Have you ever wondered how colors get their names? Why do we call the sky blue and the grass green? How do different languages and cultures name colors? And what does our vision have to do with it?
In this blog post, we will explore some of the fascinating aspects of color naming, from the origins of color words to the patterns and variations across languages and cultures. We will also see how color naming is influenced by how our eyes work and how we perceive different wavelengths of light.
The Origins of Color Words
It is striking that English color words come from many sources. Some of the more exotic ones, like “vermilion” and “chartreuse,” were borrowed from French, and are named after the color of a particular item (a type of mercury and a liquor, respectively). But even our words “black” and “white” didn’t originate as color terms. “Black” comes from a word meaning “burnt,” and “white” comes from a word meaning “shining.”1
Color words vary a lot across the world. Most languages have between two and 11 basic color words. English, for example, has the full set of 11 basic colors: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, pink, gray, brown, orange and purple. In a 1999 survey by linguists Paul Kay and Luisa Maffi, languages were classified into eight stages based on how many basic color terms they have.1
In languages with fewer terms than this – such as the Alaskan language Yup’ik with its five terms – the range of a word expands. For example, for languages without a separate word for “orange,” hues that we’d call “orange” in English might be named by the same color that English speakers would call “red” or “yellow.” We can think of these terms as a system that together cover the visible spectrum, but where individual terms are centered on various parts of that spectrum.1
Does that mean that speakers of languages with fewer words for colors see less color? No, just as English speakers can see the difference between the “blue” of the sky and the “blue” of an M&M. Moreover, if language words limited our perception of color, words wouldn’t be able to change; speakers would not be able to add new distinctions.
The Patterns and Variations of Color Naming
Previous work (such as by anthropological linguists Brent Berlin and Paul Kay) has suggested that the order in which new color terms are added to a language is largely fixed. Speakers begin with two terms – one covering “black” and dark hues, the other covering “white” and light hues. There are plenty of languages with only two color terms, but in all cases, one of the color terms is centered on “black” and the other on “white.” When a language has three terms, the third is one is almost always centered on hues that English speakers would call “red.” There are no languages with three color terms where the named colors are centered on black, white and light green, for example.1
Called the hierarchy of color names, the order was generally (with a few exceptions): black, white, red, green, yellow, and blue with others like brown, purple and pink coming at various times afterward.2
However, recent research by cognitive scientists Hannah Haynie and Claire Bowern has challenged this assumption. They used a computer modeling technique more common in biology than linguistics to investigate typical patterns and rates of color term change. Contrary to previous assumptions, what they found suggests that color words aren’t unique in how they evolve in language.1
They found that color words change at different rates depending on their position in the spectrum. For example, words for red change more slowly than words for green or blue. They also found that there is no single fixed order in which new color terms are added to a language. Instead, there are multiple possible pathways for color term evolution.1
The Influence of Vision on Color Naming
So what factors influence how colors are named? One possible factor is how our eyes work and how we perceive different wavelengths of light.
Our eyes have three types of cone cells that respond to different ranges of wavelengths: short (S), medium (M) and long (L). The S cones are sensitive to blue light, the M cones are sensitive to green light and the L cones are sensitive to red light. The ratio of these cone types varies among individuals and populations.3
A study by researchers at Stanford University suggested that the order in which colors are named worldwide appears to be due to how eyes work. They used computer simulations with virtual people who had different ratios of cone types and different color naming systems. They found that wavelengths of color that are easier to see also get names earlier in the evolution of a culture.3
For example, they found that red is easier to see than green or blue because it has a higher contrast with the background (such as the sky or vegetation). Therefore, red is more likely to be named earlier than green or blue. They also found that green and blue are harder to distinguish from each other than from other colors, because they have similar wavelengths and are processed by the same type of cone cells (M and L). Therefore, green and blue are more likely to be named later or by the same word than other colors.3
It’s a fascinating subject
Color naming is a fascinating topic that reveals a lot about how language, culture and vision interact. Color words have diverse origins, patterns and variations across languages and cultures. Color naming is also influenced by how our eyes work and how we perceive different wavelengths of light. By learning more about how colors are named, we can gain a deeper appreciation of the diversity and richness of human color perception and expression.
