Why Red Means Red in Almost Every Language (2015)(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Why Red Means Red in Almost Every Language (2015)
http://nautil.us/issue/26/color/why-red-means-red-in-almost-every-language
83 comments
>English is close but we don't have separate words for blue and light blue.
Azure. Celeste. Cerulean. Cyan. Teal. Turqouise. aqua. Aquamarine. Lapis.
Azure. Celeste. Cerulean. Cyan. Teal. Turqouise. aqua. Aquamarine. Lapis.
None of those are the same as the russian color, but more importantly, those aren't considered basic color terms[0]
Basic color terms need to be:
- monolexemic ("green", but not "light green" or "forest green"),
- high-frequency, and
- agreed upon by speakers of that language.[7]
All of those words you listed aren't high frequency.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms
Basic color terms need to be:
- monolexemic ("green", but not "light green" or "forest green"),
- high-frequency, and
- agreed upon by speakers of that language.[7]
All of those words you listed aren't high frequency.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms
That definition seems arbitrary and debatable.
For instance, what is high frequency?
And what if say blind speakers of the language disagree?
For instance, what is high frequency?
And what if say blind speakers of the language disagree?
I don't really know how to explain it, but trust me as a native Russian speaker: in Russian, the felt difference between "light blue" (a more accurate translation might be "azure" or "sky blue", as that is considered the archetypical manifestation of it) and "dark blue" is the same as between "blue" and "green" in English. Now, as a native English speaker, do you feel that "blue" vs "green" is the same difference as "blue" vs "azure"? I'd wager that even if you can't quite verbalize it, you can feel it.
I suppose one of the clearest ways to demonstrate is to note that it's perfectly all right to describe something as a 'greenish blue' but you never hear someone talking about an 'azurish green'.
> For instance, what is high frequency?
The 300 most frequent words in a representative corpus of text.
> And what if say blind speakers of the language disagree?
Blind speakers represent a small portion of all speakers, so even if every one of them disagrees, the majority of speakers will still agree.
The 300 most frequent words in a representative corpus of text.
> And what if say blind speakers of the language disagree?
Blind speakers represent a small portion of all speakers, so even if every one of them disagrees, the majority of speakers will still agree.
The 300 most frequent words in a representative corpus of text.
That doesn't seem to be a very good definition. As we subdivide colors into greater specificity, it'll naturally occur that each subdivision is referenced fewer times. So this definition intrinsically precludes a discovery of finer distinctions.
IMHO, the whole idea that language shapes thought and perception (see TFA reference to Whorf) is overblown. I've seen this refuted where one person made the claim that while Nepalese(?) has a term for "mountain peak", English has no such word. The reply was: "of course it has a term for this: 'mountain peak'". As expert language users, we have no trouble synthesizing new concepts by using our language, which after all is far more than just a list of words, to frame our thoughts.
I once was sitting near an argument about whether an object was blue or purple, and they decided to drag me into the argument. Not wanting to take sides, I said "how about periwinkle?", and they both seemed satisfied with that answer.
That doesn't seem to be a very good definition. As we subdivide colors into greater specificity, it'll naturally occur that each subdivision is referenced fewer times. So this definition intrinsically precludes a discovery of finer distinctions.
IMHO, the whole idea that language shapes thought and perception (see TFA reference to Whorf) is overblown. I've seen this refuted where one person made the claim that while Nepalese(?) has a term for "mountain peak", English has no such word. The reply was: "of course it has a term for this: 'mountain peak'". As expert language users, we have no trouble synthesizing new concepts by using our language, which after all is far more than just a list of words, to frame our thoughts.
I once was sitting near an argument about whether an object was blue or purple, and they decided to drag me into the argument. Not wanting to take sides, I said "how about periwinkle?", and they both seemed satisfied with that answer.
> it'll naturally occur that each subdivision is referenced fewer times.
That's true but their relative frequency will not change. Ie. if your only words are warm and cold you may see each of those 6% of the time, but if your have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple then you will see each one 2% of the time.
But in both cases all the other color related words in the language would be significantly less than 2%.
That's true but their relative frequency will not change. Ie. if your only words are warm and cold you may see each of those 6% of the time, but if your have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple then you will see each one 2% of the time.
But in both cases all the other color related words in the language would be significantly less than 2%.
