Comment on Heat vs. Motion

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 04:36:46 GMT

The difference is that, in English, "cyan", like your other listed examples except the ones that I think are actually green or purple, is a kind of blue (like sepia is a kind of brown, canary is a kind of yellow, etc.), while "pink" is not a kind of red. In Russian, golubuy is not a kind of siniy, and vice versa.

I think color words in languages are really interesting. Some languages have only three very basic ones that aren't kinds of anything else, and these tend to be translated as "black", "white", and "red" - dark, light, and bright colors. (They translate the bright color as "red" because if you have lots of objects in the room and ask someone who speaks this language to point to the best example of that color, they'll pick something bright red.) These three words are privileged in English too: they're the only ones we modify with -en to indicate that something is becoming more that color (redden, blacken, whiten - never bluen or greenen).

Discuss