adj.

a. gɛhέmoʰ tan triʰ ẓ̂áˁi žederíti wa-tóˀo tahímin neḳár ˁö́mor díˀʸho múgšem dímhɔn díki ẓ̂áˁi žederíti ˁámok žedéreʰ ḥemáḳeʰ díˀḥan wa-déžen di-ˀέˀɛfo ‘Two goats have come to us, light-brown and two-years old. When we were gathering up our goats to get them into the pen, my son asked: “Whose are these two light-brown goats, two-years old?” I said: “The really light-brown one is ours, the other is other people’s’ (CSOL III 14:16)

b. írḳaḥ dek sᵉkɛ di-sέrɛd di-boḳ ḥémaḳ ‘This really light-brown goat kid will be a gift to you’ (CSOL III 14:16)

c. íṭbaḳ hin bezóz mer-rénhem kúľľeʰ ṭeʸh min bezz ˁemέroʰ énhi díˀʸho ḥéľoʰ dífuḷ meʸh kɛn díˀiʰ ˁámoḳ hes ˁáfer ḥémaḳ ‘They sent us some dresses from abroad – a dress for each of us. My aunt asked me: “What color will yours be?” I said: “Deep red”’ (CSOL III 14:16)

d. ḳarére ˁággi díˀʸhi ḷe-ˁáṣar enkóˁoʰ arbaˁín ẓ̂aˁ ḳéṣ̌heʰ žedéreʰ fáḥre ḥemáḳeʰ ŝi aḷ-ḳéˁes íbšeʸh meskídoʰ ‘On the next day, at the time appointed them, the two men brought the forty young she-goats, unmistakably light-brown all of them, the bright ones, with no admixture of any other color, pregnant and close to giving birth’ (CSOL III 14:20)

According to our informants, the adjective ḥémaḳ expresses the intensity of a color expressed by another adjective – most typically, žédher ḥémaḳ ‘intense light-brown (goat)’: examples a, d. As one can infer from the following example, ḥémaḳ can sometimes be used alone (presumably with the same meaning as žédher ḥémaḳ): example b. Still another example suggests that ḥémaḳ can qualify colors other than žédher: c.

The informants tend to associate éma with Arabic γámiq ‘dark (color)’ (such as ‘dark-brown’ or ‘dark-blue’) (CSOL III 14:16)