To test this I went to google and did searches for the basic 11 colors, and a couple of others, noting the number of hits found.
The big 11:
red 12,110,000,000
orange 7,040,000,000
yellow 6,370,000,000
green 13,850,000,000
blue 15,100,000,000
purple 10,160,000,000
black 13,390,000,000
white 12,330,000,000
gray 14,950,000,000
brown 10,160,000,000
pink 4,700,000,000
... and some test cases
maroon 152,000,000
teal 7,320,000,000
navy 870,000,000
cyan 110,000,000
I think the frequency explanation has trouble, since "teal" has more hits than "orange", "yellow", and (by a lot) "pink".
The big 11:
red 12,110,000,000
orange 7,040,000,000
yellow 6,370,000,000
green 13,850,000,000
blue 15,100,000,000
purple 10,160,000,000
black 13,390,000,000
white 12,330,000,000
gray 14,950,000,000
brown 10,160,000,000
pink 4,700,000,000
... and some test cases
maroon 152,000,000
teal 7,320,000,000
navy 870,000,000
cyan 110,000,000
I think the frequency explanation has trouble, since "teal" has more hits than "orange", "yellow", and (by a lot) "pink".
Google is not a corpus of text.
Usually you remove proper nouns when doing a word frequency analysis.
Pink, Maroon and Navy are all proper nouns -- Singer/songwriter, band (Maroon 5), and branch of the military.
Also, a Google search only gets you documents that have that word at least once, but removes duplicates. So maybe the page with red has it listed 7,000 times but you wouldn't know.
Trying using all the text in Project Gutenberg[0], removing the proper nouns, and then run the analysis again.
Linguists have done this for you already -- and the results were that your top list are in the top 300 and the bottom are not.
[0]https://www.gutenberg.org
Usually you remove proper nouns when doing a word frequency analysis.
Pink, Maroon and Navy are all proper nouns -- Singer/songwriter, band (Maroon 5), and branch of the military.
Also, a Google search only gets you documents that have that word at least once, but removes duplicates. So maybe the page with red has it listed 7,000 times but you wouldn't know.
Trying using all the text in Project Gutenberg[0], removing the proper nouns, and then run the analysis again.
Linguists have done this for you already -- and the results were that your top list are in the top 300 and the bottom are not.
[0]https://www.gutenberg.org
[deleted]
Mandatory XKCD link here
https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
This isn't just a comic - Randall Munroe ran a color naming survey on internet users. Native language was not collected. I assume native English speakers were over-represented but not universal.
Interestingly there was a slight gender difference in naming among respondents (see the second table). Is that perceptual or a cultural gender-specific difference in how often men or women talk about color?
https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
This isn't just a comic - Randall Munroe ran a color naming survey on internet users. Native language was not collected. I assume native English speakers were over-represented but not universal.
Interestingly there was a slight gender difference in naming among respondents (see the second table). Is that perceptual or a cultural gender-specific difference in how often men or women talk about color?
> Is that perceptual or a cultural gender-specific difference
It's perceptual. Women have a higher cone to rod ratio, making them see colors easier while men see movement better. Also women are more likely to be tetracromats (four different cones instead of three).
There are some unproven evolutionary reasons that this may be the case -- men needed better movement detection to hunt while women needed better color vision to detect bad food when gathering.
It's perceptual. Women have a higher cone to rod ratio, making them see colors easier while men see movement better. Also women are more likely to be tetracromats (four different cones instead of three).
There are some unproven evolutionary reasons that this may be the case -- men needed better movement detection to hunt while women needed better color vision to detect bad food when gathering.
Also colour blindness is sexist (1 in 12 men vs 1 in 200 women has colour vision deficiency).
There are some anecdotes that colourblind sharpshooters find it easier to see through camouflage as they're more sensitive to shapes (i.e. because for them a lot of things are "naturally camouflaged" they have more experience detecting shapes) but I'm not sure how factual they are.
I'd say the 1 in 12 vs 1 in 200 difference alone might account for a significant difference when looking at a uniform sample of both sexes.
There are some anecdotes that colourblind sharpshooters find it easier to see through camouflage as they're more sensitive to shapes (i.e. because for them a lot of things are "naturally camouflaged" they have more experience detecting shapes) but I'm not sure how factual they are.
