So we’ve seen how real-world languages (or cultures, to be more precise) treat color. Now let’s take a look at what Isian and Ardari have to say about it.
Isian
Isian has a fairly short list of basic color terms. It’s got the primary six common to most “developed” languages, as follows:
| Color | Word |
|---|---|
| white | bid |
| black | ocom |
| red | ray |
| green | tich |
| yellow | majil |
| blue | sush |
We’ve actually seen these before, in the big vocabulary list a few parts back, but now you know why those colors were picked.
There are also three other “secondary” terms. Mesan is the Isian word for “gray”, and it runs the gamut from black to white. Sun covers browns and oranges, with an ochre or tawny being the close to the “default”. In the same way, loca is the general term for purple, pink, magenta, fuchsia, and similar colors. Finally, mays and gar are “relative” terms for light and dark, respectively; gar sush is “dark blue”, which could be, say, a navy or royal blue.
All these words are adjectives, so we can say e sush lash “the blue dress” or ta ocom bis “a black eye”. Making them into nouns takes the same effort as any other adjective, using the suffix -os. Thus, rayos refers to the color of red; we could instead say rayechil “red-color”.
Derivation is also at the heart of most other Isian color names. Compounds of two adjectives aren’t too common in the language, but they are used for colors. In all cases, the “primary” color is taken as the head of the compound. Some examples include:
- raysun, a reddish-brown or red-orange; some hair colors, like auburn, might also fit under this term.
- majiltich, a yellow-green close to chartreuse.
- tichmajil, similar to majiltich, but more yellow, like lime.
- locasush, a mix of blue and purple, a bit like indigo.
Most other colors are named after those things that have them. “Blood red”, for instance, is mirokel (using the adjectival form of miroc “blood”). Halakel is “sky blue”, and so on. As with English, many of the names come from flowers, fruits, woods, and other botanical origins. We’ll look at those in a later post, though.
Ardari
To look at Ardari’s color terminology, we’ll need to work in stages, as this uncovers a bit of the language’s history. First, it seems that Ardari went a long time with four basic colors:
| Color | Word |
|---|---|
| white | ayzh |
| black | zar |
| red | jor |
| green | rhiz |
Yellow (mingall) and blue (uswall) got added later, likely beginning as derivations from some now-lost roots. (The sun and the sky are good bets, based on what we know about real-world cultures.)
Next came a few more unanalyzable roots:
| Color | Word |
|---|---|
| brown | dir |
| orange | nòrs |
| purple | plom |
| pink | pyèt |
| gray | rhuk |
That gives the full array of eleven that many languages get before moving on to finer distinctions. Add in wich “light” and nyn “dark”, and you’re on your way to about 30 total colors.
Ardari doesn’t use compounds very often, so most of the other color terms are derived in some fashion. Two good examples are the similar-sounding wènyät “gold” and welyät “sky blue”. These started out as nothing more than adjectival forms of owènyi “gold” and weli “sky”, turned into adjectives by the -rät suffix we met not too long ago, and worn down a bit over time.
Another color word, josall, is an example of a more abstract or general term. It covers very light colors like beige and the pastels. It’s lighter even than wich nòrs or wich jor would be, but with more color than pure white. The word itself probably derives from josta “shell”, so you could describe it as a seashell color.
Grammatically, Ardari color terms are adjectives, so they inflect for gender just like any other. They can be used directly as nouns. And you can add the suffix -it to make something like English “-ish”: jorit “reddish”. That’s really all there is to it.
Moving on
Both our conlangs could easily have a hundred more words for various colors, but these are enough for now. You get the idea, after all. So it’s time to head to the next topic. I still haven’t thought of what that will be. At some point (probably by the time I write Part 16), I’ll have to make some tough decisions about the world around Isian and Ardari, because we’re fast approaching the point where that will matter. So the series might go on a hiatus of a few weeks while I brainstorm. We’ll see.