LINGUIST List 6.397

Mon 20 Mar 1995

Qs: Metaphoric color terms, Caucasian languages, K. Sugai

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Sebastian Loebner, metaphoric color terms
2. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Q: Mystery Language
3. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Q: Four more (or less) mysterious languages
4. , Looking for K. Sugai

Dear members of the linguist list,
I'm interested in color terms which are used (in a broad sense
metaphorically) for primarily nonvisible properties.
One common phenomenon is color terms for "shades" of political
orientations ('red' for the left, 'black' for conservative etc.).
Apart from those there are sporadic cases such as German 'blau' ("blue")
for "drunken".
Any examples from any language are welcome. I'll compile a summary for
the list eventually.
Thanks for contributions

Sebastian Loebner

Could someone help me identify the following 1730-vintage word list
of a language spoken somewhere in the Caucasus and called Curali
in the source:

god kysser
human adam
head killa
beard szrall
hand kill
belly sarar
fox ihi
foot kokar
horse belgan
dog byz
sheep langatt
finger tapalar
cow siavra
wolf willi
mouth damma

Alexis MR

I would appreciate any help tracking down four Caucasian languages
based on word lists from 1730. I have reproduced parts of the word
lists below. The language names followed by ? are my guesses, the
ones in parentheses below that are Strahlenberg's (1730) names for
the people speaking these languages.

 Avar ? ?? Khinalug? Kabardian ?
 (Avari, (Komucki, (Kubatschin) (Tzerkaessi,
 Akari) Kaitak) Gurschi)

1 szu sadat sah ci
2 giggu giwa kou toku
3 hanku slambaco kejerbeck szu
4 onku moynick auff giu
5 tziloku kewa yku tuku
head biber baeg --- schio
eye bustul geru olwa no"
nose buschi mi mirr peck
tongue --- maerr musull tzug

Strahlenberg (1730) adds that the "Kubatschin" live near Derbent
and are thought to be descended from Jews.

Alexis MR

Dear linguists,
very briefly, i've been unable to locate what appears to be a very interesting
paper on the scope of negation by Kazumi Sugai in the Nagoya Working Papers
in Linguistics. I've been unable to locate the author and the editor. Can
someone help me get in touch with either Mr.(Mme?) Sugai or the people at
Nagoya?? Thank you so much and sorry for the trouble.

Pierre Larrivee
Departement de langues et linguistique, Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada,
G1K 7P4
3914larpvm1.ulaval.ca