Color words (was: Re: comments on the batch of lujvo etc. psoted thusfar)

[jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU]

Lojbab writes:
> blabi means "white", but when used to modify colors means what most people
> mean by "pale", i.e. light blue is a whitish-blue.  For a pale that is
> non-intense, the word is kandi, and blonde might be considered krekandi...

With color, brightness and saturation are different dimensions.
Bright means how much energy is coming in, as with day vs. night
or with white paint vs. black paint.  Saturation means how closely
the light is confined to one color (hue).  For example, at sea level
the daytime sky is bright but not saturated, having a lot of white
mixed with the blue.  On the other hand, many plant leaves are saturated
green, i.e. a lot more green than gray, but they are not particularly
bright.  (There are a few gray leaves and a few bright leaves too; also
non-green ones.)

I suggest that "bright" be removed as a keyword for {carmi} so that with
colors it refers only to saturation.  Then {no'e carmi} would be
"unsaturated" or "pastel".  {to'e manku} is inconvenient
but is better semantically for "bright".  {blabi} is a particular
color (zero saturation maximum brightness), and it's sloppy to use
it to mean "low saturation".

                -- jimc