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For more on why languages start with words for "dark" and "light", then add red, blue and other colors in order, see my Journal of Irreproducible Results paper
by kens 3y ago
For more on why languages start with words for "dark" and "light", then add red, blue and other colors in order, see my Journal of Irreproducible Results paper "Laundry and the origin of basic color terms": https://righto.com/papers/laundry.pdf https://righto.com/papers/laundry.pdf
- fsckboy 3y agoit's a serious paper on a light hearted topic? or absolute nonsense but funny? I'm not certain if the Journal of Irreproducible Results has any standards about these things.
- arketyp 3y agoThe introduction was interesting and thankfully the reference checks out as serious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms
- fsckboy 3y agoit's funny one of the links on that wiki page I had already visited, "Tinctures in heraldry"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kens 3y agoTo clarify, the Journal of Irreproducible Results was a magazine of scientific humor. The article is a plausible but absurd explanation for a real linguistic phenomenon, Basic Color Terms.
- reppelle 3y agoRule 4 appears non-universal to me. Japanese historically developed ao (blue) before midori (green) which is still considered a shade of ao. I guess you could argue since the Japanese conception of ao includes both blues and greens that it fits, but it seems odd to me.
- TazeTSchnitzel 3y agoAren't you imposing the modern meaning onto the past? The word didn't mean specifically blue or green originally, but rather both, right? I don't see how this would contradict the fourth rule.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoAo still doesn't specifically mean blue or green now.
- saagarjha 3y agoCurious how this works in the modern world, where color is mostly globalized? If I ask for “blue” and I only want that what does it get translated to?
- thaumasiotes 3y agoIt gets translated to ao. Here's the Japanese wikipedia page ( https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92 ) which among other things notes that the word corresponds to "英語のblue". But ao remains the word that refers to the color of plants. https://jisho.org/word/%E9%9D%92 https://jisho.org/word/%E9%9D%92