I'd say the 1 in 12 vs 1 in 200 difference alone might account for a significant difference when looking at a uniform sample of both sexes.
None of those are light blue :-)
Any of these light blue?
http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-ex...
http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-ex...
Yes, but see my other comment about why they don't count (they aren't basic color terms).
Azure would be a subset of light blue in Russian.
Some cultures just stop with "warm" and "cold"
This is where the article (and maybe the underlying studies?) seems to go off the rails:
asked him or her to name each one’s “basic color term”—the simplest, broadest word that described its shade
If I (a native English speaker) were asked in those terms to describe the coloration of an object, I think I'd conclude that I would need to limit my answers to "warm" and "cold". These are certainly color concepts in English, and indeed, as a photography enthusiast I work with them all the time when I edit my photos in Lightroom. So I can't see why they've then broadened the terms out to the more specific red, orange, etc., as more general terms are available.
The article seems to make an overture toward the possibility of thinking in colors even outside of the hue, saturation, and value model that westerners at least seem to think in - which could be very interesting. But the question above also seems to preclude such a discovery. As I read it, "shade" seems to be synonymous with "hue", thus demanding that I follow our familiar model. But if a different word were substituted for "shade", like the generic term "color", I think I would have answered that the most generic words available in English are "light" and "dark". (That, of course, is basically the V in HSV, and not a different model, but still provides another set of possible English terms of broader foundational breadth than "red", "orange", etc.
This is where the article (and maybe the underlying studies?) seems to go off the rails:
asked him or her to name each one’s “basic color term”—the simplest, broadest word that described its shade
If I (a native English speaker) were asked in those terms to describe the coloration of an object, I think I'd conclude that I would need to limit my answers to "warm" and "cold". These are certainly color concepts in English, and indeed, as a photography enthusiast I work with them all the time when I edit my photos in Lightroom. So I can't see why they've then broadened the terms out to the more specific red, orange, etc., as more general terms are available.
The article seems to make an overture toward the possibility of thinking in colors even outside of the hue, saturation, and value model that westerners at least seem to think in - which could be very interesting. But the question above also seems to preclude such a discovery. As I read it, "shade" seems to be synonymous with "hue", thus demanding that I follow our familiar model. But if a different word were substituted for "shade", like the generic term "color", I think I would have answered that the most generic words available in English are "light" and "dark". (That, of course, is basically the V in HSV, and not a different model, but still provides another set of possible English terms of broader foundational breadth than "red", "orange", etc.
The article is extremely verbose. The diagram on page 1 of this document sums up the idea:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/reprints/1997-Percept...
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/reprints/1997-Percept...
>* His field had long espoused a theory called linguistic relativity, which held that language shapes perception. Color was the “parade example,” Kay says. His professors and textbooks taught that people could only recognize a color as categorically distinct from others if they had a word for it.
(...) The two languages are as unrelated to each other historically as any two languages can be,” Kay says. And yet they seemed to give rise to a common way of seeing and thinking about color. Either he and Berlin had stumbled upon a one-in-a-million coincidence. Or the relativists were wrong.*
Or relativism is truer for less tangible things (like how we deal with societal and abstract notions based on our language) than about stuff we experience directly, like color.
Or relativism is truer for less tangible things (like how we deal with societal and abstract notions based on our language) than about stuff we experience directly, like color.
Saying that you can only think about abstract things if you have words for them is tautological since abstractions build on language.
>Saying that you can only think about abstract things if you have words for them is tautological since abstractions build on language.
The actual relativist core is not about "only being able to think X if you have words for it" (which is bogus imho), it's about the "language shapes perception" part.
Besides, abstractions are not just built on/from language -- else they would be meaningless names. They are based on experiences -- which are not just experiences of actual tangible things but also of circumstances, common feelings, etc. Freedom for example, while an abstract notion, is painfully "tangible" as an experience when its taken away from you, whether you are Japanese or Irish, etc, so one would expect all cultures to form the relevant words to describe it (and that is the case).
Thus one could think of freedom even without having access to the word -- just by having in his mind the relevant sensation (as a mental picture, etc).
But even more so, a system of language (associated words and notions) also shapes how we approach freedom beyond the basic underlying sentiment.
The actual relativist core is not about "only being able to think X if you have words for it" (which is bogus imho), it's about the "language shapes perception" part.
