Whoa d00d, teH K0L0RZ....

[wombat1138]

I was tidying up some earlier entries by tucking them into lj-cuts, and got caught up again in webhunting stuff on color linguistics as related to two different palettes of metaphysical elements:

Asian quincunx: earth, wood, fire, and metal, and water

Western quartet: fire, air, water, and earth
(sometimes this set also quincunxes with the central addition of spirit.)

From this point on, forget about the metaphysical stuff. You may have noticed I changed my virtual crayon for "water" between the two lists, which I rearranged into the chromatic order given in an older post:

[...] while the water serpent (or sometimes another dragon) of the east is usually referred to as "blue" these days, the cosmology is old enough to predate the separation of "blue" and "green" from the primordial sea of "grue"-- according to the usual theory of linguistic color concepts, the first two categories are always black and white (or more properly, dark and light), followed by what we'd consider "real" colors: first red, then yellow and grue in either order, after which grue resolves into blue and green before other color terms emerge. (Technically, the original Chinese character for "grue" was shifted to "blue" by the eventual addition of "green", but the chromatic borderline may be a bit odd in Japan, where traffic signals may seem ambiguously turquoise to visitors from overseas.)

If I correctly understand some of my justnow web reading, the Japanese linguistic palette is also considered anomalous for having acquired murasaki before separating midori from aoi. Mandarin Chinese has a stronger separation between blue and green, but also acquired purple earlier than the Berlin/Kay statistic hierarchy would predict. And my main point has just fallen out of the back of my brain cell, but had something to do with the observation that languages tend to divide a certain subpalette into either blue/green or dark/grue, with the latter set tending to originate from regions with high UV exposure, which would gradually degrade vision by inducing a yellowish tinge within the lens.

Comments

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Hey, we went into this in one of my classes in Wales! Pink is the last colour named, as I remember.

The Welsh apparently carried along 'grue' for quite a long time, if I remember. In fact, glas can mean or has meant blue, green OR grey... depending on context, I guess.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

I thought about mentioning , which come to think of it doesn't fit into that opthalmologically-based theory/pattern, as Wales is not exactly a sun-drenched tropical paradise, albeit still a very grue and pleasant land. Still, one weeps at the heartrending silence that must be sung between the lines of "Old ApDaffyd had a farm....."

(Or so Dave Barry suggested at one point. Can't recall whether he blamed their vowel deficit to the Hawaiians cornering the market.)

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

[/rimshot]

*mock aggrieved sigh* Yes, yes, the Hawaiian thing. You should see what happens when SCA heralds start playing with that story.

[considers opthamology] Even the fact that the Celts came from rootstock in/around Asia Minor doesn't really figure into that well, as there would be too many generations between pre-Celtic warmer-landed people and the Cymric tribes. Hmm. Wish I knew more Gaelic, now.

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

...hmmmm, now that you mention it, ISTR a connection between blond/red hair and increased vulnerability to age-related macular degeneration from accumulated UV damage to the retina. However, the Welsh aren't particularly fair-haired, especially compared to the Scots and Irish; I wonder if there are other Gaelic cognates of glas?

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Uh-huh, the Welsh are Brythons - the short, dark Celts, later migration wave and less Norse interbreeding.

There's always cognates, it's just a matter of finding a dictionary. [goes off to prowl Google]

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Sloppily formatted, but I'm in a rush to leave.

---

http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/ (Eire)

>>green<<
definition... adj glas m1, uaine f4, faiche f4;
usage... npl (vegetables) greens glasraí;
green paper páipéar glas;
n bowling green faiche bollaí;
emerald green glas smaragaide;
(POL) The Green Party An Páirtí Glas;
Greenwich Mean Time meánam Ghreenwich;
raw coffee; green coffee; unroasted coffee caife amh;
The Green Group in the European Parliament an Grúpa Glas i bParlaimint na hEorpa;
thoroughfare includes arcade, bridge, court, green, lane folaíonn mórbhealach stuara, droichead, cúirt, faiche, bóithrín;
the Treaty governing relations between the said countries and Greenland shall be part of the domestic law of the State is cuid de dhlí inmheánach an Stáit an Conradh ag rialú caidrimh idir na tíortha sin agus an Ghraonlainn;

>>blue<<
definition... adj gorm, graosta, gáirisiúil;
usage... n: (MUS) the blues na bliúanna;
the blues na gormacha;
blue joke scéal (grinn) graosta;
blue movie scannán pornagrafaíochta;
blue-veined cheese cáis ghormshíogach, cáis phróiseáilte;
to paint the door blue dath gorm a chur ar an doras;
to come out of the blue teacht mar a bheadh splanc ann, teacht gan choinne;
blue whiting; poutassou faoitín gorm;
chrome colours and Prussian blue crómdhathanna agus gorm prúiseach;
gilt-edged or blue chips securities urrúis órchiumhsacha nó scothscaireanna;
preparation of plans and blueprints pleananna agus gormchlónna a ullmhú;
the man with the grey hat/the blue eyes an fear a bhfuil an hata liath air/na súile gorma aige, fear an hata léith/na súl gorm;

