Филологические науки /Риторика и стилистика
Ахметова
А.Е.
Региональный
социально – инновационный университет, Казахстан
Colour symbolism in different cultures
Different colours have been surrounding and influencing
man throughout all the history of the mankind. The symbolism of colour in
common life is the most developed side of the issue which has found its expression
in numerous traditions, superstitions, rites and legends – for as we know from
time immemorial people tried to cognize and to explain things and phenomena
taking place around them.
The main colours
interpreted from this point of view are those most widely met in life: red,
black, white, yellow, blue, green. We shall touch upon different nations'
understandings of colours and see that sometimes the meaning of a colour
coincides for most nations, though in some eases the understandings of, one and
the same colour are not equivalent and they are even contrary with different
nations.
Red. Since the most ancient times people have showed special liking to the
red colour. In many languages the same word means for "red colour"
and "beautiful". The Polynesians' word "red" is a synonym
of the word "beloved". In China they call a sincere, honest person
"a red heart", while about a bad, mean person they say that his heart
is black.
Red is first of all associated, with blood and
fire. Its symbolic meanings are very diverse and contradictory: on one hand red
symbolizes joyness, beauty, love and completeness of life, but on the other
hand it is connected with hostility, revenge, war, aggressiveness and carnal
desires.
Red also symbolizes power and greatness. In
Vizantia it was only Queen who could wear red boots. The Emperor signed with
purple ink and sit on the purple throne.
White. White colour symbolizes
purity, virginity, virtue and joy. It is associated with day light and the
heavenly bodies, as well as with the
producing power which is embodied in milk and egg. Whitishness is connected
with the notion of everything evident, conventional, valid, true.
Vestal virgins of Ancient
Rome wore white dresses with purple endings and white veils. Since the
antiquity white colour has been having the meaning of estrangement from
everything secular and temporary and of aspiration for spiritual simplicity. In
Christianity white means the relation with the divine light: angels, saints and
pious are pictured in white. Vizantian writers spoke of the whiteness of the
truth.
Black. Black colour
symbolizes misfortune, mourning, grief, death of everything. Black is associated
with darkness and earth. It is the
embodiment of everything hidden, secret and unknown. Many people associate blackness with night which is in its turn
connected with evil and sorcery - "black magic" - for it is at night
that human life is most subject to any danger.
In ancient Mexico
during ritual human offerings priests’ faces and hands were painted black.
Black eyes are still considered dangerous, envious and evil. Most evil
literature characters are dressed in black (remember Black Man who had been
visiting Mozart, black hand from children’s terror stories, etc.). The English
call the depressed mood "black dog". The forcing of this colour is
characteristic of different magic texts: for example, a Lettish charm says, "A black man and a
black woman went along the road having black shoes, black stockings, black
clothes, black horse, black saddle, black bridle, black lash...
According to the
supposition of English ethnologist V. Terner, black colour, often meaning
death, faint, dream or darkness, is associated with the unconscious state, with
the experience of becoming clouded. In many societies white and red symbolize
life: when they are united in rituals, white is associated with masculinness
and peace, red – with femininity and war, but both colours mean conscious
activity and contrasted to blade personifying passive, unconscious state.
Yellow.Yellow is the colour of
gold that in old times was taken in as a hardened sun light. It is the colour
of autumn, of ripe harvest and fading leaves, but it is also the colour of
illness, death and the other world.
Women of many ages gave preference to yel1ow garments.
Quite often yellow colour was a distinctive feature of noble persons and higher
ranks. For instance Mongolian lamas wear yellow garments with red waistbands.
For some Asian peoples yellow colour is the colour
of mourning, grief and sorrow. According to Serbian charms illnesses are carried away by a yellow man, a yellow dog or a
yellow cock. In Europe a yellow or yellow-and-black flag meant “quarantine”, a
yellow cross – plague (note that the plague itself was called "black
death").
Blue. Blue is the colour of
the sea and the sky. It combines in itself a certain contradiction of agitation
and peace giving the feeling of cold and reminding of a shade. A blue surface
seems to move off the viewer, it carries the look into the depth.
For many people blue colour symbolizes heaven and
eternity. In Christianity it is associated with incomprehensible mysteries,
with the eternal divine truth
Green. Green is the colour of
grass and leaves. For many peoples it symbolized youth, hope and gaiety, but
sometimes it also meant immaturity and imperfectness. Green colour is utmost
material and has therefore rather a sedative influence, although it can also
produce a depressing effect (it’s not for nothing that in Russian the depressed
mood is called "тоска зеленая", or the English say "to become green with envy").
Literature:
1.
Berlin B. & Kay P. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality
and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1969
2.
Kay P., McDaniel Chad K. "The Linguistic Significance of Meanings
of Basic Color Terms".Language 54 (3), 1978. P.
610–646.
3.
Pitchford N. J. & Mullen K. T. The Developmental Acquisition of
Basic Colour Terms. In Pitchford, N.J. & Biggam, C.P. (Eds.), Progress in
Colour Studies: Volume II. Psychological Aspects (pp.
139–158). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006