Colors, Numbers and Language Class 11B

Puzzle du Jour:  Can you  Name all the colors?  Count first row?  Count total crayons? Image from Flickr User Laffy4K, Licensed by Creative CommonsLicensed by Creative Commons

Last Time  Sapir-Whorff  Hypothesis that language (grammar) influences thoughts  Bad “folk linguistic” theories connecting language and thought  But some subtle effects possible

Numbers: Is counting cultural?  Actually…maybe it is  Although most cultures count to 100 or more.  Many birds/mammals can count up to 3-4 … or more  Cuckoos have to remove one egg before adding cuckoo egg (so other birds won’t notice missing egg)  Cormorants get every eighth fish. Refuse to move after 7 th fish  Rhesus monkeys can do addition/subtraction with low numbers

Pirahã (Amazon Basin)  Words  Hòi (HL tone) ‘one’, hói (LH) ‘two’  Baagi or aibai ‘many’  Experiments on men show difficulty in determining exact quantities  Often cheated by Portuguese speakers  But Pirahã women mock men for being cheated  Grouping into units of 2,3 helps  If children learn Portuguese  They learn Portuguese numbers well  Actions  Experiments show that Pirahã can identify exact quantities (without number words)

Early Counting in Writing  Early writing = inventory control  Sumerians  Bronze Age Greeks  Counting important for  Commerce/trade transactions  Levying tithes/taxes  Dividing items  Charging interest on loans

Counting Methods  Grouping can vary  1,2,3,…100  In almost all languages  Grouping  1-10, 11-20,… (West)  40 = 4 tens  Base ten  Group by 20 (Celtic, Danish)  40 = 2 20s  Group by 6 (Ndom, PNG) or 12 (Nimbia, Nigeria)  1/3 ≠.333 but an easier decimal  Group by 10 & 60 (Babylonian)

Beyond Integers  Adding Zero  Zero < zero (It) < *zefiro (Ar çifr)  Imported from India  Simplifies multiplication, division, …  Larger Numbers  Sanskrit śata ‘100’ borrowed in many S. Asian languages  Million common in many languages  Metric prefixes  Kilo (KB), Mega (MB), Giga (GB), Tera (TB)  Milli (mm), nano meter (nm), pico (pm)

Exotic Numbers  Negatives (-1)  Used for accounting  Irrationals (√2, π, e)  Greeks could not define as ratios  Imaginary (√-1)  Thought to be impossible  We have these terms because of cultural innovation  Often considered “unnatural” at first

Color Questions  Color terminology varies widely by language  Some only have two basic colors  Are we seeing the same colors?  How many can we visually distinguish?

Painting Across Cultures Pompeii (79 AD)China ( ) Images from Wikipedia

Color Swatches  100s of colors available for  Beads, embroidery floss, ink, crayons,… Beadsembroidery flossink Image from yarntree.com. Fair Use claimed.

BUT Naming Limited  English Major Categories  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple  Black, white, brown  Secondary  Cyan, magenta, pink, gray, lime, ….  Often perceived as mix of two colors  Shades  Indigo, sky, navy, periwinkle…  Crimson, vermillion, fire engine  Olive, emerald, jade,

Russian Colors  More is better  Pink, “sky”, gray are major colors Image from masterrussian.com Fair Use claimed.

Traditional Welsh Color Terms  Less and not easily translated  Colors  Coch = red  Melyn = yellow  Glas = blue/green  =“grue”  Sky glas ≠ grass glas  Gwyn = white  Du = black  Llywd = gray/brown/blue/gray/black (????) Image by Elizabeth J. Pyatt. All Rights Reserved.

“New” Welsh Colors  Brown = brown  Oren = “orange”  Gwyrdd = green  From Latin viridis  Cognate with verde (Sp/It), vert (Fr),  Porffor = purple  From Latin purpura  Used in catalogs  And to describe dyed objects (e.g. flags). Hence grass is still glas “blue”

More on Grue  “Blue” Traffic light  Go = green in English  Go = Ao ‘blue’ (Japanese)  Many languages combine blue/green  Basque (blue/green/gray)  Vietnamese  Older Japanese, Chinese, Korean  Borders can shift  Skies “green” in Classical Arabic  Traffic lights “blue” in Japanese/Korean Image by Andreas Habeland. Licensed via Creative CommonsCreative Commons

Traffic Light Colors  What colors in traffic lights? Image by Andreas Habeland. Licensed via Creative CommonsCreative Commons

Color Theory  3 Parameters – Hue, Value, Saturation  Used in digital color manipulation  Hue – color in a rainbow + magenta  Add cyan & magenta  Value – lightness/darkness  Saturation – intensity of hue  Art Training  Need to decouple language and train on these parameters  Expert language ≠ novice language

Munsell 3-Axis Color Space Image from WikipediaWikipedia

Hue & Value  Hue = color  Black, white, gray ≠ hue  Brown also not a hue  Most intense hues are color names  Red = fire engine red  Blue = sapphire blue  Value  Black, white are maximal ends of value scale  Grays are in between Images by Elizabeth J. Pyatt. All Rights Reserved.

