Veres róka, vörös bársony, piros rózsa. A piros/vörös a magyar nyelvben és kultúrában

This book explores the problem of dual color terms, a question very much in the focus of international anthropological and linguistic scholarship. Hungarian language has two identical terms for naming one and the same red color: ‘piros’ and ‘vörös’. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with color samples in eight Hungarian settlements and extensive language-historical research in digital text corpora, the author comes to the conclusion that the parallel occurrence of these two terms goes back to historical reasons. According to written sources, originally ‘veres/vörös’ was the only generic term for ‘red’ until, in the 19th century, ‘piros’ has displaced it. Except for one dialect, that of the Moldavian “Csángó” in Roumania which still keeps ‘vörös/veres’ in its original position, present day Hungarian language has shifted over to the almost exclusive use of ‘piros’, a term that has the same role as ‘veres/vörös’ had earlier in denominating the whole category of red. However, ‘piros’ has also changed its content during past centuries as the author’s historical research focusing on the frequency and context of these color terms brought it to light. Its content has gradually shrunken, especially after the secession of the category of “pink” denominated originally by the terms of ‘rózsaszín’ [“color of the rose”] and ‘piros’ itself. ‘Piros’ had namely positive connotations and has been associated with concepts like “rose-flower”, “dawn”, “face/cheek”, “purple” and their color tone considered attractive.