Re: NATLANG: Colors

From: David Peterson

> Oh, I just remembered one.  One universal (and I'm pretty sure this is a
universal) is that a language will have
> *at most* 11 *basic* color terms (obviously, a language like English has
an infinite amount, since the class is
> open [i.e., if I say "Denver Nuggets blue", all you need to know is that
the Denver Nuggets is a basketball
> team, and that their logo and uniforms have a particular type of blue to
know the color I'm referring to], but it
> has only 11 *basic* color terms [I forget what the evidence for their
being basic was]).  There's apparently
> psychological evidence from Russian, though, to argue for Russian having
12 basic color terms, where one
> color (I don't know the words) refers to light blue, and another refers to
dark blue.  I don't know how they
> tested this (I mean, aside from the fact that the terms are
morphologically basic), but it apparently holds that
> neither of these blues is the more basic blue, and that these are just as
morphologically and cognitively basic
> as, say, red, black, yellow, white, etc.
The twelve color words in Russian are:

белый /b'eli/j/ "white"
чёрный /tS'orni\j/ "black"
красный /krasni\j/ "red"
зеленый /z'el'eni\j/ "green"
желтый /Zelti\j/ "yellow"
синый /s'ini\j/ "dark blue"
голубой /goluboj/ "light blue"
коричневый /kor'itSn'evi\j/ "brown"
серый /s'eri\j/ "gray"
розовый /rozovi\j/ "pink, rose"
оранжевый /oranZevi\j/ "orange"
фиолетовый /fiol'etovi\j/ "purple, violet"

Nine native, three borrowed. Two words that translate to "blue" in English.
I want all twelve of these for my conlangs. I also use these names for
twelve personality types in my philosophical theory.

Don't know how to say "Denver Nuggets blue" in Russian though.