>>grey<<
definition... adj liath, glas;
usage... grey area; grey zone limistéar liath;
the man with the grey hat/the blue eyes an fear a bhfuil an hata liath air/na súile gorma aige, fear an hata léith/na súl gorm;
a person shall not lead more than greyhounds at a time in any public place ní bheidh níos mó ná ceithre chú sa turas ar éill ag duine in aon áit phoiblí;
greyhound includes any whippet and any strain or cross of greyhound or whippet folaíonn cú aon fhuipéad agus aon phór nó crosphór cú nó fuipéid;
underground economy; black economy; shadow economy; grey economy; hidden economy geilleagar dubh;
unless such greyhound is being led by means of a sufficiently strong chain or leash mura mbeidh an cú sin ar éill nó ar slabhra a bheidh sách láidir;
delivery of live horses, live greyhounds, the natural or artificial insemination of livestock capaill bheo nó cúnna beo a sheachadadh, inseamnú nádúrtha nó saorga ar bheostoc;
the construction of golf links, race courses and greyhound racing tracks but excluding the sowing of grass seed on such grounds faichí gailf, ráschúrsaí agus rás-rianta con a dhéanamh ach gan síol-chur féir ar an talamh sin a áireamh;
a regulated coursing match is a match held in accordance with the rules and approved by the Irish Coursing Club pursuant to the Greyhound Industry Act, 1958 babhta cúrsála rialaithe: babhta arna chur ar bun de réir na rialacha agus ceadaithe ag Club Cúrsála na hireann de bhun Acht Tionscail na gCon;

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MF2/mf06.html#MF.G (Scots Gaelic)

gorm
blue, green, Irish, Early Irish gorm, blue, Welsh gwrm, dusky: gorsmo-, root gor, warm ("warm colour"), as in Gaelic gar (Stokes).

glas
grey, Irish glas, green, pale, Early Irish glass, Welsh, Old Welsh, Breton glas, green: *glasto-, green; German glast, sheen (Bez.), root glas, to which German glass, English glass, are probably allied.

glas
a. grey
glas
va. and vn. turn grey

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/Manx/mx22.html (Manx/Vannin)

gorrym
blue, black, dark-skinned, negroid; washing blue
gorrym dorraghey
dark blue
gorrym-ghlass
aquamarine, azure, sea-green

gormaghey
blue, cyanosis
gormid
blueness
gormit
blued

gorrym jiarg
purple
gorrym jiargid
purpleness
gorrym turcaid
turquoise blue
gorrymagh
bluish
gorrymaghey
blue
gorryman
woad
gorrymid
blueness
gorrymit
blued

http://www.francenet.fr/~perrot/breizh/dicoen.html (Breizhoneg)

blue (and green for nature) -> glas
green (except for the colour of nature) -> gwer

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

Hmm... apparently (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2000/03/23/state0101EST0331.DTL&type=science) there are otherwise rare genetic markers that're common among the Celts and (get this) the Basques, leading to the inference of a common Celtic origin in Iberia before the Goedelic/Brythonic split. Possibly enough UV there to warp their retinas?

And come to think of it, lessee, the Breve Diccionario Etimologico de la Lengua Castellana dates to 944, while the Petit Robert dates to 1080, suggesting influence from the Moorish conquest of Spain-- the PR doesn't provide a date for , though; it's just kinda there.

I *think* one of the basic color terms of Latin was , cognate to the Greek word for which I am not even going to try to find the right fontcode and hey I never actually got around to trying to learn anyway but which I think transliterates as , as commonly translated in the phrase "bright-eyed Athene" or "grey-eyed Athene" or for that matter "owl-eyed Athene" but never mind that last one for now.

Bleh. I have blown out my brain cell. Must lie down.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the Greek also provide the source word for 'glaucoma', though? How'd that go from Athene to blindness?

I think the genetic markers might come from the ancientness of both groups, although Goddess knows that the Celts have become such a hodge-podge; there still manages to be Celtic genotypes, though, faces that make my brain ring like bagpipes, 'That person MUST be a Celt!'

[wanders after linkage]

[wombat1138.livejournal.com]

The etymology for "glaucoma" seems to originate from diagnostic lumping-together with the cloudy lens seen in cataracts-- which latter condition seems to've been originally called "portcullis" (http://www.word-detective.com/032404.html) (last item on page), of all things.