The Color Palette Vote!

Started by wm.annis, March 09, 2010, 11:46:36 AM

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Which color scheme do we send to Frommer?

abi's scheme
1 (4.8%)
`Eylan's second scheme
11 (52.4%)
Wm's scheme
9 (42.9%)
abi's scheme
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: March 11, 2010, 11:46:36 AM

roger

Well, the Na'vi should be able to see it thru tsaheylu even if not otherwise. And they spend a lot of time plugged in! So IR should go on the list, unless it's lumped in w red/orange.

Humans can see UV, by the way. It is evidently a very deep violet color to our eyes. We can't normally see it only because our lenses block it out. But in the early days of lens-replacement surgery for cataracts, they didn't dope the plastic lenses to block UV, and for those patients a haunted house illuminated w black lights looked brightly lit.

tsrräfkxätu

Quote from: roger on March 12, 2010, 04:31:04 PM
It would be nice to have a distinction between dark grue (ean) and light grue (cyan, turquoise), kinda like what Russian has, so that neither translates English 'blue' or 'green', but still lumping English red, orange, brown, and pink together. Wouldn't it be rather boring if Na'vi matched English? And complex systems like English tend to come in with a manufacturing economy and artificial dyes. In my grandmother's day, "orange" was not a color, it was a fruit. "Orangish" only entered the language ca. 1950. I have an old (but not that old!) color wheel for teaching color mixing in beginning painting classes: it has five named colors. What we call "orange" was "yellowish red". And before that, "pink" was a flower (now 'carnation'), "purple" was a dye, and "violet" another flower (and for many of us it still is, rather than a color). But it would be cool to have UV!

Yeah, OK, but brown? Can they not see the trees for the forest? And if their eyes are so accustomed to blue hues then they certainly can't call brown purple.
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roger

#22
You're think of putting purple in w red; I was thinking of putting it in ean. But lots of languages lack a word for brown. It's not whether they can see it, but whether it's notable enough to talk about. It may be that there are too many browns to have a specific word: it's either "warm colored" (red-orange-brown), or earth-color, mud-color, bark-color, tea-color, dried leaf-color, etc.

With neolithic societies, there isn't much need for color words anyway. You can just say "seze-colored", since abstract colors don't exist: colors are a property of the thing that has that color, and you can always use the name of that thing + "color". There is no "blue" apart from the thing that is blue, the way we have abstract shades of blue for mixing dyes and paints. Na'vi body paints are likely specific berries, muds, saps, insects, etc., and their color could just be the name of the thing they're made from, like "ocher" and "umber" in English.

tsrräfkxätu

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'itan Na'rìngyä

I don't get on the forums all that often, but I'd still love to see the idea of UV vision for the Na'vi make it into the language. IF we haven't sent color ideas to Frommer yet, would anyone be opposed to at least mentioning the idea of one or two near UV colors getting words of their own?

wm.annis

Just a note — Frommer has decided to rethink the color system.  "Yellow," "black" and "white" are probably safe as they are.

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Quote from: wm.annis on March 15, 2010, 03:58:19 PM
Just a note — Frommer has decided to rethink the color system.  "Yellow," "black" and "white" are probably safe as they are.

Yeah!

A lot of concepts in our every day life can be described in terms of other words. We have talked about this this frequently here, as in such cases as 'computer'  = fngapa eltu. However, color cannot be easily described in terms of other words, especially other color words, unless a sufficient number of them exist to allow for combinations. For instance, if I wanted to teach you what the color 'red' was, the only way I could do it is to hold up a red object, and call it 'red'. Now to the other person, that object might not be 'red' as we visualize it, (and I am assuming both parties here have reasonably 'normal' color vision) but after that demonstration, whatever color the red object is seen as, it is then interpreted to be 'red' as the demonstrator sees it.

