Dear Brennus:
"Guinda" is not used as a colour in Spain but it makes sense. I would say "un coche de color guinda", and therefore un coche "guinda". The same as I would say "un coche de color rosa" and, therefore, un "coche rosa".
By the way, "rossus" gave "ros" in Catalan meaning "blonde" whilst red are both "roig" and "vermell". Both words are used in all Catalan dialects although they originally were two different "reds". "Vermell" is widely used though. As you know "vermilion" in English is a bright red. There are, of course, more colours now such as "Burdeos" (Spanishj) or "Bordeu" in Catalan named after the "Bordeaux" wine.
"Ruber" gave "rubio" in Spanish, meaning "blonde"
"Grana" (not "grano") would also be "granada" red from pomegranate.
Fruits oven give names to colours. Remember "cherry-red"...
How could ruber have derived words that meant red (rouge) and blonde (rubio) - seems like rouge should then either mean yellow or rubio then mean redhead.
Dear Jordi:
Thank you for the clarification of guinda, and for the additional information on Catalan color terms. I note that Vermell "red" is also shared by Portugueuese vermelho and it has come into English from Old French as vermillion. These types of words are called "isoglosses" in linguistics. You probably already know this. Thus French, Catalan and Portuguese share this isogloss. Most of the other Romance languages and dialects don't.
Dear Tiffany:
A few years ago I saw a Spanish language program featuring a picture of Diego de Velasquez's (1599-1660) portrait of the Infanta Maria. The narrator described her hair as "rubio" even though it was a reddish brown and not exactly blond. I think that rubio (blond in Spanish) covers a wider range of meaning in Spanish than it does in English and includes some hair colors that we would call "red, flaxen, sandy, auburn or chestnut" in English . Here, Jordi would know better than I do.
This gets into the area of Psycholinguistics and pscyholinguists (no they're not psychotic) study this phenomenon along with other things like whether or not a language has words for right and left; or north and south ; or whether their words for things like "love" and "friend" mean the same thing as the English words or have broader meanings and categories etc .
You are right. In Spain "rubio" is anything from brown air to very light hair. You must consider that there aren't as many "blondes" in Spain as in Northern Europe although studies state that over 20% of Spaniards are blondes and that surprises many Americans. The sense Americans give to the word "Spanish" is absolutely wrong in Spain. In Spain Spanish is only from Spain and people from Mexico aren't Spanish. That could also enter the field of psycolinguistics Brennus portrays so well. In some Spanish regions people tend do have more light hair and eyes, more to the north and the Eastern Mediterranean coast down to the Valencian coast.
It must be said that South America was settled coming from areas with "darker hair and eyes" (Andalusia, Extremadura and Castille) allthough I don't like generalisations.
Marrón (brown in Spanish) is quite a recent word coming from French "marrón". The traditional word for brown was "castaño" (walnut colour) The fact is "marron" can also means "walnut" in French. Remember "marron glacé". In local Catalan dialects "roig" means anything from brown to blonde, whilst in others it means "red" as in French.
When I was a kid everybody would have said in Spain here that I was "rubio" although I actually had very light brown hair and I now have brown hair.
Tiffany, I fully agree with Brennus regarding different perceptions in different latitudes and different cultures and genes.
Brown hair
although
Where's the editing button?
Funny the relations you see. Castagno (gn produces the same sound as castaño) means chestnut brown still in Italian and is often used to describe a light brown hair color. Marrone is also brown in Italian, so a person with chestnut brown hair has hair "di colore marrone castagno" but today, most people just say "castagno"