Colors (Was Re: augmentative/diminutive shifting)

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Jimm G GoodTracks wrote:
> Also, in agreement with other Siouian languages there is "to= blue,
> green".  In contemporary times "tohge ~ na'tohge= like green ~ like green
> leaves".

In Omaha-Ponca sources I've found innovated distinctions or perhaps simply
attempts to render the English distinction for translation:

ttu : ttus^abe 'green' : 'blue'  ('grue' : 'dark grue')

ppez^ettu : ttu 'green' : 'blue' ('grass grue' : 'grue')

I think it's Howard (not positive) who complains somewhere that what is
called maNhiNttu 'bluestone' is really a sort of green to his eye.  Of
course, this is pretty typical of Siouan languages.

I've noticed the following patterns of color derivation:

X=xti   'real/true/very X'
X-s^abe 'dark X'
X=egaN  'like X' (typically lighter)
noun-X  'the X of noun'

Some of these patterns seem to occur in lexicalizations, but I don't
recall the particular examples and it's hard to tell when colors are
investigated only by eliciting translations of the glossing language.
Colorchip investigations are supposed to be the best way, I guess, though
just asking what the colors are is probably better than asking for
translations.  It might not be any better today, with knowledge of English
so complete everywhere.  Well intentioned, quite fluent speakers might
still be thinking, "How would I translate English X?"

There's one more pattern involving a verb that escapes me at the moment.

Siouan color systems generally consist of opposed 'dark' and 'light'
terms, and then a set something like 'black', 'white', 'red', 'grue',
'yellow', 'gray'.  The last term if examined carefully (in my case only in
Omaha written sources) should turn out to also mean things like 'pink' or
'light purple/violet', 'tan', and so on.  It is somewhat atypical
typologically to have a 'gray' term in sets like the above, but there is a
minority pattern in which there is this extra term for leftover light
colors added to black/white/red/grue/yellow.

Dorsey always carefully lists a term for 'elk-colored' in his Dhegiha
fieldwork, but I'm blanking the term.  I think it was derived.