Besides, abstractions are not just built on/from language -- else they would be meaningless names. They are based on experiences -- which are not just experiences of actual tangible things but also of circumstances, common feelings, etc. Freedom for example, while an abstract notion, is painfully "tangible" as an experience when its taken away from you, whether you are Japanese or Irish, etc, so one would expect all cultures to form the relevant words to describe it (and that is the case).
Thus one could think of freedom even without having access to the word -- just by having in his mind the relevant sensation (as a mental picture, etc).
But even more so, a system of language (associated words and notions) also shapes how we approach freedom beyond the basic underlying sentiment.
Abstractions might benefit deeply from language, but I don't see a tautology here. I suspect that anyone who does a lot of abstract thinking (math, software design, visual arts, etc.) spends time engaging with abstractions that have no names or linguistic references, and which may never manifest in named constructs. It can be a relief to have such a "mental thing" become concrete enough to attract a name -- now we have more tools to manipulate it with, and we can communicate it more effectively -- but that doesn't always happen. And when it does, sometimes you have to discard some of the interesting parts in order to wedge the thing into a nameable compartment: it's not really the same abstraction any more.
In software design, sometimes I know that I am working within a certain project-specific "space" in my head that informs the decisions I'm making. It has structure, influenced by the structure of the project and by my problem-solving approach; but there aren't any words in there, and I'd be hard pressed to give it a better name than "a mental model." And yet it's a palpable "thing," it's often unique to the specific project, and it is useful in getting the work done -- I definitely notice when I get distracted and lose track of it, and recognize it when it I find it again.
I'm trying hard not to sound all fancy and mystical about this -- it's not magical stuff. It's just tricky to talk about kinds of abstractions that don't lend themselves well to being named. :)
In software design, sometimes I know that I am working within a certain project-specific "space" in my head that informs the decisions I'm making. It has structure, influenced by the structure of the project and by my problem-solving approach; but there aren't any words in there, and I'd be hard pressed to give it a better name than "a mental model." And yet it's a palpable "thing," it's often unique to the specific project, and it is useful in getting the work done -- I definitely notice when I get distracted and lose track of it, and recognize it when it I find it again.
I'm trying hard not to sound all fancy and mystical about this -- it's not magical stuff. It's just tricky to talk about kinds of abstractions that don't lend themselves well to being named. :)
This is called linguistic determinism, or the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and is not widely accepted.
I was surprised in this article that "wine-dark" is still being bandied about as a translation for οἶνοψ πόντος. According to a scholar I spoke with many years ago, a more reasonable translation would be gleaming or shimmering. This would fit with another known use of οἶνοψ, referring to the back of an oxen in the sun.
It's hard for me to believe that "gleaming" or "shimmering" would be an objectively better translation. Even putting aside that it's a beautiful turn of phrase, Homer's audience would have been conscious of the simile suggested by the word choice, no?
I do agree wine-dark is a beautiful turn of phrase, but from what I gather the literal translation is "wine-faced" or "wine-eyed".
Have considerable experience of being "wine-eyed", I can assure you my eyes are generally gleaming. :-)
Have considerable experience of being "wine-eyed", I can assure you my eyes are generally gleaming. :-)
Yeah, I don't know why scholars approach ancient texts as though figurative writing was not available to them, and that their words can be taken at face value, without a need for understanding a variety of applicable contexts.
Well, they tried coordinating on some marker to indicate when a particular usage was non-figurative, but then, people started using that marker figuratively, as a generic intensifier, which broke the protocol...
Liddell and Scott translates as wine-coloured or wine-dark, when used as an epithet of the sea, or wine-red or deep red, when used to describe oxen.
https://archive.org/stream/greekenglishlex00lidduoft#page/10...
https://archive.org/stream/greekenglishlex00lidduoft#page/10...
I recall "wine-dark" for oinodakruo, but it's been a while since school.
Polish has two reds - czerwony and rudy - I mean in the sense that even a young Polish child would use the different words for different colors that a young English speaking American child would call both simply red.
I think Hungarian has the same distinction with piros versus vörös: https://www.academia.edu/7375817/The_Hungarian_color_terms_p...
Indeed, Piros and vörös are completely distinct, and nobody who speaks Hungarian would have any doubt what colors they indicate; and it's generally obvious when looking at a reddish color whether you're talking about piros (a brighter red, as in Red Riding Hood) or vörös (a darker red, as in Red Wine).
