WordNerding

[Jitter]

The blue-green tree, as opposed to what, the purple tree? Most trees, bushes, grasses, plants, are blue-green. If you want to point out a particular tree, you would probably be better off with other descriptors than a basic colour term it shares with most other trees.

That’s just the point, isn’t it? You and I don’t have exact words for a jillion shades of green, yet if you go outside and compare the leaves of almost any tree of different species, they are all green but not exactly the same color. People dependent on the distinctions between plant species for survival might well come up with a lot more nuanced definition of different colors or shades within what we would call “green”. As research has shown they do, although nowadays it’s harder to research because almost all peoples have had at least some influence from other languages.

Similarly, Finnish has a load of words for snow Some are at least nowadays synonymous but many differentiate between various characteristics.

[thorny]

At what point in the evolution of a language do those "basic" color terms actually appear? I can easily imagine a nascent language making do for a long while with just the names of the objects thus colored, rather than creating terms for an abstraction of its color.

I wonder if that's not the beginning of abstract language; and perhaps even of abstract thinking -- the concept that one can separate the color from the thing colored, and consider the color as a thing in itself.

That also might be what allows the huge jump of considering counterfactuals. If "red" is just part of those things that are red, and not separable, how can one think of those particular berries being blue, or of red grass? Or, perhaps, of turning grey cave rocks red --

[JoB]

I wonder if that's not the beginning of abstract language; and perhaps even of abstract thinking -- the concept that one can separate the color from the thing colored, and consider the color as a thing in itself.

I doubt that that would be its beginning, honestly. The way humans need to cooperate, I'd wager that they may have had a concept of "us" - their group, abstract from its current members, which change over time - before other abstract language constructs. Possibly before language, period, as there's no shortage of social species that don't have one (by the standards of John Current-Day Doe).

[thorny]

I doubt that that would be its beginning, honestly. The way humans need to cooperate, I'd wager that they may have had a concept of "us" - their group, abstract from its current members, which change over time - before other abstract language constructs. Possibly before language, period, as there's no shortage of social species that don't have one (by the standards of John Current-Day Doe).

That's a point.

And of course any idea of things being a certain kind carries some level of abstraction -- 'banana' or 'lion', whether recognized with a word or not, also cover a group despite the fact that the individual members of the group aren't constant; and it's been important since long before humans for all sorts of creatures to be able to tell a banana from a lion; as well as to tell that a banana or a lion which they've never seen/heard/smelled/otherwise sensed before is a member of its class.

By coincidence, I just tripped over this from Tolkien, which is pretty much what I was trying to get at:

https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-stories1.pdf

The human mind, endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of  the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faerie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's  power—upon one  plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes.

[lumilaulu]

That’s just the point, isn’t it? You and I don’t have exact words for a jillion shades of green, yet if you go outside and compare the leaves of almost any tree of different species, they are all green but not exactly the same color. People dependent on the distinctions between plant species for survival might well come up with a lot more nuanced definition of different colors or shades within what we would call “green”. As research has shown they do, although nowadays it’s harder to research because almost all peoples have had at least some influence from other languages.

People dependant on plant species for survival do not have exact words for a jillion shades of green either.  Nor would they need them. Colour can certainly help with plant determination and recognition, but it is far from the only means. Size, shape, texture, etc. are all at least as important for telling one tree's leaves from another.

[thorny]

Plants don't stay the same shade of green at all growth stages of the plant, or at growth stages of individual leaves. Look hard at almost any green plant, at any time of year: you'll see more than one color there on the same plant, never mind different plants of the same species. We just don't usually look that hard.

[JoB]

Plants don't stay the same shade of green at all growth stages of the plant, or at growth stages of individual leaves. Look hard at almost any green plant, at any time of year: you'll see more than one color there on the same plant, never mind different plants of the same species. We just don't usually look that hard.

... if that were an impediment to identifying the plant in question by its (varying, even per time of day, but still distinct) colors, I'd wonder how we ever came to have a single term "berry", rather than separate words for budding and ripe ones ...

[thorny]

I don't think it's an impediment to identifying plants -- but I think it's a reason why trying to have a name for every shade of green wouldn't be much of an advantage in identifying them.

[Jitter]

Here’s some Finnish word nerding (I came across this in comments for Chapter 3 of Adventure 1 so this might be a repost)

It’s interesting at least to me as a native Finn. I didn’t know Finnish has verb classes etc. I mean I would probably understood we do if I had given it some thought but. I still don’t know how many an what determines them 

http://borealexpat.blogspot.com/2014/08/deconstructing-finnish.html

[Suominoita]

Here’s some Finnish word nerding (I came across this in comments for Chapter 3 of Adventure 1 so this might be a repost)

It’s interesting at least to me as a native Finn. I didn’t know Finnish has verb classes etc. I mean I would probably understood we do if I had given it some thought but. I still don’t know how many an what determines them 

http://borealexpat.blogspot.com/2014/08/deconstructing-finnish.html

It is nice, though actually the reason that käsi keeps the si here is not because it's a new word- it's just in plural. Stem is käte- though, due the consonant gradation often comes as käde- before ending. Partitive uses consonant stem kät-  before -tä ending instead.

Bonus: Derived words: kätevä (handy); käsittää (to understand or should I say to grasp) käsite (concept), kätellä (to shake hands in greeting); kättely (the act of shaking hands; figuratively: right off in the very beginning --- heti kättelyssä). Käsitellä (to handle).