Re: NATLANG: Colours
| From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, April 21, 2004, 21:00 |
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John Cowan wrote:
> The major deviation from these rules is that some languages don't
> discriminate between blue and green. Russian has two words for "blue"
> (corresponding psychologically to the English distinction between
> "red" and "pink").
Which is why I've seen "blue" placed equal to "green" and "yellow".
Thus, it would read
Languages with 4 basic color words have either "green", "yellow", or
"blue".
Languages with 5 basic color words have 2 of "green", "yellow", and
"blue"
Languages with 6 basic color words have "green", "yellow", and "blue"
(Japanese appears to have once been at the 4-color level, having only
white, black, red, blue, and then adding yellow as the fifth color)