Towards a diachrony of Maltese basic colour terms
-
Alexander Borg
Abstract
... la perception de la couleur n’est pas entièrement elucidée quand on en a precisé les domaines physiques et physiologiques. Il y a une histoire humaine de la perception. [colour perception cannot be fully explained merely by a precise specification of the relevant physical and physiological domains; perception is itself a product of human history.](Ignace Meyerson 1957: 7)The vernacular of the Maltese archipelago displays a twelve-term colour paradigm comprising 〈abjad〉 “white”, 〈iswed〉 “black”, 〈aħmar〉 “red”, 〈aħdar〉 “green”, 〈isfar〉 “yellow”, 〈ċelesti〉 “sky blue”, 〈blu〉 “dark blue”, 〈kannella〉 “brown”, 〈roża〉 “pink”, 〈griż〉 “grey”, 〈oranġjo〉 “orange” and 〈vjola〉 “violet”. The dual systemic split of the blue category is a striking feature of Maltese, inviting comparison with the situation obtaining in Italian and other Mediterranean languages. The hybrid (basically Arabic/Italian) composition of the Maltese colour system presents the linguistic researcher with an intriguing cultural synthesis reached by an erstwhile medieval vernacular of Arabic spoken by a small island community exposed to complex linguistic and cultural currents endemic in its regional and local history. The case of Maltese – a Europeanized Arabic vernacular – highlights the crucial role of external influences on cognitive processes monitoring the acquisition of colour categories, and evokes the need for a linguistic model incorporating an elaborate cultural dimension restricting universalist claims commonly associated with the Berlin and Kay paradigm.
Abstract
... la perception de la couleur n’est pas entièrement elucidée quand on en a precisé les domaines physiques et physiologiques. Il y a une histoire humaine de la perception. [colour perception cannot be fully explained merely by a precise specification of the relevant physical and physiological domains; perception is itself a product of human history.](Ignace Meyerson 1957: 7)The vernacular of the Maltese archipelago displays a twelve-term colour paradigm comprising 〈abjad〉 “white”, 〈iswed〉 “black”, 〈aħmar〉 “red”, 〈aħdar〉 “green”, 〈isfar〉 “yellow”, 〈ċelesti〉 “sky blue”, 〈blu〉 “dark blue”, 〈kannella〉 “brown”, 〈roża〉 “pink”, 〈griż〉 “grey”, 〈oranġjo〉 “orange” and 〈vjola〉 “violet”. The dual systemic split of the blue category is a striking feature of Maltese, inviting comparison with the situation obtaining in Italian and other Mediterranean languages. The hybrid (basically Arabic/Italian) composition of the Maltese colour system presents the linguistic researcher with an intriguing cultural synthesis reached by an erstwhile medieval vernacular of Arabic spoken by a small island community exposed to complex linguistic and cultural currents endemic in its regional and local history. The case of Maltese – a Europeanized Arabic vernacular – highlights the crucial role of external influences on cognitive processes monitoring the acquisition of colour categories, and evokes the need for a linguistic model incorporating an elaborate cultural dimension restricting universalist claims commonly associated with the Berlin and Kay paradigm.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
- Abbreviations xi
-
Section 1. Theoretical issues
- Illusions of colour and shadow 3
- Universal trends and specific deviations 13
- Touchy-Feely colour 27
- Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman 39
-
Section 2. Languages of the world
- Preface to Section 2 51
- Basic colour terms of Arabic 53
- Red herrings in a sea of data 59
- Towards a diachrony of Maltese basic colour terms 73
- Rosa Schätze – Pink zum kaufen 91
- Kashubian colour vocabulary 105
- Colour terms 121
- Preliminary research on Turkish basic colour terms with an emphasis on blue 133
- Terms for red in Central Europe 147
-
Section 3. Colour in society
- Preface to Section 3 159
- Colours in the community 161
- Hues and cries 171
- Colour appearance in urban chromatic studies 181
- Aspects of armorial colours and their perception in medieval literature 191
- Warm, cool, light, dark, or afterimage 205
- The power of colour term precision 219
-
Section 4. Categorical perception of colour
- Preface to Section 4 235
- Investigating the underlying mechanisms of categorical perception of colour using the event-related potential technique 237
- Category training affects colour discrimination but only in the right visual field 251
- Effects of stimulus range on color categorization 265
-
Section 5. Individual differences in colour vision
- Preface to Section 5 279
- Colour and autism spectrum disorders 281
- Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic colour terms 293
- Synaesthesia in colour 309
- Towards a phonetically-rich account of speech-sound → colour synaesthesia 319
- Perceiving “grue” 329
-
Section 6. Colour preference and colour meaning
- Preface to Section 6 345
- Age-dependence of colour preference in the U.K. population 347
- Ecological valence and human color preference 361
- Look and learn 377
- Effects of lightness and saturation on color associations in the Mexican population 389
- Colour and emotion 395
- Colors and color adjectives in the cortex 415
-
Section 7. Colour vision science
- Preface to Section 7 431
- Chromatic perceptual learning 433
- Unique hues 445
- A short note on visual balance judgements as a tool for colour appearance matching 457
- Index 459
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
- Abbreviations xi
-
Section 1. Theoretical issues
- Illusions of colour and shadow 3
- Universal trends and specific deviations 13
- Touchy-Feely colour 27
- Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman 39
-
Section 2. Languages of the world
- Preface to Section 2 51
- Basic colour terms of Arabic 53
- Red herrings in a sea of data 59
- Towards a diachrony of Maltese basic colour terms 73
- Rosa Schätze – Pink zum kaufen 91
- Kashubian colour vocabulary 105
- Colour terms 121
- Preliminary research on Turkish basic colour terms with an emphasis on blue 133
- Terms for red in Central Europe 147
-
Section 3. Colour in society
- Preface to Section 3 159
- Colours in the community 161
- Hues and cries 171
- Colour appearance in urban chromatic studies 181
- Aspects of armorial colours and their perception in medieval literature 191
- Warm, cool, light, dark, or afterimage 205
- The power of colour term precision 219
-
Section 4. Categorical perception of colour
- Preface to Section 4 235
- Investigating the underlying mechanisms of categorical perception of colour using the event-related potential technique 237
- Category training affects colour discrimination but only in the right visual field 251
- Effects of stimulus range on color categorization 265
-
Section 5. Individual differences in colour vision
- Preface to Section 5 279
- Colour and autism spectrum disorders 281
- Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic colour terms 293
- Synaesthesia in colour 309
- Towards a phonetically-rich account of speech-sound → colour synaesthesia 319
- Perceiving “grue” 329
-
Section 6. Colour preference and colour meaning
- Preface to Section 6 345
- Age-dependence of colour preference in the U.K. population 347
- Ecological valence and human color preference 361
- Look and learn 377
- Effects of lightness and saturation on color associations in the Mexican population 389
- Colour and emotion 395
- Colors and color adjectives in the cortex 415
-
Section 7. Colour vision science
- Preface to Section 7 431
- Chromatic perceptual learning 433
- Unique hues 445
- A short note on visual balance judgements as a tool for colour appearance matching 457
- Index 459
