Basic Color Terms

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Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution
Basic Color Terms Their Universality and Evolution.jpg
First edition
Author Brent Berlin and Paul Kay
LanguageEnglish
Genre Linguistics
Publisher University of California Press
Publication date
1969
Publication place Berkeley, California, USA
Media typePrint
Pages178
ISBN 1-57586-162-3
LC Class P341.B4

Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969; ISBN   1-57586-162-3) is a book by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay. Berlin and Kay's work proposed that the basic color terms in a culture, such as black, brown, or red, are predictable by the number of color terms the culture has. All cultures have terms for black/dark and white/bright. If a culture has three color terms, the third is red. If a culture has four, it has either yellow or green.

Contents

Berlin and Kay posit seven levels in which cultures fall, with Stage I languages having only the colors black (dark–cool) and white (light–warm). Languages in Stage VII have eight or more basic color terms. This includes English, which has eleven basic color terms. The authors theorize that as languages evolve, they acquire new basic color terms in a strict chronological sequence; if a basic color term is found in a language, then the colors of all earlier stages should also be present. The sequence is as follows:

The work has achieved widespread influence. However, the constraints in color-term ordering have been substantially loosened, both by Berlin and Kay in later publications and by various critics. Barbara Saunders questioned the methodologies of data collection and the cultural assumptions underpinning the research, [1] as has Stephen C. Levinson. [2]

See also

References

  1. Saunders, Barbara (2000). "Revisiting Basic Color Terms". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 6 (1): 81–99. ISSN   1359-0987.
  2. Levinson, Stephen C. (June 2000). "Yeli Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms". Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 10 (1): 3–55. doi:10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3. hdl: 11858/00-001M-0000-0013-2A6B-F . ISSN   1055-1360.

Further reading