Color terms (was Alstroemeria key)
Jane McGary (Sat, 18 Sep 2004 09:26:29 PDT)
Many thanks to Jamie Vande for elucidating a section of German color
terminology:
As to ROT, it is generic. In German, the colour descriptions are a bit
different; ROSA is pale pink, PINK is deep pink (in the purple range). Many
colours that are perceived as red are quite warm. I think that BLASSROT
would be a warm, medium pink to most, while HELLROT would be like cadmium
pale, in artists colours, sort of scarlet, like a Pelargonium. DUNKELROT
would be like a very ripe tomato, while KIRSCHROT would be a deep, cold,
crimson.
This is the kind of information one never gets from classroom language
study or reading works on history and other non-artistic subjects. Color
terminology is such a complex subject across languages that it forms a
special area of study for linguists. For example, a wide set of languages
around the world don't distinguish 'blue' from 'green'. 'Red' is another
area where there is a good deal of complexity. Linguists have also studied
what kinds of distinctions different groups of people within a language
community make; for example, women tend to use more different color terms
than men do (though male horticulturists and artists would know more than
the average woman, of course).
I wonder if a multilingual horticultural color term chart would be useful
to many people? I could probably design a questionnaire on which to base
one, but it would require a sample of a certain size (at least ten
respondents, I think) for each language. It would be interesting just to
see, within a language, what different people call the color of a certain
flower. The present discussion related to Worsleya offers an example: Is it
'blue'? I think "blue" is used more loosely in English than the equivalent
color terms in some other European languages -- that is, it seems to extend
more into the purple range in English. Or is that just horticultural
wishful thinking?
The existence of widely grown clones and species with little color
variation offers gardeners an opportunity to define what they call a color
from samples other than expensive color charts (which may not reproduce
well over the Internet). Thus, you could elicit your local color term for
'yellow' (the single quotes indicate a gloss, or meaning; double quotes are
a word-as-word) by referring to Sternbergia lutea. 'Yellow' is easy; what
flowers are 'purple', though?
This subject is of great practical interest to me as an editor of botanical
and horticultural writing. I tend to cringe a little, for instance, when an
author describes a flower as "mauve," one of the most ill-defined English
color terms.
Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA