Language and Colour
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PetreMerabishviliLanguage and Colour
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PetreMerabishviliTHE DIVISION OF COLOURS IN LANGUAGES
The Division of Colours in Languages and the Effects on Colour Perception
The basic anatomy of the human eye suggests that humans should be able to see every colour
within the full spectrum of visible light. However, the languages do not reflect a spectrum of
colours, they have a set of basic categories and terms that most of the colours fall into. The
question of why there should be a name for orange and not yellow-green has bothered scientists
for a long time. The perception of colour appears to differ across cultures and languages but the
fundamental cause of this difference turns out to be linguistic rather than biological.
Before thorough research was conducted into the colour terms of different languages, it was
believed that cultures would choose random colours from the visible colour spectrum and give
them names. Many languages from the underdeveloped world did not have as many basic colour
terms as for example English. An African language Krahn, like several others such as Akan,
Yoruba, and Emai, has only three basic colour terms: 'black', 'white', and 'red', more accurately
translated as 'dark-cool', 'light', and 'bright-warm' (Bing, 1991). In contrast, English has 11 basic
colours and Russian has 12.
The absence of colour terms like blue was also noticed in the Greek Epic Poems the Iliad and
the Odyssey by a scholar William Gladstone. Homer, the author of these poems, described the
sea and the oxen with the word οἶνοψ, literally meaning “wine-looking”. The sky was also never
referred to as blue. Gladstone theorized that the Greek were colour-blind and had not developed
the ability to see colour beyond black (dark), white (light), red, yellow and green (Gladstone,
1858). The reason for this was that the colour terms in ancient Greek had not developed beyond
the fourth stage of the basic colour term sequence formulated by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay.
The theory developed by the Berkley researchers in 1969 states that the exact basic colour
terms can be predicted by the total number of colour terms the language has. Berlin and Kay
THE DIVISION OF COLOURS IN LANGUAGES
developed a stage system, suggesting that as languages develop, they create terms for colours in
a certain order. If a language has 2 colour terms, they are always dark and light (these cover a
larger set of colours than just black and white). If it has 3 terms, the third one is always red. The
language then developed a term for either yellow or green. Blue was developed later in this
sequence which can explain why Homer never used the colour blue, but mentioned black 400
times, white 100 times, red fewer than 15 times, and yellow and green fewer than 10 times
(Loria, 2015). That puts Homer’s Greek at level 4 on the scale.
The colour blue is developed only on stage 5. This should not be the case because the sky and
the sea are blue, but a thorough examination of the environment shows that there are not many
plants and animals that have an innate blue colour. Blue pigment is very rare in nature and
animals and plants that are blue do not have a blue pigment. For example, the wings of the
Morpho butterfly are structurally blue. So are the peacock’s tail feathers and even human’s blue
eyes (Bengsch, 2018). Pigments of other colours are quite widespread in both the flora and
fauna, so it was easy for humans to create red, green, or yellow dyes with what was easily
accessible in nature. The first ancient civilization that created and used the blue dye was Egypt
and it is no coincidence that it also was the first ancient civilization to develop the term for the
colour blue (Brack, 2015). This suggests that naming and discrimination of colours might be
connected to the accessibility and prevalence of the colour in nature.
The effect of the culture and the environment on developing terms for basic colours is
apparent. In addition, the effect of linguistic colour on the cognitive perception of colour is also
very substantial. This “reverse” effect has been studied in a series of experiments known as the
Himba colour experiment. The experiment was meant to test the theory that people are better at
identifying a certain colour if their language has a term for it. The Himba people, who do not
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have a linguistic differentiation of green and blue, were asked to identify the blue square among
several green ones. The time and accuracy of their performance were very similar to the time and
accuracy when they were asked to identify a square with a darker shade of green among other
green squares. In the continuation of the study the Himba children, who were starting to learn the
language were asked to identify a different colour among the same ones. It was easier for the
Himba children to identify the colours that they had already learned the name for, regardless of
the absolute number of colour terms they knew. Children who had learnt more terms got the
same proportion of the colours they knew correct as those who knew few (Roberson, Davidoff,
Davies, & Shapiro, 2006). This research suggests that colour differentiation in the language
restructures the cognitive organization of colour that helps in identifying and discriminating
between different colours from the same or different categories.
Another experiment was conducted on native English and Russian speakers by MIT
researchers. The Russian language, unlike English, discriminates between lighter blue
(“goluboy”), and darker blue (“siniy”). The results of the experiment demonstrated that Russians
were faster at discriminating lighter and darker shades of blue from each other than
distinguishing different shades of blue from within the same category of “goluboy” or “siniy”. In
contrast, the native English speakers had no visible advantage in either of the category
(Winawer, et al., 2007). This experiment proves that the distinction between the colour terms in
the language positively affects the performance on these simple tasks of colour perception.
Languages evolve and develop over time and influence humans’ perception of reality,
including how they see colour. A simple linguistic division of colour into two colours can affect
a person’s ability to differentiate between them. The theory of basic colour terms states that the
THE DIVISION OF COLOURS IN LANGUAGES
hierarchy of these divisions is universal across all languages. It appears that despite many
differences between cultures and societies, humans still try to make sense of the world similarly.
THE DIVISION OF COLOURS IN LANGUAGES
References
Bengsch, D. (2018, March 09). How nature uses physics to create blue. Retrieved May 18, 2019,
from https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/how-nature-uses-physics-to-create-blue
Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic colour terms. University of California Press.
Bing, J. M. (1991). Colour Terms and Lexical Classes in Krahn/Wobé [Abstract]. Studies in African
Linguistics,22(3), 277-296. Retrieved May 14, 2019, from
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=english_fac_pubs.
Brack, P. (2015, October 02). Egyptian blue: More than just a colour. Retrieved May 16, 2019, from
https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/egyptian-blue-more-than-just-a-colour/9001.article
Gladstone, W. E. (1858). Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. Oxford University Press.
Loria, K. (2015, February 27). No one could describe the colour 'blue' until modern times. Retrieved
May 13, 2019, from https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-colour-
2015-2
Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I. R., & Shapiro, L. R. (2006). Colour categories and category
acquisition in Himba and English. Progress in Colour Studies,159-172.
doi:10.1075/z.pics2.14rob
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian
blues reveal effects of language on colour discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy
