Re: Colors in Native American Languages

pollarde@email.uah.edu
Mon, 8 May 1995 22:11:04 -0500


The color terms in two Apachean (Southern Athapaskan) dialects,
Chiricahua and Mescalero, follow. Read *l/* as a voiceless lateral
stop.

CHIRICAHUA MESCALERO

black dil/xil/ l/iz^i~
blue, green,
turquoise datl/'is^ datl/'is^
dark brown
(as the color
of a horse) nl/x!ne
gray, tan l/e l/iba
orange, yellow l/iic^u l/itsu
pink l/ic^i
purple ("black-
ish blue") dil/xil/gu datl/'is^ l/iz^i~gu datl/'is^
red l/iitu l/itu
white l/iika l/iga

If you can find a copy of Julian H. Steward's _Basin-Plateau
Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups_, Bureau of American Ethnology
Bulletin 120, Government Printing Office, 1938, Reprint 1970 by
University of Utah Press, he give the color terms in 24 dialects
of five Shoshonean languages (Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute,
Kawaiisu, Shoshone, and Ute) on pp. 275-283. You may want to
rewrite them in a conventional orthography. He has apparently
followed Edward Sapir's.

Grosvenor Pollard

via Elizabeth B. Pollard
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Elizabeth Pollard
Systems LibrarianInternet: pollarde@email.uah.edu
University of Alabama in HuntsvilleCompuserve: 72457,1560
Huntsville, AL 35899Phone: (205)895-6313
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-