Basic color terms
by Brent Berlin · first published 1969
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An in-depth analysis of basic color terms across languages: https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Color-Terms-Universality-Evolut... (Noting that different languages do have differing numbers of basic color terms.)
on “How many colours were there in a medieval rainbow?” ↗Add to that the idea that some cultures have fewer color terms than others. This actually impacts upon their perception of color. Check out "Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution" by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay.
on “What is a color space?” ↗…look brown to my eyes, not yellow. And similarly for referring to grass browning ( 變黃 ) in autumn, as to my English ear, I would not call the color of grass in autumn "yellow" but rather brown. The book Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Color-Terms-Universality-Evoluti... was originally published in 1969, and it set the agenda for subsequent…
on “How we gave colors names” ↗There's an old study claiming there's actually some logic in how the distinctions progress: "According to Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's 1969 study Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, distinct terms for brown, purple, pink, orange and grey will not emerge in a language until the language has made a distinction between green and blue. In their account…
on “How we gave colors names and it messed with our brains (part II)” ↗Some fellows named Berlin and Kay put forward a colour term development hypothesis/theory: > Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969; ISBN 1-57586-162-3) is a book by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay. Berlin and Kay's work proposed that the basic color terms in a culture, such as black, brown, or red,…
on “The sea was never blue (2017)” ↗See also: > Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969; ISBN 1-57586-162-3) is a book by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay. Berlin and Kay's work proposed that the basic color terms in a culture, such as black, brown, or red,…
on “A Winelike Sea” ↗…confusion. Finnish is a Nordic language, but not a Scandinavian language. If someone wants to appreciate differences in color perception, is it better to learn Scottish Gaelic or read Berlin and Kay's "Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution" or similar works since 1969? See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_i... for the differences in blue and green across many different languages.…
on “Lojban” ↗Yes, the book described in this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Unive... (which I read years ago) makes a case for a language-universal gradation of color terms in the spectrum of visible light, with some languages having few of the terms, and some languages…
on “What happens when a language has no numbers?” ↗