For English speakers, in everyday usage both are just "red." English has more specific words for red but we don't use them much.
This is a great example of why context-free machine translation is impossible. If you were to translate "red wine" as piros bor (instead of vörösbor) it would be ridiculous.
For English speakers, in everyday usage both are just "red." English has more specific words for red but we don't use them much.
This is a great example of why context-free machine translation is impossible. If you were to translate "red wine" as piros bor (instead of vörösbor) it would be ridiculous.
Because "crimson", "magenta", "scarlet", "pink", etc are all the same color?
Red isn't a color, it's a spectrum. It encompasses a whole range of colors. You use it to describe a similar set of colors when specificity isn't required ("What was that red thing?" vs "I think it would look good in crimson"), like most things in English.
Red isn't a color, it's a spectrum. It encompasses a whole range of colors. You use it to describe a similar set of colors when specificity isn't required ("What was that red thing?" vs "I think it would look good in crimson"), like most things in English.
Did you read the article? The discussion is entirely about colour as a linguistic concept, not as a wavelength of reflected light.
Until a few hundred years ago, pink things were simple "light red" things in English (and many other languages) - we didn't have the word pink and so couldn't express the colour without using relative terms.
Until a few hundred years ago, pink things were simple "light red" things in English (and many other languages) - we didn't have the word pink and so couldn't express the colour without using relative terms.
Did you read the comment I responded to? He was stating that English speakers would use "red" interchangeably, near invariably.
They don't. "Red" doesn't exist as a concept except abstractly. Words like "scarlet" and "teal" have been used since middle English to describe colors.
In other words: it's not that English works the way he described (it doesn't), but instead the inverse: Hungarian doesn't have an equivalent for "red".
They don't. "Red" doesn't exist as a concept except abstractly. Words like "scarlet" and "teal" have been used since middle English to describe colors.
In other words: it's not that English works the way he described (it doesn't), but instead the inverse: Hungarian doesn't have an equivalent for "red".
The point is that in English, there's still a common word for, say, both "scarlet" and "crimson", grouping them together. But there's no such common word between "red" and "green" - the latter are primary colors, always distinguished.
In other languages, that grouping is done differently, and two colors that would both be appropriate to call "red" in English don't have a single common color term at all.
To get a feel of how this looks from the other side, consider various Asian languages that don't distinguish green and blue, and have a single word that has to be translated as "green or blue" to English.
In other languages, that grouping is done differently, and two colors that would both be appropriate to call "red" in English don't have a single common color term at all.
To get a feel of how this looks from the other side, consider various Asian languages that don't distinguish green and blue, and have a single word that has to be translated as "green or blue" to English.
That's not what they said at all. The example of red wine vs a bright red robe is a very valid one. You might become more specific when tasked with artistically describing the colour of a wine, but off the cuff you'd probably just use the word "red" for wine, blood (oxygenated or not), ink and sunsets in a way that wouldn't work in Hungarian.
Hebrew has "A-dom" for red, and "Bordo" (pronounced how a kid would misread a transliteration of Bordeaux, as in the red wines) for dark red.
We also have "Ka-chol" ("ch" pronounced like "phlegm" in "Achmad the Dead Terrorist") for blue and "Tche-let" for light blue, which are words you learn in kindergarten and use every day (you say "sky is Tche-let", never "sky is Ka-chol". When have you last heard someone describe a mid-day summer sky in English as anything but "blue"?)
Sure, we also have artist words for a thousand variations of blue: turquoise, aqua, aquamarine, etc'. In fact, just like in English, we use the French terms as is. But nobody learns them in kindergarten.
We also have "Ka-chol" ("ch" pronounced like "phlegm" in "Achmad the Dead Terrorist") for blue and "Tche-let" for light blue, which are words you learn in kindergarten and use every day (you say "sky is Tche-let", never "sky is Ka-chol". When have you last heard someone describe a mid-day summer sky in English as anything but "blue"?)
Sure, we also have artist words for a thousand variations of blue: turquoise, aqua, aquamarine, etc'. In fact, just like in English, we use the French terms as is. But nobody learns them in kindergarten.
Similarly, Russian has two blues: goluboy (like the sky) and siniy (like the sea). Nobody, not even a child, would confuse the two, or consider them the same color. Even blue eyes are differentiated into these two categories, just like English speakers differentiate between blue and green eyes.
