how is emacs lisp syntax colored in emacs-lisp-mode?

[Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com>]

when coding elisp, lately i find myself using camelCase style for my
own function and variable names. Because i find that easier to
distinguish from built-in function/var/keywords.

on thinking about this, i thought it would not be necessary if emacs-
lisp-mode would just color all built in functions and variables.
However, the way it is syntax colored seems strange, unlike in most
major modes for langs where each class of keywords gets one color.

for example, these keywords would be colored purple by default:

 defun, lambda, while, if, progn, save-restriction, ...

while the following built-in keywords are uncolored (black):
narrow-to-region, mapc, goto-char, point-min, search-forward, car,
nil, replace-match ... etc.

is there a principle of how the keywords are colored?

thanks

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