Talk:Color name

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Contents 1 Japanese 2 Illustration 3 Copyrighted colors? 4 red 5 color science is not the same as color perception 6 Color names by language

[edit] Japanese

For example, a kind of sea green, called aoi in Japanese, in English is generally regarded as a shade of green, while in Japanese what an English speaker would identify as "green" can be regarded as a different shade of the kind of sea green.

I think this is a bit mixed up. Aoi is simply the Japanese word for blue, not specifically sea green. Japanese tend to regard the colour green as a shade of blue rather than a major colour, as in English. For example Japanese refer to the green colour in a traffic light as blue. FWIW Japanese do have a word for green, midori.

[edit] Illustration

Ironic that this has no color swatches for illustration, but not sure what would be desirable. Stan 21:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyrighted colors?

Do they exist? What about paints? Goblin Green. And things like that... do they have real names, or other names?

I'm no copyright expert, but I expect it will be like food. You can not copyright a food or a recipe, but you can copyright the name, if it is unique, specific, etc. In Kentucky (US) there is a famous recipe for Derby Pie. Only the copyright holder can make it (commercially) and call it "Derby Pie", but many restaurants make the exact same recipe and call it "Horserace Pie", "Twin Spires Pie", etc. Crayola may be able to copyright "Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown", but I dont think they could copyright #C45655 (the color itself). Many paint companies copyright certain color names, and especially names of clolor "lines", but not the color themselves. Stephenlegh (talk) 15:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] red

why is red almost always the third color term? is it because human blood is red? 71.248.115.187 15:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Humans are hardwired with an opponent mechanism for color perception; in simplistic terms: black vs white; red vs green; yellow vs blue. Berlin and Kay did a study that found that the basic color terms in all the languages they surveyed include these six colors. It is unlikely that "blood red" has anything to do with it. --Walter.bender 23:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] color science is not the same as color perception

"Color is determined by a physical color and/or other physical features, such as reflection or iridescence." Color is a psychophysical, not a physical phenomenon. Here is a simple example: a black stimulus in sunlight typical reflects more light than a white stimulus in room light. Color Science is about measuring electromagnetic radiation. Color Vision is about how the eye/mind turn radiations, plural, into the perception of color. --Walter.bender 23:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Color names by language

I'd like to propose a new section on Color spectrum by langauge. It would include a reference to Distinguishing blue from green in language. I have also observed that it is common in some languages, such as German to distinguish between the colors of pink and rose (color), whereas it is not common to do so in English. samwaltz 23:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)