>>are there PIE radicals for colours? <<
According to the work fo Berlin and Kay (1969) there is an universal
hierarchy in the appareance of basic colour terms represented in lexicon of
world languages:
white > > green
> red > > blue > brown
black > > yellow
On the view of preceding diagram we have the following universals:
1) There are no language with fewer than two basic colour terms. In the case
of a language that has only two colour terms they must include focal 'white'
and focal 'black' respectively.
2) If a language has a colour terms to designate focal 'green' and
'yellow' then it has a term for focal 'red'.
3) If a language has a colour terms to designate focal 'red' then it
has terms for 'white' and 'black' (or 'light' and 'dark').
In p-IE we have in fact the term <*(h1)rwdH-> 'red' naturally this must
imply the existence of words for 'white' and 'black' in p-IE. A great number
of languages have been examined and satisfy this hierarchy. A curious
example is provided by Sango, an African language of Andamawa language,
there are only three basic colour terms: <vulu> 'white or light colour',
<vuko> 'black, violet, grease, dark blue, ...' and finally <bengmbwa> for
the rest of colors 'yellow, red, green, light brown, ...'
David Sánchez