Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: primitive language
Message-ID: <hubey.788202664@pegasus.montclair.edu>
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Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 17:11:04 GMT
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mounce@u.washington.edu (Doug Mounce) writes:

>Wilson sticks to one language item, development of color vocabularies, as
>representative of genetic influence because of a commonality across all
>cultural influences.  He implies that more genetic connections could be
>found if someone was willing to investigate the commonalities.  He uses


It might be even easier to consider only technology. Until relatively
recent times, there just weren't that many dies [colors] available
to human beings with which to color their world. If we look only
at nature, we'd see green/yellow [grass/trees], bluish [sky/sea],
red [blood], white [snow in some lands], and something like
black/dark[night]. There just isn't much of an opportunity for
humans or even a need to have so many color terms until relatively
modern times. I think the reason the word crimson/karamzin/kirmizi
etc is spread in so many languages is because it derives from
a beetle whose name in Arabic is something like qaramzin. ONe can
probably find other such words, maybe turqoise ? I don't see why
it would have much to do with genetics.

--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
