Color Terms (Re: Cherokee term for 'china clay')

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006, [ISO-8859-1] A.W. Tüting wrote:
> .. there are peoples with languages actually lacking words for basic
> colours ...

I'm not sure where we are on the corrections of, revisions to, and
rejections of the Berlin & Kay color typology, but they suggested that
there was a hierarchy of sorts or set of attested states, in color
systems, ranging from two-color ('dark' and 'light') systems, to more
elaborate ones.

Siouan languages are mostly of the sort with 'black', 'white', 'red',
'yellow', 'grue'.  In addition that usually distinguish 'gray', which is,
I think, somewhat unusual, because theoretically before this can happen,
there should be a division of 'grue' to 'blue' and 'green', and a specific
'brown' term.  However, I've seen an article suggesting that there are
systems that augment the five-color system above with a 'wild color' term
that applies to obscure or muted colors in the 'gray', 'brown', 'violet'
range.  The author cited examples in Africa and North America.  I don't
recall the reference, and I'm trying to free up the computer for my
daughter, so I'll postpone the reference.  The North American example was
an Apachean langauge, not a Siouan one.  I had never seen Siouan 'gray'
terms applied to violet, but a little looking turned up a Dhegiha gloss
consistent with this.

> so there'd be need for loans from a totally different language (e.g.
> like Chinese).  This, of course, doesn't mean that such terms don't
> change within one language or related languages.

For example, by coinages.  For example, most Siouan languages now have
distinct expressions for 'blue and 'green'.  In Omaha-Ponca I've seen one
approach that uses ttu 'grue' for 'blue' and ppez^ettu 'grass grue' for
'green' - I think this is the current Omaha pattern - and another -
offered by Fletcher & LaFlesche, I think - that uses ttu 'grue' for
'green' and ttu sabe 'dark grue' for 'blue'.

>  >  Consider German blau, English blue, French bleu.  <
>
> This goes back to mhg. bla(wes), ohg. and os. blao, g. blewa etc.,
> maybe even l. flavus (cf. kymr. blawr).

Yes - my point was that French has borrowed a Germanic form.

> BTW, Lakota _ska_ vs. _saN_ somehow is 'mirrored' in Chinese bai2 vs.
> su4 (the latter meaning 'natural white', plain, vegetarian).

Is there a mirror for sapa vs. s^apa?  The ska vs. saN and sapa vs. s^apa
alternations are more or less general in Mississippi Valley Siouan.  I
don't know if they play out in exactly the eame way in each language or
how far this goes into other branches of Siouan.  I've sometimes thought
that perhaps it was just a case of having distinct terms for 'dark' and
'light' (or 'pale') on the one hand (s^abe and saN in OP) and for 'black'
and 'white' (or 'clear!  :-)) on the other (sabe and ska in OP).

The history of the 'black/white close up/at a distance' approach to
glossing Siouan color terms, like the 'travel to/arrive at here/there'
scheme for glossing verbs of motion, and the 'this', 'that', 'yon' scheme
for glossing demonstratives, etc., might be an interesting thing to pursue
sometime!  I think some of the oddities must be standard 'anthropological
(or linguistic) English', but some may be institutionalized usages of the
(mostly metis) interpreters of the 1800s, or traces of sign language, and
so on.

Somewhat far afield, 'second dative' for the kic^i- forms in Dakota seems
to have been coined by Dorsey.