In English it is “blue”, in German “blau” and in French it is “bleu”. But the ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for the colour at all. And in Russian there are two different ones. Our perception of the world is intrinsically tied to the terms we use to describe it. This is even more the case for visual phenomena like colours, where language plays an important role when it comes to how we interpret our surrounding world.
In the second of the two roundtable talks organised by Denkfabrik, linguist Malgorzata Fabiszak will discuss various colour terms, their linguistic history and sociolinguistic implications – in English but also throughout different languages. The audience is invited to join the discussion and investigate colour terms and their different meanings. We will shed light on how different speech communities make use of colour terms and explore their metaphorical and symbolic meanings in everyday language but also within poetic diction.
The discussion will be mainly in English but knowledge of any language is more than welcome to enrich our analysis of colour terms.
Event in the Blue Salon
The Blue Salon is a dedicated knowledge room within the exhibition Blue Times that functions symbiotically and further expands the exhibition into the field of cultural history. Based on the principles of a “Wunderkammer” [chamber of marvels or curiosity room] and a study room, a selection of objects from the natural sciences, handicraft practices and pop culture are presented in this space.