Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution
Encyclopedia
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 kinds of basic color terms a culture has, such as black
, brown
or red
, are predictable by the number of color terms the culture has.
Berlin and Kay posit seven levels in which cultures fall, with Stage I language
s having only the colors black (dark–cool) and white (light–warm). Languages in Stage VII have eight or more basic color terms. This includes English
, which has eleven basic color terms. The authors theorize that as languages evolve, they acquire new basic color terms in a strict chronological sequence; if a basic color term is found in a language, then the colors of all earlier stages should also be present. The sequence is as follows:
The work has achieved widespread influence. However, the constraints in color-term ordering have been substantially loosened, both by Berlin and Kay in later publications, and by various critics. Barbara Saunders questioned the methodologies of data collection and the cultural assumptions underpinning the research, as has Stephen C. Levinson
.
Brent Berlin
Overton Brent Berlin is an American anthropologist, most noted for his work with linguist Paul Kay on color, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution .He originally received his Ph.D...
and Paul Kay
Paul Kay
Paul Kay is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. He joined the University in 1966 as a member of the Department of Anthropology, transferring to the Department of Linguistics in 1982 and now working at the International Computer Science...
. Berlin and Kay's work proposed that the kinds of basic color terms a culture has, such as black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
, brown
Brown
Brown is a color term, denoting a range of composite colors produced by a mixture of orange, red, rose, or yellow with black or gray. The term is from Old English brún, in origin for any dusky or dark shade of color....
or red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
, are predictable by the number of color terms the culture has.
Berlin and Kay posit seven levels in which cultures fall, with Stage I language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s having only the colors black (dark–cool) and white (light–warm). Languages in Stage VII have eight or more basic color terms. This includes English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, which has eleven basic color terms. The authors theorize that as languages evolve, they acquire new basic color terms in a strict chronological sequence; if a basic color term is found in a language, then the colors of all earlier stages should also be present. The sequence is as follows:
- Stage I: Dark-cool and light-warm (this covers a larger set of colors than English "black" and "white".)
- Stage II: Red
- Stage III: Either green or yellow
- Stage IV: Both green and yellow
- Stage V: Blue
- Stage VI: Brown
- Stage VII: Purple, pink, orange, or grey
The work has achieved widespread influence. However, the constraints in color-term ordering have been substantially loosened, both by Berlin and Kay in later publications, and by various critics. Barbara Saunders questioned the methodologies of data collection and the cultural assumptions underpinning the research, as has Stephen C. Levinson
Stephen C. Levinson
Stephen C. Levinson is one of the scientific directors of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He received a BA in Archaeology and Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and received a PhD in Linguistic Anthropology from the University of...
.
See also
- Linguistic relativity and the color naming debateLinguistic relativity and the color naming debateLinguistic relativity stems from a question about the relationship between language and thought, about whether one's language determines the way one thinks. This question has given birth to a wide array of research within a variety of different disciplines, especially anthropology, cognitive...
- Distinguishing blue from green in languageDistinguishing blue from green in languageThe English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some languages do not. Of these, quite a number, mostly in Africa, do not distinguish blue from black either, while there are a handful of languages that do not distinguish blue from black but have a separate term for green...
Further reading
- Saunders, Barbara and Brakel, J. van (Jaap) (2002) The Trajectory of Color, Perspectives on Science - Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 2002, pp. 302-355
- Saunders, Barbara A. C. (1992) The Invention of Basic colour terms. Utrecht I.S.O.R.
- Newcomer, Peter and Faris, James (1971) Basic Color Terms, International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1971), pp. 270-275
- Kay, P. & McDaniel, K. (1978). The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms. Language, 54 (3): 610-646.
- Levinson, Stephen C. (2000). Yélî Dnye and the theory of basic color terms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10(1):3-55.
External links
- Revisiting Basic Color Terms, by Barbara Saunders. Paper presented to conference on ‘Anthropology and Psychology: The Legacy of the Torres Strait Expedition’, St. John’s College, Cambridge 10-12 August 1998.
- Chapter 133: Number of Basic Colour Categories, by Paul Kay and Luisa Maff, World Atlas for Language Structures Online.