A sárga és színtársai. A sárga-fekete, illetve a sárga-zöld jelentése
The Yellow and its Colour Associates. The Meaning of the Yellow-Black and the Yellow-Green

Summary/Abstract: According to culture-historical researches of colours, a given colour only obtains its cultural and symbolic meaning in relation to another colour. Through the example of yellow, I wish to illustrate that this relationship may be manifold. It may be based on symbolism as it is in the expression of the idea of „impurity” in associating yellow and black; and it may be grounded in perceptual psychological or cognitive processes as it is in the case of yellow and green – a trace of which can be detected in some archaic elements of Hungarian culture. The fact that both black and yellow once symbolized (among others) fi lth, is proved primarily by the ideas relating to bile liquid, in Hungarian epesár (‘bile mud’), the last syllable belonging to the semantic field of sár ‘yellow, swamp/mud, mucus’ etc. A close connection may be presumed among negative connotations of yellow/yellow-green (anger/wrath etc.), the antique views relating to the bile, and their survival in medicine up until modern times and 19th century popular/folk pathology. Medical conceptions regarding the so called ‘yellow’ and ‘black’ bile (sár ‘mud; bile secretion), on the other hand, may correctly be interpreted only on the basis of their symbolic relationship to impurity/ death – while true experiences for their association may only be evoked in the case of yellow. Beyond the views about ‘yellow’ and ‘black’ bile, the impurity of black and yellow could also be correlated with ideas about dirty ground: the (wet) sárga sár (‘yellow mud’) and the fekete föld (‘black soil’); and also with the fact that mud/soil are associated with the second and negative part of the pure/impure and up/down opposition pairs. A closer study of ideas about excrements brought out, however, that the pale yellow urine – as opposed to faces, and on the analogy of white wine – can also be brought into connection with the white colour, symbolizing purity, instead of the yellow.

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