Name that Tone

Color Vocabularies and Where They Come From

Bethany May

Snow White

Starting in the snow with native

tongues and Nancy Lord

Although every person with normal vision sees the same

spectrum of light, not all cultures recognize the same colors.

Some languages . . . Indentify only two—black and white, ore

dark and light. Navajo, like Latin, distinguishes between the

black of darkness and the black of coal; it has one word for gray

and brown, includes some of what we would call “green” in its

word for blue, and others in its word for yellow. (483)

Experiments have demonstrated that people from

cultures with large and precise color vocabularies are

better able to remember and pick out colors they have

been previously shown. Having words for colors helps

us remember them. (483–484)

The Necessity of a Color Lexicon

Alaskan natives needed to perceive and

communicate slight differences in the landscape.

Have names for different shades and tints

similarly evolved in the language communities

of designers?

Universal Experience of Color

Berlin and Kay’s Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969)

Linguistic Relativist View

Does language give us a way to talk about our

experience?

Or are words a lens through which we

experience?

Blue Black

Learning Olive

In 1978 Susan Carey and Elsa J. Bartlett worked with children

learning names of colors.

Man or Woman? Name these

Colors.

Gender and Color Vocabulary

Katherine S. Greene and Malcolm

D. Gynther tested college

students’ abilities to name shades

based on vocabulary skills, GPA,

test scores, and hobbies related to

color.

“Feminine” behaviors like

shopping, sewing, wearing

makeup, indicated a participant

would be more likely to use the

“fancier” color terms. The men

who also indicated color-related

hobbies (painting or designing, for

example) were less likely to use

the basic color terms.

Color Codes: The New

Vocabulary

• Pantone (standard)

• CMYK (print)

• RGB (digital)

• Hexidecimal (web)

Rose by Any Other Name

Nancy Lord learned the word, htashtch’ul. It

is the “fresh-scrubbed, brightened, new-

world look,” the way the whole world looks

clean after a rain. She’d seen the rain stop

and clouds part before, but having a word to

put to the experience makes her feel more a

part of the land. That’s the way I feel about

juniper, wisteria, or cornflower blue.

Sources

Berlin, Brent, and Paul Kay. Basic Color Terms; Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California, 1969. Print.

Katherine S. Greene and Malcolm D. Gynther (1995) Blue versus Periwinkle: Color Identification and Gender. Perceptual and Motor Skills: Volume 80, Issue . pp. 27-32 Academic Search Complete. Web 2 Mar. 2013.

Lord, Nancy. “Native Tongues.” Language introductory readings. Seventh Edition. Ed. Virgian Clark, Paul Escholz, Alfred Rosa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2008.480–487.Print.

Miller, George A. and Patricia M. Gildea. “How Children Learn Words.” Language introductory readings. Seventh Edition. Ed. Virgian Clark, Paul Escholz, Alfred Rosa. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2008. pp. 643–651. Print

Pilling, Michael, and Ian R.L Davies. “Linguistic Relativism And Colour Cognition.” British Journal of Psychology 95.4 (2004): 429-455. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.