F2F Class Notes (Raph)[R]

Vocabulary

Ember (n): 1- a piece of wood or coal, etc. that continues to burn after a fire has no more flames:
E.g.: We sat by the glowing embers of the fire.

Impeachment (n): 1- the action of formally accusing a public official of a serious offense in connection with their job:
E.g.: A resolution to be filed in the House of Representatives will call for his impeachment.

Terminology (n): 1- the system of terms belonging or peculiar to a science, art, or specialized subject; nomenclature
E.g.: He used some very complicated terminology, so I couldn’t understand his paper.

Caveat (n): 1- a warning to consider something before taking any more action, or a statement that limits a more general statement.
E.g.: He agreed to the interview, with the caveat that he could approve the final article.

Groundbreaking (adj): 1-  If something is groundbreaking, it is very new and a big change from other things of its type:
E.g.: His latest movie is interesting, but not groundbreaking.

Respondent (n): 1- a person who answers a request for information:
E.g.: In a recent opinion poll, a majority of respondents were against nuclear weapons.

Array (n): 1- a large group of things or people, especially one that is attractive or causes admiration or has been positioned in a particular way.
E.g.: There was a splendid array of food on the table.

Pronunciation

Caveat: /ˈkæv.i.æt/

The surprising pattern behind color names around the world
Why so many languages invented words for colors in the same order.

In 1969, two Berkeley researchers, Paul Kay and Brent Berlin, published a book on a pretty groundbreaking idea: Every culture in history invented words for colors in the exact same order.

They reached their conclusion based on a simple color identification test, where 20 respondents identified 330 colored chips by name. If a language had six words, they were always black, white, red, green, yellow, and blue. If it had four terms, they were always black, white, red, and then either green or yellow. If it had only three, they were always black, white, and red, and so on.

The theory was revolutionary, and it shaped our understanding of how color terminologies emerge. But the idea comes with a few caveats, since all languages do not treat colors the same way grammatically as English does.

In the Yele language of Papua New Guinea, for example, their five “basic color words” only cover shades of red, white, and black. Those words are reduplications of words that reference objects — so mtyemtye (red) literally translates as “parrot-parrot.” But the language also includes a broad array of non-reduplicated words for things like ash, bananas, and the sky that are used to describe color. Those kinds of words aren’t always acknowledged as “basic color words,” but leaving them out ignores the true scope of the language.

(Source: www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/16/15646500/color-pattern-language Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg)