Color and Texture in the Maya Language of Yucatan

• Published in: Anthropological linguistics Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 283 - 307
• Main Author: Bricker, Victoria R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington, IN Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University 01-10-1999; Indiana University, Anthropology Department
• Subjects: Adjectives; Colors; Descriptive studies and applied theories; Hair; Language; Lexicology; Linguistic anthropology; Linguistics; Maya; Mayan culture; Plant roots; Semantics; Tzotzil; Verbs; Vowels; Wool; Semantic relation; Anthropology; Compound word; Lexicology
• ISSN: 0003-5483; 1944-6527

The Maya language of Yucatan has only five basic color terms (?é&k' 'black', čak 'red, pink, orange, rust colored', k'áan 'yellow, orange', sak 'white', and yá?aš 'green'), but they appear in seventy-five compound stems that discriminate semantically among variables other than hue, including brightness, saturation, relative size and discreteness, opacity, and texture. A number of these stems are concerned with texture, as are many of the affect stems in this language, suggesting a semantic relationship between them. The same relationship between color compounds and affects is documented for Tzotzil, another Mayan language, for which there are almost one thousand color compounds.