Article published in:
Colour Studies: A broad spectrumEdited by Wendy Anderson, Carole P. Biggam, Carole Hough and Christian Kay
[Not in series 191] 2014
► pp. 3–28
Prehistoric colour semantics
A contradiction in terms
Although prehistory is, by definition, a time before written records, or from which no written records survive, and is also, of course, a time for which no native speakers are available, it is the contention of this chapter that a certain amount of information can, nevertheless, be gleaned about colour semantics. The chapter is primarily concerned with the earliest basic colour categories (BCCs) of the Indo-European languages, and the approach taken is to combine various techniques from more than one discipline and to see whether the results corroborate or contradict each other. Linguistic approaches include etymology, core concepts, the UE model, cognates and prototypes while supporting evidence is brought to bear from archaeology, anthropology, art history and the earliest Indo-European texts in Hittite and Vedic Sanskrit.
Published online: 26 November 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.191.01big
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.191.01big
References
Dictionaries
Burarra–Gun-nartpa Dictionary with English Finder List (BGD)
Chicago Hittite Dictionary (CHD)
Dictionary of Old English (DOE)
Indo-European lexicon: PIE etymon and IE reflexes
Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (IEW)
Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (IW)
Middle English Dictionary (MED)
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Sanskrit–English Dictionary (SED)
Non-dictionary references
Atkinson, Quentin D., and Russell D. Gray
2006 “How Old is the Indo-European Language Family? Illumination or More Moths to the Flame?” In Forster and Renfrew, 91–109.
Aujoulat, Norbert
Berlin, Brent, and Paul Kay
Berna, Francesco, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, James Brink, Sharon Holt, Marion Bamford, and Michael Chazan
Biggam, C.P.
2007 “The Ambiguity of Brightness (with Special Reference to Old English) and a New Model for Color Description in Semantics.” In Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling, ed. by Robert E. MacLaury, Galina V. Paramei, and Don Dedrick, 171–187. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

Biggam, C.P., and C.J. Kay
Bouckaert, Remco, Philippe Lemey, Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Alexander V. Alekseyenko, Alexei J. Drummond, Russell D. Gray, Marc A. Suchard, and Quentin D. Atkinson
Burke, Brendan
Ferring, Reid, Oriol Oms, Jordi Agusti, Francesco Berna, Medea Nioradze, Teona Shelia, Martha Tappen, Abesalom Vekua, David Zhvania, and David Lordkipanidze
Forster, Peter, and Colin Renfrew
Fortson, Benjamin W.
Gonda, Jan
Griffith, Ralph T.H.
Harrison, S.P.
2003 “On the Limits of the Comparative Method.” In Joseph and Janda 2003, 213–243.
Hopkins, Edward W.
Jackendoff, Ray
Jones, Rhys, and Betty Meehan
Joseph, Brian D., and Richard D. Janda
Kay, Paul
Kay, Paul, Brent Berlin, Luisa Maffi, William Merrifield, and Richard Cook
Kay, Paul, and Luisa Maffi
Liu, Hua, Franck Prugnolle, Andrea Manica, and François Balloux
Mallory, J.P., and D.Q. Adams
McMahon, April, and Robert McMahon
2006 “Why Linguists Don’t Do Dates: Evidence from Indo-European and Australian Languages.” In Forster and Renfrew, 153–160.
Mellars, Paul
Mithen, Steven
Müller, F. Max
Ringe, Don
Schick, Kathy, and Nicholas Toth
Shields, Kenneth
Swadesh, Morris
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 01 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.