Re: [tied] Re: yellow

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 6:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: yellow
>
>
>
>> Just a more question; could it be they are derivatives of the colour
>> white? alb, gãlb, spelb= white, yellow, pale( spelb=just about the
>> colour of the face when someone is sick and his face has a very pale
>> colour).For "white" there is clear no Latin word even if there is
>> "albus" in latin (see Alboca, Albocensii& co for getic space)
>
> Why isn't <albus> a "clear" term for 'white', in your opinion? It's a
> word with an IE etymology and a host of Latin derivatives, and I
> can't see what could prevent us from regarding it as a basic colour
> term in Latin (as opposed to such specialised adjectives as
> <candidus> 'shining-white' or poetic <ca:nus> 'greyish-white,
> hoary'). There was no shortage of words describing colours in Latin

Aaam, well, it seems I have not succeeded to say very clear what I
meant. I want to say that the word "alb" can be very well a word from
substrate. And for remembering why I see it so, I given the name of
Albocensii, Alboca names of Getic tribes and name of Getic city.. If you
will tell me that a name of a tribe doesn't mean that the language of
this tribe could have had the root "alb" for "white" in their language,
I will tell you that even today in Romanian are family name like "Albu",
which corresponds with the word for the colour "white".
Of course I have no Getic gloss for showing you this "black on white"
but I very doubt that in Thracian "alb" could mean something else as
"white".

>
> As for deriving <galbinus> etc. from <albus> -- well, you can't do
> that, but perhaps an earlier form (borrowed from Gaulish? cf.
> <gilvus>) was contaminated by <albus>
>
> Piotr
>
> Piotr

There have been just toughts for the similarity of the fonetical form
and the nuance of the colours.
A "spelb" is kinda white, white is "alb", yellow when very pale is too
kinda white. But this is too few for building something more on and it
can be there are just simple coincidences.:-(