1/ colors in other cultures are fascinating the canonical example is Homer's "the wine dark sea" in The Illiad .https://twitter.com/d08890/status/1437385911294103560 …
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3/ It turns out that there's a general sequence at which cultures add color words. When a culture has just two colors, they are white / bright and black / dark. red is added next, IIRC green and blue typically are one color at first, and then split into two etc
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4/ I'm working on the outline for my next two novels right now, and while I'm concentrating on character arcs and plot points at the moment, I'll get into a constructed language (or two) for the uplifted dogs, and part of them is thinking deep about language and perception
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5/ human eyes have rod cells (which are sensitive in low light situations, but which do not discriminate on colors) and cones (which are less sensitive, but do discriminate on colors and come in 3 varieties - by default - see alsohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Humans …
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6/ Canis familiaris have more rods than humans, but only two types of cones ( blue-violet and yellow, as contrasted to our R, G, B).pic.twitter.com/S3Exj1YrJD
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7/ so getting back to how some cultures conflate specular effects with colors, given that dogs have a wide dynamic range of BRIGHTNESS but fewer colors, it seems plausible that they might load more linguistic freight onto the brightness aspect of their language
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8/ where we use colors a lot in metaphors (red letter day, scarlet letter, etc) intelligent dogs - at least ones without a trichromatic upgrade - (a) would never use the color terms red and orange literally, (b) might talk about "bright letter days", etc., >>>
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9/ (c) could, if their conlang had words for colors they can't see, repurpose those words for other purpose. Of course, since we're talking about perceptual space, we also need to address the fact that humans have ~ 5 M smell receptor cells while dogs have ~300 M
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10/ so it's not just that a "red letter day" might be a "bright letter day", but that it could perhaps be a "fresh cut grass day" ...or maybe there'd be a ton more nuance than that "fresh cut Timothy Grass with hints of clover after rain" day
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11/ the list of linguistic textbooks I'm using as I dig into a constructed language is pretty straightforward and about what you'd guess with a bit of googling, but I'm finding that wine making books are a very good tool for thinking about smells ; oneophiles have done much work
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12/ The novels only mention it a bit the prequel short story The Team gives more information https://www.amazon.com/Team-Aristillus-Travis-J-Corcoran/dp/1709959991/ … https://twitter.com/mattbramanti/status/1437390461925306372 …
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13/ also, there is a tiny tiny Easter egg buried in the early part of the 2nd novel, IIRC, where the flood of Earth refugees is arriving at Aristillus that suggests that the dogs are, through cutouts, trying to hire genetic engineers with expertise on eyespic.twitter.com/reDcv0VEIg
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15/ Aristillus 3 and 4 spoilers: the two phyles of dogs, which split after the Discord (off screen post book-2) call themselves Blues and Oranges.https://twitter.com/TheLumpenprole/status/1437387673119961094 …
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17/ also, obligatory shout out to "A Deepness in the Sky" where Vinge had a very quick passing reference to the Spider's having a color called "plaid" which packed so much into one word >>>https://twitter.com/pythonrocksnake/status/1437399518568398853 …
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18/ The implication, to my mind, was some sort of incomplete-sensor-fusion effect, off in the direction of human perceptions of "impossible" or "chimerical" colorshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color …
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19/ LOL, damnit, the "impossible color" wiki article references the Vinge book I mentioned!
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End of conversation
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