4 ms·

It’s not just about different languages. I bet a graphic artist sees distinctions in colors that most people would group together. At the extreme end, Pantone h

It’s not just about different languages. I bet a graphic artist sees distinctions in colors that most people would group together. At the extreme end, Pantone has made a massive business of precisely dividing shades of colors.

finite_depth 3y ago
The idea here is not what words a language has names for, but what words a language considers "primary". "Azure" is an English color-word, but an English speaker recognizes "azure" as a kind of "blue". But "blue" is not a kind of "green" or a kind of "purple" or a kind of anything else. Hence, "blue" is a basic English color-word. Typical English dialects have eleven basic color words: white, gray, black, brown, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Other color-words in English are considered variants of one of these eleven terms. That wasn't always true ("pink" is the most recent addition, dating to the early 1700s), but it's pretty well-established by modern English speakers. Other languages may make fewer distinctions (e.g. until about the last century Japanese used ao(i) as a basic color word that encompassed both blue and green, so e.g. a traffic light is aoi by tradition even though the modern word for green is midori) or more (e.g. Russian distinguishes light blue goluboi and dark blue sinii similarly to how English distinguishes red and pink). To an old Japanese speaker, blue and green were both shades of ao, and to a modern Russian speaker, goluboi is as distinct from sinii as "red" is from "pink" in English (they are not both "shades of blue" any more than pink and red are "shades of reddish" in English).
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Interesting. Sometimes people use "pink" or "purple" to describe magenta, but (to me) magenta isn't either of those colors. Purple is the color that in technical contexts is known as violet, and pink is absolutely a type of red to me, specifically a desaturated red.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  > an English speaker recognizes "azure" as a kind of "blue" at least in French, azur is a kind of blue (washed out dark blue, I would say). I guess it came to us from Spain.
  - o11c 3y ago
    I'm guessing it was more the other way around, based on known etymologies. The origin is Latin "lapis lazuli", where "lapis" is "stone" (thus not the word of interest here) and "lazuli" is "sky", ultimately from Persian (perhaps "blue stone"). The "laz" part is probably related to Irish "glas" though. The r/l blur is very common so doesn't help narrow anything down; the Arabic/Persian had "w" anyway. We can blame French speakers for interpreting it as "l'azuli" with reasonable confidence; I'm vaguely aware that some regional dialects(*) of Spanish do similar but can't find evidence of them preceding French at a glance. Also, France was more dominant than Spain for the relevant periods of history - although Spain did have the direct Arabic connection I guess. It's not like I have good sources here. * unless they have separate navies, they can't be languages.
psunavy03 3y ago
https://xkcd.com/2598/ https://xkcd.com/2598/
- ThinkingGuy 3y ago
  Also relevant: https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/comment-page-9/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/commen...
NeoTar 3y ago
[finite_depth says this much better than me in a parallel comment!] I believe this is explicitly about how 'regular' speakers of languages agree on colours, and which are distinct. For instance 'lime' can describe a colour - typically a light green. But most English speakers [citation needed] would consider it to be a shade a green, not a distinct colour. Similarly, looking at this small colour chart of Pantone shades: https://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pantone-Colors-Spring-Summer-2020.jpg https://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pa... - if asked unprompted you probably wouldn't call the shades "Flame Scarlet", "Saffron", and "Chive", but Red, Yellow and Green.
twic 3y ago
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/artist-vs-normal-people https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/artist-vs-normal-people

finite_depth 3y ago

The idea here is not what words a language has names for, but what words a language considers "primary". "Azure" is an English color-word, but an English speaker recognizes "azure" as a kind of "blue". But "blue" is not a kind of "green" or a kind of "purple" or a kind of anything else. Hence, "blue" is a basic English color-word. Typical English dialects have eleven basic color words: white, gray, black, brown, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Other color-words in English are considered variants of one of these eleven terms. That wasn't always true ("pink" is the most recent addition, dating to the early 1700s), but it's pretty well-established by modern English speakers. Other languages may make fewer distinctions (e.g. until about the last century Japanese used ao(i) as a basic color word that encompassed both blue and green, so e.g. a traffic light is aoi by tradition even though the modern word for green is midori) or more (e.g. Russian distinguishes light blue goluboi and dark blue sinii similarly to how English distinguishes red and pink). To an old Japanese speaker, blue and green were both shades of ao, and to a modern Russian speaker, goluboi is as distinct from sinii as "red" is from "pink" in English (they are not both "shades of blue" any more than pink and red are "shades of reddish" in English).

Turing_Machine 3y ago
Interesting. Sometimes people use "pink" or "purple" to describe magenta, but (to me) magenta isn't either of those colors. Purple is the color that in technical contexts is known as violet, and pink is absolutely a type of red to me, specifically a desaturated red.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
> an English speaker recognizes "azure" as a kind of "blue" at least in French, azur is a kind of blue (washed out dark blue, I would say). I guess it came to us from Spain.
- o11c 3y ago
  I'm guessing it was more the other way around, based on known etymologies. The origin is Latin "lapis lazuli", where "lapis" is "stone" (thus not the word of interest here) and "lazuli" is "sky", ultimately from Persian (perhaps "blue stone"). The "laz" part is probably related to Irish "glas" though. The r/l blur is very common so doesn't help narrow anything down; the Arabic/Persian had "w" anyway. We can blame French speakers for interpreting it as "l'azuli" with reasonable confidence; I'm vaguely aware that some regional dialects(*) of Spanish do similar but can't find evidence of them preceding French at a glance. Also, France was more dominant than Spain for the relevant periods of history - although Spain did have the direct Arabic connection I guess. It's not like I have good sources here. * unless they have separate navies, they can't be languages.

psunavy03 3y ago

https://xkcd.com/2598/ https://xkcd.com/2598/

ThinkingGuy 3y ago
Also relevant: https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/comment-page-9/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/commen...

NeoTar 3y ago

[finite_depth says this much better than me in a parallel comment!] I believe this is explicitly about how 'regular' speakers of languages agree on colours, and which are distinct. For instance 'lime' can describe a colour - typically a light green. But most English speakers [citation needed] would consider it to be a shade a green, not a distinct colour. Similarly, looking at this small colour chart of Pantone shades: https://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pantone-Colors-Spring-Summer-2020.jpg https://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pa... - if asked unprompted you probably wouldn't call the shades "Flame Scarlet", "Saffron", and "Chive", but Red, Yellow and Green.

twic 3y ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/artist-vs-normal-people https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/artist-vs-normal-people