Cultural unit white – prototype terms

Abstract

Abstract The article focuses on the Hebrew prototypes terms (PTs) of white in the Old Testament – light, milk, and snow. The aim is to explore the worldview of Hebrew to reveal the original messages of the Bible. The translation is an essential tool that shows which translation elements (the word and its root derivatives) are symmetrical, asymmetric, and dissymmetric to Hebrew due to the different worldviews of languages. The method is interdisciplinary and includes several theories and approaches. Original is Almalech’s methodology for tracking all verbal options to signify color: Basic color term (BCT), prototype term (PT), rival terms to prototype (RT), and terms for the basic feature of the prototype (TBFP). Semiotic osmosis is also an original element of Almalech’s methodology and has a place in the study of colors in the Bible. The phenomenon is observed when Hebrew PT is translated with the BCT, Hebrew TBFP is translated with BCT in the Indo-European language, e.g., darkness is translated with black, fresh is translated with green. In the case of light, semiotic osmosis is when a quality of light is perceived as synonymous with light, e.g., brilliance is synonymous with light in Hebrew, English, Bulgarian, and other languages. The importance of light in religious systems, regional culture, and natural features are taken into account. Almalech’s semiotic approach to color, i.e., treating them as a sign communication system, involves the insisting that a distinction must be made between verbal and visual color because of their different potential to have primary and secondary (figurative and cultural) meanings. The substance of the language sign (sound is a mechanical wave) is physically different from the visual sign (electromagnetic wave). Almalech considered prototypes to be the cognitive interface between verbal and visual colors. Therefore, semiotically understood, color is a cultural unit that contains verbal and visual colors, complemented by social, religious, and folkloric use of primary and secondary color meanings.