The book examines the peculiarity of the Hungarian language - rare even in international comparison - that it has two important names for the color red. Red and red may seem like color names with similar significance, but according to the conclusion of the research, they were never, and even today, expressions of the red color class existing in our thinking. During his ethnographic fieldwork with color samples, the author found that either one or the other is generally and consistently used to denote the uniform red category. Moreover, through his investigations of the historical text material (focusing on the words burgundy, reddish, red, etc. in addition to red and bloody/red), he convincingly proves that this was also the case in the past: the two color names in question are historically interchangeable. Veres/vörös once played exactly the same role in our language as red does today, the exchange of roles between the two took place roughly in the middle/end of the 19th century. Delving into the rather complicated issues of the past and present meanings of red and veres/vörös, the author it also introduces us to the history of pink. More precisely, with the process by which this now independent color became an independent color category with its own symbolic image from a modest small shade of the red category, which includes many shades of red. It also shows what color names our language has used since modern times to express the tones belonging to the pink-red color field. We are certainly surprised by the discovery - explained in detail in the book - that the original meaning of our word red (at least in terms of part of its visual semantics) is difficult to separate from pink, just as it is not from rose flower, dawn, face, or even crimson.

L'Harmattan For Rent
Social science
480 pages
Binding: hardcover
ISBN: 9789634147060
Author: Beáta Bálizs
Release year: 2021