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Re: Purple
Why would any language need a slang word for purple? Does purple mean something more than just a blend of blue and red? And are there other colour words in German with nicknames?Deborah, fascinated in South Africa
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Well in Germany the formal Word for Purple is VEE-O-LET or LEE-LAH.
But if you go to the deep West like Westphalia they call it LIL`AH.
Don´t ask me why, its a dialect :-)
Yeah even the Colour black has another Word.
Formal its SHVAHRTZ and in the deep West they say SHVAHTT.
Its not easy to write the pronounciation *g*
Of course there are many different words except for colours, but in that case I thought its important for the Name Lilla cos if anyone calls Lilla, everybody in Germany would think of the colour :-)
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I don't know in German,but in Spanish and in Catalan, violeta (Violett), lila and púrpura/porpra (Purpur, the cognate with the English purple) are three different colours (plus other as malva, for example). They are in the same spectrum because include red and blue, but the amounts differ.
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If you took a group of Germans and a number of color samples, it would certainly be hard to get them to agree on all of them, especially what each of them would consider "Lila" and "Violett". But I think it is the idea, the intention, the "world model" so to speak, that counts: Lila, Violett and Purpur are three separate colors in the minds of most speakers of Germans.So, many people problaby could not agree what's what, but I don't think that they see those words as mere synonyms, words that you could delete from the language without loss of power of expression.The entry for "Violett" in the German Wikipedia shows some color samples:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violett
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Thank you, ReneThat was what I have in mind, because it is the same in Spanish and in Catalan. It is not a "problem" of standard language vs. slang language but a problem of poor vocabulary and/or laziness in some speakers (a common situation in all languages).

This message was edited 6/13/2008, 12:12 AM

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If you ask someone in Germany the most People don´t make a difference between.
Maybe if they work with colours ;-)
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For example search in Picture Search Google Germany.
Search for "Violett" and search for "Lila".
You´ll find the same colours.
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But this talk is totally OT I think its not Important to a Person who wants to call her/his child Lilla if its a darker or a lighter Purple or if Purple is the same as violet or maybe a lil lighter in other Countrys :-) Don´t ya think?
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