What is the deal with Korean colors?

Question

What is the deal with Korean colors like red? I see words like 발갛다, 벌겋다, 빨갛다, and 뻘겋다, and I read in one like place that 발갛다 is a lighter red than 벌겋다, but what's with the tense forms?

Answer 1

This comes under Korean sound symbolism, which was more productive and more prevalent in Middle Korean (where vowel harmony was still rather strictly observed in the verbal system).

Thus we have a few "basic" colour adjectives / stative verbs, many of which are related to a root noun:

• 붉다, bukda "red", but was 븕다〮 (Yale: pùlk-tá) in Middle Korean, related to 불 bul "fire", which itself was 블〮 (Yale: púl) in Middle Korean.
• 누르다, nureuda "yellow", likely related to 눋다 nutda "to scorch" and 누룽지 nurungji
• 푸르다, pureuda "grue (i.e. blue, green, blue-green)", related to 풀 pul "grass".

The version with 음 eum vowels tend to be a duller, darker version of the colour, whereas the 양 yang vowels tend to be a brighter, more saturated version.

• 누렇다 (nureota, "to be dark yellow, like clay") vs 노랗다 (norata, "to be bright yellow, like a newborn chick")
• 허옇다 (heoyeota, "to be murky white, like a hoary beard") vs 하얗다 (hayata, "to be bright white, like a cloud")

Then you have intensive versions, generally where initial tense consonants denote a more intense form, and initial aspirated consonants the highest level. However, colour adjectives tend to only go for the initial tense consonant as the intensive form. Additionally, not all forms survive into modern Korean. Thus for "black":

• 검다 (geomda, "to be black", and the root of the noun 검은색) vs 감다 (gamda, "to close one's eyes")
• 거멓다 (geomeota, which is rarely used; I see 거먼 먼지 "black dust" and 거먼 갯벌 "black mudflat" as examples) vs 가맣다 (gamata, used for a 'brighter' black, but also figuratively for ignorance or distance)
• 꺼멓다 (kkeomeota, "to be sooty black") vs 까맣다 (kkamata, "to be pitch black")

These two "axes" (dark vs bright; intensity) are thus applied to the case with "red":

• 붉다 (bukda "to be red", including red hair, root of the noun 붉은색 "red") vs 밝다 (bakda, "to be bright") - note how the two senses develop out of 불 bul "fire"
• 벌겋다 (beolgeota, used of sunsets, inflamed eyes, and figuratively of a state of frenzy) vs 발갛다 (balgata, rarely used, although one source says it's of a lighter, earthier tone, towards orange)
• 뻘겋다 (ppeolgeota, a dark intense crimson colour, but also of criminal acts [think Biblical crimson] and of flesh, skin colour, often with an unpleasant connotation) vs 빨갛다 (ppalgata, the canonical, Platonic intense red of #FF0000, with its noun form 빨간색, conjuring images of red roses, strawberries, watermelons and the 2017 summer K-pop title track '빨간 맛'. It also gave rise to a separate irregular noun form, 빨강).

Whether there's a difference between 붉은색 머리가락 and 빨간색 머리가락, I doubt it would be robust for the majority of Korean speakers. But times (and fashions!) may change.

Then there's all the prefixes and other suffixes like 시뻘겋다 vs 새빨갛다, and hanja-eo forms, which are more commonly used for the other hues and shades, and in more technical settings (e.g. 홍색(紅色) and 적색(赤色) for red).