<div dir="ltr">If I remember correctly, someone wrote an article about this in HolQeD a couple decades ago. The online index shows:<div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"> colors: 8:1/7; and Klingon physiology, 5:2/7-9.</span><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px">To make a long story short, there's a theory called the Berlin-Kay color hierarchy. It argues that the number of basic colors terms in a language predicts which colors get named. For example, if a language has only two color terms, they'll be black and white. If it has three color terms, the third term will be red. If it has four terms, the fourth term will be EITHER green or yellow, and if it has a fifth term, it will be the other of the two. The conclusion is that languages have to name colors in a way that fits human color perception, hence the hierarchy.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Klingon breaks this pattern by having one word for BOTH green and yellow. The HolQeD article argued that this was a deliberate choice by MO to make the Klingon language more alien.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution</a> </div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate</a> <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Ubuntu,sans-serif;font-size:13px">bI'reng</span></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Sep 1, 2019 at 4:08 PM SuStel <<a href="mailto:sustel@trimboli.name">sustel@trimboli.name</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="gmail-m_6193883851570562985moz-cite-prefix">On 9/1/2019 3:12 PM, Michael Kúnin
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="gmail-m_6193883851570562985moz-quote-pre">Otherwise, if Klingons are bichromatic, then they would see any non-greyscale colour as either a variety of {Doq} or a variety of {SuD}, so it is not much possible to use colour as a defining attribute of an object. No wonder they are irritated by other species making distinctions where they see none!
I wonder if there is a Klingon word meaning "be grey". </pre>
</blockquote>
<p>How a language divides up its color words has little to do with
whether they can visually perceive those colors. There are real
human languages that have the same number of color words as
Klingons, but speakers of these languages don't lack our color
vision. It's canonically speculated that Klingons can't see all of
purple that we do, but otherwise their vision seems to be similar
to ours.</p>
<p>In English we have a basic color term <i>pink,</i> which is
considered a different color than red. But in English when we look
at blue jeans, then we look at the sky, we call both of them <i>blue.</i>
(<i>Cyan</i> is not a basic color term; it's comparing the color
to something else.) But in Russian, for example, they use two
unrelated words for the two colors. A Russian might incorrectly
think that an English speaker who points to blue jeans then points
to the sky and says <i>blue</i> for both of them cannot see the
distinct colors. But we would not point at a cherry blossom and
say <i>red, </i>even though pink is a shade of red.</p>
<p>When a Klingon points at a yellow plant and says <b>SuD,</b>
then points at the green sky and says <b>SuD,</b> it's not that
they appear to be the same color to him. It's no different than us
calling jeans and the sky <i>blue.</i> Different shades of color
grouped under one name.<br>
</p>
<p>In Klingon, <i>be gray</i> is <b>qIj 'ej wov</b> or <b>qIj
'ach wov</b><i> (TalkNow). </i>Gray is a shade of black.<br>
</p>
<pre class="gmail-m_6193883851570562985moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="gmail-m_6193883851570562985moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name" target="_blank">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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