Re: [tied] Yellow as an PIE word

>It might be said, at best, that the semantics of *g^Hel- was such that the
>root was frequently employed for naming green, yellow or orange stuffs and
>objects (the yolk of an egg, bile, gold, various plants, etc.) in
>historically known languages. It's a far shot from establishing its PIE
>meaning as 'greenish-yellow' or the like. "Red" might a special case, since
>reflexes of *h1reudH- and its derivatives mean _precisely_ 'red'[...]

But this only relates to what has already been said on this list about
the tendency in colour systems in world languages where if there are three
colours in a language, they are typically "dark-coloured", "light-coloured"
and "red". Given the usual semantic outcomes of *gHel-, I'd say that it
sides most clearly with "light-coloured". So perhaps *this* should be the
meaning assigned.


- gLeN


_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail