In the constructed language community, color argument refers to an often-repeated argument that an international auxiliary language based on the languages of one area is only suitable for the inhabitants of that area. Whether or not it is true is often a subject of heated debate.
The term itself comes from the phrase "as European as the color green", which was used in the defense of Esperanto during the early nineties on a constructed language mailing list. The intention was to note that Esperanto's vocabulary list, despite being of European origins, describe ideas and necessary concepts found everywhere, regardless of linguistic background. The phrase eventually changed into "as biased as the color green," and stuck. (See distinguishing blue from green in language.)
Nowadays, the term color argument is used to describe a discussion about constructed languages which centers solely on the sources of the vocabulary and/or grammar, as opposed to any other merits or flaws of the language.
Famous quotes containing the words color and/or argument:
“Since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A striking feature of moral and political argument in the modern world is the extent to which it is innovators, radicals, and revolutionaries who revive old doctrines, while their conservative and reactionary opponents are the inventors of new ones.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)