November 24, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



681 



rowed Spanish terms. I found siga^ meserum, 

 mahosag, maitum, mapula and madarag were 

 fixed words for light, darkness, white, black, 

 red and yellow, respectively. I tried all 

 methods suggested to find pure Yisayan words 

 designating the colors of more rapid rates of 

 oscillations. All classes of the people were 

 consulted, but no such words were brought to 

 light. 



The most comprehensive dictionary of the 

 Visayan as spoken by the people of Leyte 

 is the large ' Diccionario Hispanio-Bisaya ; 

 Bisaya-Hispanio,' by E. P. Fr. Antonio 

 Sanchez. From it the following was taken : 



Here we see given four Visayan words for 

 green. None of these, however, is actually 

 used by the natives for designating green. So 

 we turned to the Bisaya-Hispanio part of the 

 dictionary and found the following: 



It will be seen here that all the words used 

 for the definition of the Spanish verde express 

 rather the general condition common to 

 things not dried, things unripe and the gen- 

 eral appearance of the grass, fields and forests 

 — lunhao excepted. For six months I carried 

 lunhao about with me. I could find but one 

 man to recognize this word. El Capitan 

 Louis Cordero, an intelligent citizen of 

 Buraiien, explained to me that it did not ex- 

 press the idea of verde or green, but that it 

 also had reference to an uncured state. He 

 gave as an example the condition of nipa 

 thatching before it was completely dried and 

 ready for use. Lunhao, therefore, is an ex- 

 ceedingly doubtful word by which to express 

 the idea of green. In fact my efforts led me 



to conclude that it does not have any such 

 meaning. But be that as it may it is quite 

 a suggestive fact that so much vagueness hangs 

 about the idea of green as expressed in truly 

 Visayan words. 



And when we come to the color next 

 higher in the scale of the spectrum we find 

 no Visayan word whatever given for it. The 

 dictionaries give the Spanish azul modified 

 into asul. And this is the only word the 

 natives use. For violet and other colors noth- 

 ing but pure Spanish words are used. So far 

 as the present dialect is concerned we are led 

 to infer that until the Spaniards came the 

 Visayans had no ideas of green, blue and 

 violet, which demanded words for their ex- 

 pression. 



But not satisfied with these observations, I 

 turned to the children of the island. Children, 

 of course, can not be expected to handle colors 

 as well as adults. But with this caution in 

 mind some results were obtained which, be- 

 cause of their lack of variation are of consid- 

 erable interest. 



In speaking with the American teachers I 

 learned that they experienced difficultj^' in 

 getting the children to recognize colors. Mr. 

 B. II. Sullivan, an American teacher at Da- 

 gami, pointed out to me the fact that ' the 

 ladies nearly always wear red and yellow. 

 When they do wear dark blue they call it 

 black. Their light blue skirts they call green.' 



On February 15, 1902, a purple kite sailed 

 by my window. This a boy servant, twelve 

 years old, pronounced de cafe — ^brown. Later 

 he called the same kite red. On March 27, 

 1902, another servant, seventeen years old, 

 bought a pair of purple slippers, which he 

 said were brown. 



On March 14, 1902, while I was sitting with 

 Mr. Sullivan, six little girls came into his 

 room. They were, about nine years old. 

 These little girls had never seen the green 

 hyloplate writing boards which the educational 

 department had recently sent. The girls were 

 soon before them eagerly disputing their color, 

 for they had expected writing boards to be 

 black. Were they green, blue or black was a 

 difficult question for them. After much dis- 



