The Cultural Semantics of Color Naming Concept in Madurese (An Ethnolinguistics Perspective)

Abstract

Colour is not something meaningless for Madurese. Colour can represent the view of life and culture that is owned. Among the ten basic colours which are known by Madurese speakers, there are four striking colours which are identified with the Madurese; red, yellow, green, and blue. This study aims to describe the cultural meaning of colour naming concept in Madurese by using an ethnolinguistics approach. Data were obtained from in-dept-interview with informants and literature study. In the result, the striking colours have several colours classifications that are associated in five categories, namely object, plant, nature, limb, and brightness level. In addition, the colour classifications contain meanings that represent Madurese culture and the character of Madurese such as brave, firm, hardworking, religious, and close to nature. Thus, the colour naming concept has the certain message that can describe the user environment.