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Color terminology

dave@PRC.Unisys.COM writes:

>In a language constructed in a modern scientific society, there would
>seem to be absolutely no reason not to have standards for color names.
>Instead of saying that "blanu" is "more or less like the English
>'blue'", it could be precisely defined.

>In the case of a spectral color, such as blanu, one could define it as
>the pure color of such-and-such a wavelength.  I don't know whether
>there are ANSI standard color names (Chris Handley's comment suggests
>there might be), but I would expect people to have more trouble
>agreeing on English color names than Lojban color names, simply
>because Lojban speakers are fewer in number and haven't "always" used
>their color terms in their own idiosyncratic ways.  And if there is a
>standard for, say, "purple," it is not one or most English speakers
>have helped define, and I might or might not agree with it....

One problem is that there are several different systems for giving
color standards: CIE, Munsell, Hickethier, etc. Each has its advantages
and disadvantages.

>The major difference between this and natural languages such as
>English is that when we say something is "blue" we mean it is an
>approximation to our idiosyncratic notion of "blue", rather than as an
>approximation to an agreed-upon standard.  Probably this is why my
>wife and I never agreed whether our first car was green or blue....

>So how about it, Lojbanisti (or whatever the term is)?  Do you want
>logical color names, or vague names semi-defined by your cultural
>backgrounds?

For Lojban, Dave's approach is probably right. For a conlang that tries
to be more representative of what natural languages do, probably not.

Chris Handley <CHandley%GANDALF.OTAGO.AC.NZ@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU> writes:

>Bruce writes

>> Now, my own usage of the term "purple" is probably closer to
>> Dave's than to Chris's, but Chris's usage seems to be the one used
>> by color theorists (as he states). I would probably refer to the
>> "purples" of color theory as "magenta" -- but I think also that
>> most people's "red" includes some magentas and that their "orange"
>> could often include what color theorists call "red."

>The neat thing about use of aids such as the CIE diagram is that it
>gives a consistent context within which to talk about colours, and
>to plot relationships between colours, hues, saturation,
>complementarity, etc. Incidentally shows why 30-colour theories for
>either the production or perception of colour are fatally flawed.

30-color theories? Or is the 0 a stray?

>As to magenta, this has, or should have a precise meaning. Along
>with cyan and yellow, it is one of the three complementary colours
>to the ubiquitous red, green and blue of most modern colour
>production. As such it can be found very easily on a colour diagram
>- locate the points corresponding to your favourite versions of blue
>and red, (specs for these are available), join them to white, bisect
>the angle between them and project that line to the periphery. That
>point will be magenta in your system.

The terms "red," "green,", "blue," "cyan," "magenta," and "yellow" have
two meanings in color theory. Chris is talking about the points (Cyan =
Hickethier 900, magenta = Hickethier 090, yellow = Hickethier 009) that
define additive and subtractive primaries. But in some treatments, the
color wheel is divided into six _regions_, based on which of the six are
nearest; i. e., "magenta" means anything closer to subtractive-primary
magenta than to additive-primary red or additive-primary blue, or in
Hickethier notation anything of the form xyz with y>(x + z).

(As you can see, I tend to like the Hickethier notation, which makes it
very easy to describe colors in terms of primaries. The CIE notation is
much harder in my thoughts to visualize.)

                                                Bruce