Basic color term evolution in the light of ancient evidence from the Near East

Abstract

Ancient languages rely on concrete and specific meaning rather than abstraction, naming basic color categories differently than do the contemporary languages upon which Berlin and Kay base their universalist evolutionary theory. The ancient languages named red and blue with words transparently derived from precious stones; they applied these to more than one basic category; and they exchanged these traditions, and sometimes the terms. We find the evidence through interpretation of the same philological data used to support conclusions favorable to Berlin and Kay’s thesis. Superficially, the validity of Berlin and Kay’s thesis is thrown into doubt, as it would appear that it loses its “universal character” due to the neglect of the nuances visible in ancient languages: application of their hypothesis actually obscures the early evidence. Studying linguistic color expression of antiquity contributes to understanding color expression, thus improving overall insight into the evolution of color terminology.

Color terms in ancient Egyptian and Coptic

“…In his explanation of the Egyptian color terms, Warburton (2007) stresses the relation ship with the real world, but also including Berlin and Kay and the subsequent disc ussion, inc luding Baines. Ac c ording to his version, the anc ient Egyptian terms are really related to the c olors of spec ific materials, namely prec ious stones, from whic h the terms would be etymologic ally derived.…”

Anthropology of Color

“…In his explanation of the Egyptian color terms, Warburton (2007) stresses the relationship with the real world, but also including Berlin and Kay and the subsequent discussion, including Baines. According to his version, the ancient Egyptian terms are really related to the colors of specific materials, namely precious stones, from which the terms would be etymologically derived.…”

“…The origin of the principle is less the etymological link between the color terms and the object-names (which exists in at least two cases), so much as the hieroglyphic signs used as written symbols to write the color words: papyrus and green, flamingo and red, stone mace and white (coal for 'black' is an error). In contrast, deriving the abstract color words or BCTs from minerals, particularly semi-precious stones, as does Warburton (2007), is more adequate because such a link exists for the concrete color words or nonBCTs (Section 2 above).…”

“…'golden' is less common; 7. The dominance of 'lapis lazuli-colored, blue' was inadequately treated by and , due to their methodological premises (semantic field and B&K hypothesis), although recognized by the empiricists (Hermann 1969;, and recently explicitly formulated (Quirke 2001: 187;Warburton 2007). However, these latter go too far when concluding that Egyptian developed "a term translatable as blue before it develops a term translatable as yellow" (Quirke 2001: 187 Ancient languages rely on concrete and specific meaning rather than abstraction, naming basic color categories differently than do the contemporary languages upon which Berlin and Kay base their universalist evolutionary theory.…”

Mineralogical Code in Russian Color Names

“…Описанный механизм образования терминов цвета характерен не только для русского языка. Единицы из похожих семантических классов широко используются для образования терминов цвета также в английском [Casson, 1994;MacDonald et al, 2010;Matschi, 2004;, немецком [Jones, 2013;Stoeva-Holm, 2007], польском [Кульпина, 2001], украинском [Кудря, 2015], шведском , египетском [Warburton, 2007] и многих других языках. Однако в разных языках различные категории имеют неодинаковую популярность и распространенность.…”