[231] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Colors?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Mar 13 22:20:06 1992
Errors-To: tlhIngan-Hol-request@village.boston.ma.us
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
From: galileo@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@village.boston.ma.us>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 21:49:41 EST
> Well, it's very interesting. From the dictionary, it appears that there
> only two words for color: Doq (red or orange) and SuD (blue, green, or
> yellow). From this, we might surmise that Klingons are blue-yellow
> color blind. Things appear to be either reddish or bluish to them.
As Richard Kennaway points out, there are human languages which distinguish
colors differently from in English; a good source on this is Peter Farb's
_Word Play_ (Knopf, New York: 1974), pp 172-176. In particular, it
describes a study done by Berlin and Kay on the evolution of color distinctions
in language. According to the study (which has not been completely accepted),
languages begin with only terms for light and dark; next, red is added; either
yellow or green comes next, followed by whichever of yellow or green remains;
next a word for blue is added; and finally comes a word for brown. Colors
beyond these seven are rare. Until a color term is added, that color is
perceived as being a shade of an adjacent, named color.
The support for this pattern of evolution comes from the startling fact that
no known language has, say, a word for blue without having a word for red.
Languages having all numbers of colors from three to more than seven are known.
For example, Ibo has four color terms, as did Homeric Greek; Hausa and Mandarin
have six. So assuming that Klingon color vision is similar to that of
humans (which is certainly a fascinating question to ponder), Klingon is at the
fourth level of color-term development, having terms for light, dark, red, and
yellow/green and subsuming orange into red and blue into yellow/green.
The question of why colors are added in this order is still an open one. It
might well have been different for such an alien psychology as Klingon, but
the since the order is in fact the same, there might be a deep significance.
--Eric Tentarelli
galileo@athena.mit.edu
