nahuatl colors

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Piyali Magnus,
	But isnʻt that just the way Nahuatl is? How do you describe something  
in Nahuatl? You say that itʻs semblance is the result of having  
completed a certain action, i.e., chip:hua>chipa:huac or tetiya>tetic.  
And this last one is just an excuse for saying that it resembles some  
other noun. So there really arenʻt any adjectival roots in Nahuatl,  
except for maybe hueyi.
	"co:z-" isnʻt just for color. [first of all I need to remark that in  
Huastecan Nahuatl co:ztic has a long "o"]. "co:ztzin" is a type of  
corn, so co:ztic just means that something has come to resembled that  
kind of corn (in itʻs yellowness). And yes, there is the intermediate  
form co:ztiya, "for something to yellow".
	"co:cihui" means that a fruit is ripening and turning yellow (co:z 
[tli]-ihui).
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Professor of Nahua language and culture
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Zacatecas Institute of Teaching and Research in Ethnology
Tacuba 152, int. 43
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
Mexico
Work: +52 (492) 925-3415
Fax: +1 (858) 724-3030 (U.S.A.)
Home: +52 (492) 768-6048
Mobile: +52 1 (492) 103-0195
idiez at me.com

On Nov 10, 2009, at 12:16 PM, Magnus Pharao Hansen wrote:

> Hi Listeros
>
> Just wanted to chip in on the color topic, albeit a little  
> belatedly. I have worked with color terminology studies in the past  
> and done a small pilot survey in Hueyapan. I thought it would be  
> worth it to mention that in fact the most interesting thing about  
> Nahuatlo colourterminology is that according to the criteria of Paul  
> Kay and Brent Berlin in their "Basic Color Terms" Nahuatl could be  
> one of the only languages in the world not to have any true color  
> terms! According to Berlin and Kay all languages have between two  
> and eleven basic color terms, in a predictable order, i.e. if it has  
> three it has black, white and red, if it has five it has those three  
> plus yellow and either green or blue etc.  What's interesting is  
> that among the criteria is that a basic color term is not derived  
> from anyother word - the term must be exclusively related to color.  
> That means that e.g. "lemon" for lemon green is not a basic color  
> term, but a secondary one. As you have probably noticed in Nahuatl  
> all colorterms could be argued to be secondary (arguably not kostik  
> and kapotstik, which are probably derived, but from words we don't  
> know). The fact that Nahuatl doesn't have any roots (other than  
> kapots- and kos- if we accept them) specficially and exclusively  
> referring to color properties makes it a very special language.
>
> Oh and btw. one of my consultants from Hueyapan who is always good  
> at making up folketymologies did translate kamohpaltik as "no está  
> mojado". In Hueyapan the purple color is called simply kamohtik.
>
> Magnus Pharao Hansen
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl





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