>From: Ed Heil <edheil@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
>Subject: Color Terms
>Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:44:57 -0600
>
>See this web site:
>
>
http://www.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/colornaming/diss/section2.7.2.html
>
>for some info on classic work on color terms, which was conducted by
>showing speakers of different languages a wilde variety of color chips
>and asking them to choose the ones that are representative of the
>basic color terms in their languages.
>
>It seems that there are eleven basic focal colors that humans all
>consider independent and perceptually salient. Even when a language
>has a term that covers more than one of these colors, e.g. a term
>which includes blue and green, speakers of that language do *not* tend
>to choose a blue-green color as a good representative of that term; on
>the contrary they choose a blue or a green; and not just any blue or
>green, but the exact blue or green that a speaker of English or French
>would call "blue" or "bleu" or "green" or "vert"!
>
>So there are certain "built in" color foci in human vision, and
>languages may or may not have individual names for all of them (and
>may or may not also have non-basic color terms, which cover particular
>shades or sub-categories of the "basic" ones).
>
>Er, read the article. It's really classic work, and it's written up
>better than I could explain it and it shows the color chips.
>
>
>Ed Heil ------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net