lpetrich
Contributor
In 1969, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay published Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, where they described research into different languages' color terms, and their conclusion that we acquire color vocabulary in a very definite sequence. They confined themselves to generic terms for colors. This work has been expanded on and revised:
Here are the results. I will abbreviate the color names W: white, R: red, Y: yellow, G: green, Bu: blue, Bk: black.
The researchers' informants were asked to point out the central or prototypical colors of each of their color terms, and their identifications were remarkably consistent.
So color vocabulary is some function of color perception.
- Universality of Color Categorization by Paul Kay
- The Typology of Color Terms
- Blutner: Color Words and Color Categorization
- WALS Online - Chapter Number of Basic Colour Categories
- The surprising pattern behind color names around the world - YouTube -- a nice video
- Compounds: lemon-colored, blue-green
- Colors contained in other color definitions: crimson and scarlet as kinds of red
- Narrowly-applied colors: blond
- Those that are not psychologically salient: crimson, scarlet, bluish, ...
Here are the results. I will abbreviate the color names W: white, R: red, Y: yellow, G: green, Bu: blue, Bk: black.
- (light, warm) W-R-Y . (dark, cool) G-Bu-Bk
- W . R-Y . G-Bu-Bk
- W . R . Y . G-Bu-Bk ___ W . R-Y . G-Bu . Bk ___ W . R . Y-G-Bu . Bk
- W . R . Y . G . Bu-Bk ___ W . R . Y . G-Bu . Bk ___ W . R . Y-G . Bu . Bk
- W . R . Y . G . Bu . Bk
The researchers' informants were asked to point out the central or prototypical colors of each of their color terms, and their identifications were remarkably consistent.
So color vocabulary is some function of color perception.