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

[A.W. Tüting]

Am 15.07.2006 um 21:59 schrieb 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 ...
>
> (...) 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' (...)


Oh, I see, you're NOT referring to grue (grue + t etc.) ;-)


>> 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 think so (i.e. in Chinese). All I can think of is the colour 青 
qing1 which can be green, blue or black. IMO, a better 
definition/designation would be 'colour of nature': going together with 
'sky', qing is 'blue/azure', with 'hill/mountain' it's 'green' etc. It 
doesn't really stand for 'black' but for a deep greyish violet or such.


> 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.

Very interesting!!


Alfred
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