If color terms are too broad (such as ean being anywhere from blue to green, it is really hard to pin down a specific color, or even a fairly narrow range of colors with that one word. Another way of stating this, is you cannot describe the color of an ean object in terms of ean. My suspicion is tha K. Pawl now is realizing this. So, if the Na`vi have any kind of reasonable (read 'tristimulus' or better, which the existing color words strongly imply) color vision, terms for 'blue to green'  and 'red to orange' are almost useless. This is why I suggested a relatively small range of terms that describes a selection of basic colors: red, orange, yellow, cyan (light blue-green, like the third bar of a color bar TV test signal), green, magenta(medium tone bluish red, like the 5th bar of color bars), blue, purple, brown, and for 'noncolors', black, gray and white. Virtually any color you can come up with can be described in terms of these primary and secondary colors, without resorting to a special term. If you add modifiers for 'light shade' and 'dark shade' to these you will get three times as many colors, for a small vocublaric price. (If you really think about it, our basic (English) color scheme is incorporated in a relatively few words, as well.) Pandora is a colorful world (especially at night!) and deserves a rich color-language. In any case, it is certainly better than saying '430 nm color'  ;)

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

NeotrekkerZ

I have to echo these sentiments.  With all the glorious visuals on Pandora, having ean mean blue and green is like being forced to watch the movie on a 2D screen in black and white.  This is a fantastic opportunity to really expand the intricacies of the language.
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

wm.annis

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on March 15, 2010, 08:51:30 PMSo, if the Na`vi have any kind of reasonable (read 'tristimulus' or better, which the existing color words strongly imply) color vision, terms for 'blue to green'  and 'red to orange' are almost useless.

They are not in even the smallest way useless.  They are completely adequate for peoples all over this planet.  Some people get by with a wopping two words for color, one for "black" and cool colors, one for "white" and the warm colors.  Some of these people live in jungles.  The ability to distinguish fine gradations in color has no relationship to how many words you have for it in your language.  When precision is needed, you can compare an object to a different object of a known color (which is how we got "pink").

I personally hope we don't just get a HSV system.

Keylstxatsmen

Quote from: NeotrekkerZ on March 15, 2010, 09:11:11 PM
I have to echo these sentiments.  With all the glorious visuals on Pandora, having ean mean blue and green is like being forced to watch the movie on a 2D screen in black and white.  This is a fantastic opportunity to really expand the intricacies of the language.

The Japanese call green traffic lights "blue", so it isn't THAT weird. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language

-Keyl
Oeru lì'fya leNa'vi prrte' leiu nìtxan! 

Txo nga new leskxawnga tawtutehu nìNa'vi pivängkxo, oeru 'upxaret fpe' ulte ngaru srungit tayìng oel.  Faylì'ut alor nume 'awsiteng ko!

NeotrekkerZ

That's interesting about the color differentiation, irayo.

I guess I just want more words :)
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

tsrräfkxätu

Quote from: wm.annis on March 15, 2010, 09:12:34 PM
Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on March 15, 2010, 08:51:30 PMSo, if the Na`vi have any kind of reasonable (read 'tristimulus' or better, which the existing color words strongly imply) color vision, terms for 'blue to green'  and 'red to orange' are almost useless.

They are not in even the smallest way useless.  They are completely adequate for peoples all over this planet.  Some people get by with a wopping two words for color, one for "black" and cool colors, one for "white" and the warm colors.  Some of these people live in jungles.  The ability to distinguish fine gradations in color has no relationship to how many words you have for it in your language.  When precision is needed, you can compare an object to a different object of a known color (which is how we got "pink").

I personally hope we don't just get a HSV system.

And I have to echo this. I know I whined about the lack of brown, but other than that I thought that the spectrum we previously had was perfectly fine. People have been asking for some UV colors, which makes sense, I guess, and I'd love to know how the Navi call brown, but I would definitely not want a one-to-one correspondence between whatever technical spectra and the Na'vi words.
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`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Quote from: Keylstxatsmen on March 15, 2010, 09:14:06 PM

The Japanese call green traffic lights "blue", so it isn't THAT weird. :)


Actually, not completely. for years, the green of green traffic lights was actually a blue-green. This was chosen so that people who are colorblind will be able to perceive a distinct 'signal' from a green traffic light. With LEDs, the green is a much more spectrally pure shade of green (perhaps 565 nm). So, they have either had to add a few blue LEDs (typical wavelength 470 nm) to the array, or they have determined that colorblind people are able to sense light of this wavelength.

