THE COLORS OF LETTERS. 369 



1 and (zero) agree with. I and 0, 2 is red, 3, 6, and 9 more or less 

 greenish, 4 and 5 bluish, following the letter V, 7 orange, and 8 light 

 yellow. I have also tried the Greek alphabet, with a view to 

 testing its possible color associations. I .find, however, that I can 

 not separate these letters from their Latin cognates. Theta seems 

 to me as greenish as tau ; chi (X) vacillates between C and X, and 

 psi (i/0 is like the ps of which it is composed. 



I have also made attempts to find the color relations in the 

 Chinese alphabet, but without much success. I have no childish- 

 associations with these letters, and I can imagine color only in those 

 which in some way suggest by their form the letters in the Latin 

 alphabet. Thus 3> (tree) seems greenish like T, and $ (woman) 

 seems to follow Z or X. 



I find that with other persons who confess to similar color asso- 

 ciations there is a decided lack of agreement as to the impressions 

 produced by most of the different letters. 



My friend, Prof. Edward Spencer, has given me a chromatic 

 alphabet, arranged as follows : 



Shining black, I, E, H, R, T, Chocolate, G. 



1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9. Light gray, O, N", X, 5. 



Dull black, F, J, K. Pale, D, Z, V. 



Brown, B, M, Q, W. White, O. 



Golden, C, 8. Water-color, U, Y. 



Orange, S. Without color, L, P. 



In this category the letters for the most part represent grada- 

 tions from jet-black to white. We may, however, trace some re- 

 lation between the supposed colors and either the forms or the 

 sounds of the letters. Except in the color of the vowels I, O, U, 

 and the isolated and emphatic position of S, there is little in com- 

 mon with the list above given by me. 



In my own case, although I have no recollections to justify the 

 theory, I feel sure that these associations are due to the bringing 

 together of a childish classification of letters, with childish cate- 

 gories of color. I was, more than most children, interested in the 

 individuality of the letters. I liked to assort them, to play with 

 them, and transpose them to form other words. In like manner I 

 was interested in colors. I had a childish liking for blue above 

 the other colors, as also a meaningless preference for V and D 

 over the other letters. I can, therefore, see how V and D should be 

 associated with blueness. Other letters of pronounced qualities, 

 as R, L, X, Z, came to head other categories, and the letters which. 

 I regarded as indifferent took their places next to those which in 

 form or sound or otherwise appeared to the child similar to these. 



Dr. Gustaf Karsten, of the University of Indiana, a philologist 

 interested from boyhood in phonetics, recognizes color in the vari- 

 ous vowel sounds, but none in the letters themselves. Thus a (in 



TOL. XXXIX. 26 



