so much for Sapir-Whorf :-(), and that the focal colours have culture-independent physiological correlates. For those looking for a usable and culture-independent system of colour words, this would seem to be a good place to start. If you must have a connection with the technical jargon of printing, photography, paint manufacture, and computer graphics, I would suggest the Colour Naming System. It is a set of standardised verbal descriptions of colours (e.g. "light greenish red", "medium grey", etc) that people who know nothing about CIE, Munsell chips, etc. can use to specify colours in a meaningful and standard way. There are some computer graphics people here who would know about it - I'll try and get some more info about it if anyone's interested. CNS is based on English, but you could make a version based on the focal colours instead. -- Richard Kennaway SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K. Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk PS. FWIW, as far as I know, my colour perception is normal, yet there are several colour words (not names for Ciemunsellhickethier coordinates :-)) whose meanings I have only a vague idea of. Such as: magenta a slightly purplish red? cyan fancy name for blue-green? turqoise same as cyan? mauve very pale purple? scarlet definitely-not-pink red? maroon same as scarlet? And what, if any, are the distinctions between vermilion and pink, or between purple, violet, and indigo? I saw dave@PRC.Unisys.COM's message about how he uses the last three, but it's not clear if this is a usage he has simply decided to adopt, or a general consensus. I suspect (I'll look up the OED when I get home) that many of these less common colour words originated from names of particular dyestuffs or artists' materials. At one time, a scarlet robe would be just that - dyed with scarlet, whatever that was. You would never see one that was almost, but not quite, scarlet, and everyone would have much the same notion of what was meant by the word. With improvement in the technology of dyes, clothes can be any colour you like, and the sharp distinction between things which are scarlet and things which are not has faded. Perhaps the English language is following suit. How much agreement is there nowadays among different people's use of the word "scarlet"? Will the word have become obsolete in another century? PPS. How is "brown" described by the various colour standards?