Thursday, October 4, 2012
Language Fails Post3
Many cultures do not have a word for orange. In sociology we talked about a culture that recently stopped eating people, I don't recall the name of the culture but if anyone wants to know it I can find out tomorrow, but they only have two words in terms of colors which are black and white. So, what would they call the color orange (or any color other than black and white, which I know technically are a shade and a tint)? Well the names are signs which are arbitrary forms that the signified concepts take to become the signifiers, so really the names of colors can be whatever you want, yellow might as well be rock, I mean why not?
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In some languages, a common practice for colors without a name is to visualise the color by comparing it to something else. In Spanish, the word "cafe" is often used to mean brown, although this simply means "coffee".
ReplyDeleteThe name of the culture is Jale.
ReplyDeleteIs it the Carib people of the west indies. Language fails for those who are not part of that culture. However those in immerse in that culture would be able to understand.
ReplyDelete