The color lexicon of American English

Lindsey, Delwin T.; Brown, Angela M.

doi:10.1167/14.2.17

Cited by 82 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Consistent with this view, Hadza society is technologically very simple, and the Hadzane data set shows only three high-frequency color terms. However, not necessarily predicted by that view, the Hadzane data set also contains a larger set of less common color terms that collectively name many of the color categories found in the WCS and in English [16]. These non-BWR terms are distributed across the idiolects of the members of the language community, rather than being fully represented within a single, unified lexicon.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This consensus builds through the interaction of multiple lexical representations that coexist across individuals within a culture [2]. Even in our English data set, the variety of terms deployed for a small number samples (e.g., mustard, magenta) suggest a distributed and perhaps evolving color lexicon for samples at the boundaries of well-established categories [16]. Interestingly, there is some evidence in our data that close familial contact influences Hadza color idiolect: The frequency with which an individual used DK was related to their spouse’s frequency of DK, but not to the frequencies of DK of other camp members.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hunter-Gatherer Color Naming Provides New Insight into the Evolution of Color Terms

et al. 2015

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SUMMARY Most people name the myriad colors in the environment using between two and about a dozen color terms [1], with great variation within and between languages [2]. Investigators generally agree that color lexicons evolve from fewer terms to more terms, as technology advances and color communication becomes increasingly important [3]. However, little is understood about the color naming systems at the least technologically-advanced end of the continuum. The Hadza people of Tanzania are nomadic hunter-gatherers who live a subsistence lifestyle that was common before the advent of agriculture (see SM-I, [4]), suggesting that the Hadzane language should be at an early stage of color lexicon evolution. When Hadza, Somali, and U.S. informants named 23 color samples, Hadza informants named only the black, white and red samples with perfect consensus. Otherwise, they used low-consensus terms, or responded “don’t know”. However, even low-consensus color terms grouped test colors into lexical categories that aligned with those found in other world languages [5]. Furthermore, information-theoretic analysis showed that color communication efficiency within the Hadza, Somali, and U.S. language communities falls on the same continuum as other world languages. Thus, the structure of color categories is in place in Hadzane, even though words for many of the categories are not in general use. These results suggest that even very simple color lexicons include precursors of many color categories, but that these categories are initially represented in a diverse and distributed fashion.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunter-Gatherer Color Naming Provides New Insight into the Evolution of Color Terms

et al. 2015

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“…Recent attention has turned beyond the inner circle of BCTs, to terms in common but not universal use (which might potentially become basic if the need for colour communication within a culture places enough emphasis on specificity) (Mylonas & MacDonald 2016;Lindsey & Brown 2014;Jraissati et al 2012). Turquoise and German türkis have been mentioned as a possible incipient BCT (Zollinger 1984).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Turquoise and German türkis have been mentioned as a possible incipient BCT (Zollinger 1984). However, a recent survey of American English (Lindsey & Brown 2014) found 'teal' to be the more common term for blue-green stimuli. The trend here, though with exceptions, was for 'turquoise' cognate terms to be linked with metallic sheens, suggesting that the concept is dominated by its non-chromatic aspects (perhaps emphasising the function of turquoise as a semi-precious component in jewellery).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Listing Data to Semantic Maps: Cross-Linguistic Commonalities in Cognitive Representation of Colour

Uusküla¹,

Bimler²

2016

FEJF

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When a free-listing task is used to elicit verbal concepts from a given semantic domain, it provides two indicators of the salience of each word for that linguistic community. These are the proportion of the subjects who include a word in their lists, and its average ranking priority position across the lists. The data also contain cues about the cognitive representation of the semantic domain, and in particular about the conceptual closeness among words. Closely associated words tend to prime each other and to appear in the lists in close succession. Clusters of mutually associated terms can be recognised, listed in one another's company, although with different priority for different subjects. We applied this approach to the domain of colour terms, converting lists for fourteen European languages into matrices of inter-term similarity, for analysis with multidimensional scaling (MDS) and hierarchical clustering. Two-dimensional MDS solutions or 'maps' were typically required to reflect two competing criteria by which terms were sequenced. Speakers of each language tended to follow a salience gradient, but also made separate clusters of fully-chromatic concepts -colour terms in strictu sensu -and unsaturated or desaturated concepts defined primarily by lightness rather than by hue. This and other features recurred across the languages despite their geographical and phylogenetic diversity, as cross-cultural universals in colour language, in addition to the well-known regularities governing basic colour terms and the stages of colour-lexicon development.

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“…Much of the modern work on color and language [22][23][24] has been inspired by the seminal work of Berlin and Kay [25] about the basic color terms (BCTs). These terms are monolexemic, known and used by all members of the language community and can be used to communicate about the color of any type of object.…”

Section: Color Naming Models In Dichromatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colorimetry and Dichromatic Vision

Moreira¹,

Álvaro²,

Melnikova³

et al. 2018

Colorimetry and Image Processing

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Normal trichromats have three types of cone photoreceptors: L, M, and S cones (most sensitive to long, medium, or short wavelengths, respectively). Therefore, standard colorimetry is based on three variables (X, Y, Z). Dichromats only have two types of functional cones due to genetic factors. The main consequences are that dichromats (1) confuse colors that can only be discriminated by the response of the type of cone they lack and (2) make errors when naming colors. Chromaticity diagrams can be used to specify dichromats' color confusions. Confusion points represent imaginary stimuli that only activate L, M, or S cones. Confusion lines radiate from confusion points and represent pseudoisochromatic stimuli (i.e., colors confused by the corresponding type of dichromat if presented at an appropriate intensity). Dichromat's color appearance models have been developed to simulate the colors supposedly seen by dichromats, and there exist color simulation tools that implement some of those models.

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The color lexicon of American English

Cited by 82 publications

References 56 publications

Hunter-Gatherer Color Naming Provides New Insight into the Evolution of Color Terms

Hunter-Gatherer Color Naming Provides New Insight into the Evolution of Color Terms

From Listing Data to Semantic Maps: Cross-Linguistic Commonalities in Cognitive Representation of Colour

Colorimetry and Dichromatic Vision

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