Re: CHAT: Orange

En réponse à Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...>:

>
> That may be for pedagogical reasons: kids learn the cardinal colours
> first
??? What do you mean by "kids learn the cardinal colours first?" I'm sorry, but
it's something I don't understand. You don't learn colours at school. You
already know them before you arrive at school, and there you only learn to
decompose them. But using colour names is a matter of everyday use that
children master much before they arrive at school.

 --- and traditional: I'm not sure the colour name orange was
> that well established when the first traffic lights went up (~1947),
> and calling it red-yellow would be asking for trouble.
>
You mean the word "orange" didn't exist before? in how many colours did you cut
the rainbow then? (the 7 colours of the rainbow are extremely traditional, in
France at least, and imply that "orange" was already well known a long time
ago. I thought it was a European thing)

> If the Dutch lights go red, orange, green, perhaps it's a national
> thing?
>
No, in France it's the same. After all, it's the colour of the light, isn't it?
And I didn't know there would be countries who would use orange as the middle
colour of traffic lights but call it yellow. That sounds particularly crazy to
me (it's kind of asking for troubles :)) ). On the other hand, I know some
countries do use the colour yellow for the middle light, and for them I can
understand that they use the word "yellow" to refer to it then.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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