The color sensors in our eyes are actually fairly broadband. The brain looks at the ratio of the output of each of the three types of color sensors, and the color we actually perceive is based on these ratios. This gives us a nearly infinite range of colors.

One thing I forgot in my haste of posting last night, that nearly everyone here agrees we need: A term for 'ultraviolet' as the Na`vi sees it.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

wm.annis

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on March 16, 2010, 03:35:33 PMOne thing I forgot in my haste of posting last night, that nearly everyone here agrees we need: A term for 'ultraviolet' as the Na`vi sees it.

Do they see ultraviolet?  Their atmosphere is very thick — most of it would get filtered out.  Vision more into the infrared seems to be more likely and useful.

roger

#34
Horses & banshees have four eyes, with the extra pair for infra-red, correct? So the Na'vi, even if they can't see this themselves, should be able to access it when plugged in. Wm makes a good point about UV; not only is the atmosphere thicker, but just because bioluminescence and Polyphemus are mostly shades of blue doesn't mean that there is therefore more UV color than here. Though a lot of animals on Earth can see UV, and I don't know that Pandora's 50% thicker atmosphere would necessarily filter out all that much more of it: that tends to depend on things like ozone, and their atmosphere is chemically significantly different from ours, so for all we know there is more UV than on Earth. (Plus their sun is brighter and therefore puts out more energy in the UV range.) But we know that they should have access to IR, and we don't know that about UV. (And even if they did, it might just be lumped in with ean, whereas IR is a distinct sense and therefore might not be lumped in with red-orange.) As for how useful IR would be, well, any extra info would presumably be useful, but Pandora does not seem to have the temperature extremes that Earth does. The mammals don't even have fur, which means that they do not suffer much from heat loss, which means they are not appreciably warmer than there environment. It seems quite possible that the Na'vi are not even appreciably warm blooded. (A large brain requires a stable body temp, but the temp of Pandora is already pretty stable, and warm-bloodedness is hugely expensive in calorie consumption.)

Tsu'roen

Since Pandora is largely covered with (rain)forest I'd say we need lots of shades of green.
Another important range is the blue spectrum as it appears that most of the bioluminescence is in that range. So we need lots of shades of blue too.
Also all other colors that may have importance for the Na'vi (colors of edible or poisonous fruits and plants).
Ultraviolet is a tricky issue as it isn't a color but a range of wavelength (shorter than violet) where each segment would be another distinct color. So we would need much more than just one name for UV bur a whole pallet. Also for the Na'vi (assuming they can see in the UV range) these would be totally normal colors and not something with with an "infra" or "ultra" in the name.
Many insect eyes (e.g. butterflies) can see in the near UV range and have markings that are invisible to the human eye.
"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much" ~ Dr. Grace Augustine

"You have a strong heart. No fear. But stupid!  Ignorant like a child!" ~ Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

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`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

If you look on the stem thread that resulted in this thread, http://forum.learnnavi.org/vocabulary-expansion/topic-colors/ there is a lot of discussion there about the ability to see UV. Thus, I and others have suggested UV as a possible 'color'. I perosnally don't care whether it is UV or IR that the Na`vi can see, just so long as there is a term for this invisible-to-us wavelength(s). The number of terms needed would depend on how much 'out of visible-to-us' light they can actually see. I would not expect that the UV end goes really far into UV, because electromagnetic radiation in that area of the electromagnetic spectrum starts to become 'ionizing', and therefore dangerous to life. But the IR end might go a lot further into the infrared because this a vast area of spectrum, and you are not experiencing any ionizing radiation there. The second, smaller eye makes sense, and it would be shallower, because infrared light is easier to 'bend' in optics.

Arguments for UV: At least one of the stars in their star system is bluer, and undoubtedly gives off more UV light. Also, their atmoisphere is denser, but not that much denser.