Saturation  Intensity of hue  Percentage of color  Mixing hue w/black & white  Hue + white = tint  Hue + black = shade  Hue + gray = tone Image by Elizabeth J. Pyatt. All Rights Reserved.

Brown = Unsaturated Red/Yellow/Orange  Brown results from  Red/orange/yellow + black/gray Image by Elizabeth J. Pyatt. All Rights Reserved.

Other color illusions  Pink = pale magenta  Pale red = salmon  Sky blue = pale cyan  Pale sapphire blue = periwinkle

Llywd (and Llwyd River)  Primarily gray in modern Welsh  Gray, faint color, pale, wan, brown, muddy (water)  Afon Llwyd “Lloyd River”  Silver River or Muddy River?  Gray haired, grizzled  Moldy, musty  Unremarkable, insignificant, common, uninteresting  Holy, blessed pious  Rivers, lakes were sacred  So were monks in plain dress  Also name of mythical sorcerer Llwyd RiverLlwyd River. Photo from Wikipedia

Compound Color Words  Llwyd-dywyll  Black-gray = dark gray, twilight, dusk  Llwyd-las  Gray blue = Bluish gray  Llwyd-felyn  Gray yellow = khaki, beige, buff  Unsaturated shades

Related Words  Bore llwyd  Gray morning = overcast  Wedi llwydo  Mouldy, must  = unsaturated?

Llwyd = “Unsaturaturated”?  Middle Welsh  Llwyd = unsaturated?  Modern Welsh  Llwyd = gray or grayish  Brown = brown  Llwyd-frown = grayish brown Image by Elizabeth J. Pyatt. All Rights Reserved.

Berlin-Kay et al Color Universals  Berlin & Kay  Color researchers & linguists  Proposed universal trends in color systems  Still under debate  Some findings  Basic color systems max out about 12  Many more secondary colors possible  Black/white most common color words  Red is next most common color

Extremes = Color  Black/white  End points on value scale  “Red” usually fire engine red  “Red” ≠ maroon, salmon, pink,…  Red also prominent as symbolic color  Cardinal robes (Catholic church)  Chinese New Year/gift envelopes  Weddings (India…)  Red also dangerous  West  Ancient Egypt Fair Use claimed Licensed via Creative Commons Creative Commons

Hunt for Saturated Dyes  Famous dyes  Phonecian red/purple: sea snails  Indian yellow: dried cow urine (fed mango leaves)  Cochineal red: bug parts  Ultramarine: ground lapis lazuli  Only Old world source = Afghanistan  Cinnabar: can cause mercury poisoning  Soy dyes – relatively new  Saturated colors rejected as “tacky”  E. Asia, West, (NOT Greeks & Romans) Image from Wikipedia Wikipedia

Hering Primary  Hering identified six primary colors  Black (K) /white (W)  Red (R), yellow (Y), blue (B), green (G)  These colors  Most frequently found in languages  Most frequently found in color symbolism  Western game pieces – R,Y,G,B  Western flags  Wu Xing – B,W,R,Y,G,B  Native American Compas colors  Cherokee – blue (N), white (S), red (E), black (W)

Color Name by Texture  Hair  Blonde, chestnut,  Red =  Irish finn = white/blonde  Welsh gwyn = white/blonde  Wine  White vs Red  White whine usually pale yellow  Skin tone?!?!? Images from WikipediaWikipedia

Basic vs. Secondary?  Latin Colors  Red: ruber, roseus  Yellow: croceus (saffron), fulvus, flavus, luteus  Fulvus was probably darker maize yellow  White: albus, candidus, canus (hair)  Black: niger, ater  Blue: caeruleus (sky blue?)  Green: viridis  Purpureus: purple  Changes in many Romance languages

Color Adj vs Reference Object  Is there a perceptual difference between  Lime-colored shirt vs lime shirt  Raspberry colored vs raspberry  Chocolate, peach, wine, cranberry…  When is there a shift?  Orange once was orange fruit colored  Latin  -eus = adj from noun  Croceus (saffron color), aureus (gold color) Image from WikipediaWikipedia

Conclusions  We can see millions of colors  Grouped into only a few categories  Cultures can add secondary colors  Categories can focus on extremes  Dark/light & saturated hues  Perception doesn’t follow color theory  Brown usually not recognized as variety of red/orange  Are Hering primaries universal?