color categories

COLOR NAMES: LINGUISTIC AND COGNITIVE CATEGORIES

José Luis CAIVANO caivano@fadu.uba.ar

University of Buenos Airesand National Council for Research

Argentine Color Group

gwyrdd—————

green—————

blue glas—————

gray —————————— llwyd

brown

Linguistic and cognitive categorization in thedomain of color

Louis Hjelmslev:

lack of coincidence in the domains

covered by color names between

English and Welsh.

Umberto Eco: differences between Russian, Spanish, and Latin.

verde————————— glaucus, caerulus

golubej————— azul

sinij

[green]

[lightblue]

[darkblue]

Linguistic and cognitive categorization in thedomain of color

Similarities between Russian and the Spanish spoken in Argentina

golubej celeste————————————

sinij azul

[light blue]

[dark blue]

Linguistic and cognitive categorization in thedomain of color

basic color terms

instrument used to make the survey on color names:array of Munsell colors

Berlin & Kay – Mexican Spanish

Berlin & Kay – American English

Berlin & Kay – American English

Berlin & Kay – Mexican Spanish

BERLIN & KAY THESISBasic Color Terms. Their Universality and Evolution (1969)

2 terms [I stage] white and black (lightness - darkness) 7 languages in New Guinea + ngombé of Zaire, paliyan of India

3 terms [II stage] + red (1st color) 21 languages, some in Zaire: kikongo, lingala, swahili

4 terms [III stage] + green or yellowarunta, in Australia

5 terms [IV stage] + green + yellow18 american languages: hopi, navajo, apache, esquimo

6 terms [V stage] + blue 8 languages: mandarin (literary chinese), masai (Kenya), hausa (Niger)

7 terms [VI stage] + brownjavanese (Java)

11 terms [VII stage] + violet, pink, orange and graymost present languages in industrial and urban societies: French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

other studies on color categorization: Taft and Sivik; comparison between Swedish and Croatian

Robert MacLaury’s Mesoamerican

color survey

Association Internationale de la CouleurInternational Color AssociationInternationale Vereinigung für die Farbe

www.aic-color.org