logoalt Hacker News

CGamesPlaytoday at 3:45 AM7 repliesview on HN

Georgian is really interesting. Very few cognates for non-modern words. Colors in Georgian are fun: you don't have "brown", you have "coffee-color" (ყავისფერი / ყავის ფერი); you don't have "light blue", you have "sky-color" (ცისფერი / ცის ფერი).


Replies

selcukatoday at 5:53 AM

> you don't have "brown", you have "coffee-color"

It's coffee-colour (kahverengi) in Turkish as well, but I don't find it interesting. The English word "orange" is after a fruit as well (which is also the same in Turkish: "portakal rengi", or "turuncu").

lordgrenvilletoday at 7:46 AM

Sky-colour makes sense, but coffee drinking only goes back to the 15th century or so. Did Georgians not have a word for this colour before then?!

show 5 replies
cryptoegorophytoday at 4:58 AM

I believe polish is similar. They have “sky color” which is pretty cool!

cyberaxtoday at 4:08 AM

> "coffee-color"

The Russian word for "brown" is literally "cinnamon-colored" ("коричневый"). And the Chinese language just uses the literal "coffee-colored" phrase (咖啡色).

show 2 replies
inkyototoday at 4:42 AM

Colours are fun in many languages.

For instance, Japanese and Vietnamese do not differentiate between blue and green and require context specific clarification, e.g «traffic light blue-green».

show 3 replies
SanjayMehtatoday at 4:04 AM

There are several Hindi words for brown, my favourite is "Badami" - almond-like.

My grandfather used "laal" which is usually used for red. I used to wonder if he was colour blind.

ku-mantoday at 4:24 AM

[dead]