Bears and why they mostly are called otherwise

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

[Steve Long wrote]
>> Being one of those who don't think that there was an any actual word for
>> 'brown" in Latin or Greek, much less PIE, I'd like to suggest a much more
>> prosaic scenario for words like 'bear.'

[Joat Simeon replied]
> -- ah, no word for the color "brown".  Brown things didn't exist then,
> perhaps?

There are many, many languages in the world that have no basic word for
'brown', and, as Berlin and Kay have demonstrated, 'brown' is a late term to
develop in color vocabulary.  It does not mean that there are no brown
things or that the the speakers of these languages are deficient in their
visual acuity, but only that the basic terms for color cover a wider range
of hues than in languages with a word for 'brown'.  Typically, 'brown' as a
primary color term is found only in languages that have already developed
white/light, black/dark, red, yellow, blue, and green as primary terms.  In
languages without a primary 'brown' term, brown things are typically
described with words like 'dark', 'dark red', 'red', 'yellow', 'dark
yellow', 'dirt-colored', 'rock-colored', and probably even 'bear-colored'.
In Panamint, for example, the word commonly translated 'brown' is a
derivative of the word for 'yellow'.  Many African languages, for example,
also lack 'brown' as a basic color term.

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
3200 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, UT  84322-3200

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