Arguments against UV: The thicker atmosphere would tend to absorb more UV. More importantly, the UV energy would break down the significant amount of hydrogen sulfide in their atmosphere. Since this gas is stable, it suggests they are getting less UV from their suns, or a layer in the upper atmosphere is effectively blocking it.

Arguments for IR: The fact that the extra eye has been identified 'for IR vision'. The temperature on Pandora probably does not avry much night and day, due to the abundance of CO2 and Xenon in the atmosphere. Thus, an ability to see IR would be an advantage, especially at night, whe lots of things are giving off heat. This also suggests that the higher animals there are actively warm-blooded. This also suggests that the forst 'glows' in infrared at night and may be fairly 'brightly lit'.

Arguments against IR: None that I can immediately think of.

As far as being warm-blooded goes, in a sufficiently warm climate, an animal (especially a large one) can have a high enough body temperature as a result of their environment that they are effectively warm-blooded. Much research suggests that the dinosaurs were like that. This same research also indicates that the food requirements of this kind of heat regulation system are less, and about 50 percent of the animals are expected to be carnivores (and about 50 percent of the dinosaurs are carnivores). Among truly warm-blooded animals, only about 10 percent are carnivores, because of the much higher energy flow to maintain this condition through the food chain. Since the Na`vi are seen hunting a great deal of the time, and prefer large prey species, this strongly suggests that they eat a lot of food, and are therefore actively warm-blooded.

In any case, I am planning to go see Avatar one last time sometime this week (almost did tonight), and plan to psay special attention to colors, and cues as to visual capabilities, etc. This will be the first time since beginning to learn Na`vi!

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Tsu'roen

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on March 17, 2010, 03:17:16 AM
...

Arguments for IR: The fact that the extra eye has been identified 'for IR vision'. The temperature on Pandora probably does not avry much night and day, due to the abundance of CO2 and Xenon in the atmosphere. Thus, an ability to see IR would be an advantage, especially at night, whe lots of things are giving off heat. This also suggests that the higher animals there are actively warm-blooded. This also suggests that the forst 'glows' in infrared at night and may be fairly 'brightly lit'.

Arguments against IR: None that I can immediately think of.

...

ASG page 56: "... most of Pandora's nights have some illumination ... ... there was little evolutionary pressure ... to develop night vision, echolocation, infrared sensors, or other methods of "seeing" in low light conditions."
"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much" ~ Dr. Grace Augustine

"You have a strong heart. No fear. But stupid!  Ignorant like a child!" ~ Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

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1x Special Ed. (1x IMAX 3D)

tsrräfkxätu

Quote from: roger on March 17, 2010, 02:11:46 AM
Horses & banshees have four eyes, with the extra pair for infra-red, correct? So the Na'vi, even if they can't see this themselves, should be able to access it when plugged in.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Na'vi - unable to see into IR range themselves for the lack of specific receptors - would not experience the fa'lis IR input as distinct IR colors, rather as (a maybe palette-shifted version of) standard sight. I'm not sure what happens if the brain cannot handle a specific stimulus it receives, but they could potentially "feel" IR in some very unexpected, synesthetic way.
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Na'rìghawnu

#39

QuoteI'm not sure what happens if the brain cannot handle a specific stimulus it receives,

The brain always handles the stimulus according to what kind of sense normally is transported by this neuron. Or, much more correctly: The stimuli transported by the neurons are always one and the same throughout the whole body (regardless of which origin they may have, optical, taste, touch etc.): electric signal "on" or electric signal "off". The brain only can distiguish an optical input from a taste-input or a touch-input, because the according signals arrive to the brain on different neurons. So, *if* a signal arrives on a neuron coming from the eye, it's interpreted by the brain as an optical input, regardless of what is it's true reason. That's why you "see dancing stars", in case someone hit's your eye. It's of course not an optical input, but since it arrives to your brain using the neuron, which normally sends signals caused by optical impression, the brain interprets the signals caused by the hitting also as optical input.

When the Na'vi are plugged to an animal, which can see also wavelenghts they don't perceive themselves, then the answer to the question "do they see it too / how do they see it", should depend on the way, which is used to transport the according signals to their brains.