I see the Russian distinction between blues equivalent to the distinction between red and pink for English speakers.
I'd disagree. As an English speaker, you probably think of pink as a "light red" or a "shade of red" or "red with some white pigment mixed in"; while red is a fundamental color. As a Russian speaker, goluboy is not a shade of siny - the two colors are equally fundamental.
They're typically taught to children as distinct colors.
The first three images google gave me for "kindergarten colors":
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kkd-_JfiGWA/TUdXevHfRUI/AAAAAAAAAb...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fe/a8/da/fea8dad8f...
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0MfwZHSO9lA/maxresdefault.jpg
The first three images google gave me for "kindergarten colors":
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kkd-_JfiGWA/TUdXevHfRUI/AAAAAAAAAb...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fe/a8/da/fea8dad8f...
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0MfwZHSO9lA/maxresdefault.jpg
The easiest way to tell is to ask about colors in the rainbow. Obviously, rainbow is actually a spectrum with no clear boundaries, so where the boundaries are placed is entirely down to the culture of the person describing it.
In Russian, sky blue is a distinct rainbow color from blue, but pink is not.
In English, blue and indigo are treated as distinct colors, but this is more tradition than perception (so as to pad the number to the requisite 7).
If you compare the typical representation of the rainbow, you'll see that it has the corresponding difference. Russian depiction of rainbow has pure medium-dark blue between sky blue and violet, and violet is dark:
http://nobacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Rainbow-26.png
(Note that blue in this pic is about as dark as it gets; quite often it's actually lighter - usually, sky blue and blue are closer together than blue and violet.)
English depiction of rainbow has some kind of really dark blue with a strong hint of violet in the same place, and violet is brighter:
http://weknowyourdreams.com/images/rainbow/rainbow-02.jpg
In Russian, sky blue is a distinct rainbow color from blue, but pink is not.
In English, blue and indigo are treated as distinct colors, but this is more tradition than perception (so as to pad the number to the requisite 7).
If you compare the typical representation of the rainbow, you'll see that it has the corresponding difference. Russian depiction of rainbow has pure medium-dark blue between sky blue and violet, and violet is dark:
http://nobacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Rainbow-26.png
(Note that blue in this pic is about as dark as it gets; quite often it's actually lighter - usually, sky blue and blue are closer together than blue and violet.)
English depiction of rainbow has some kind of really dark blue with a strong hint of violet in the same place, and violet is brighter:
http://weknowyourdreams.com/images/rainbow/rainbow-02.jpg
I learned English at a young age, and I still think of "red" and "pink" as fundamentally distinct. I think I was taught at some point that pink was "light red" but it seemed weird at the time (when I was a kid) and it never sank in viscerally. They still feel like distinct colors—just like "red" and "orange" are distinct.
I think this is really similar to the two blues in Russian. Interestingly, while I grew up speaking Russian, I learned English at a young-enough age that I actually find the distinction between the two blues a bit confusing at time—I know about it, obviously, but it actually feels less strong than the distinction between red and pink. But that's just me with my weird upbringing :).
I think this is really similar to the two blues in Russian. Interestingly, while I grew up speaking Russian, I learned English at a young-enough age that I actually find the distinction between the two blues a bit confusing at time—I know about it, obviously, but it actually feels less strong than the distinction between red and pink. But that's just me with my weird upbringing :).
Pink and red have different names in Russian too, pink is розовый.
Hm. I'd like to see them translate the dialog in Undertale, particularly about Papyrus' "Blue" attack.
In English we have blue and cyan, but the word cyan is rarely used except to distinguish from blue.
In English we have blue and cyan, but the word cyan is rarely used except to distinguish from blue.
Cyan is not quite the same. Most Russian speakers would classify it as zeleno-goluboy, i.e. as a mixed hue between green and sky blue. It's right past the borderline where the amount of green in sky blue is enough that it stops being perceived as a pure color.
Related, here's a visualization that shows connotations from different cultures for colours: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours...
Cool! Though I think a flat matrix would be far more readable. Can't really see if there are any trends on first glance.
To slightly throw a spanner in the works, the word for an egg yolk in Thai is "ไข่แดง" (kai daeng). ไข่ = egg, แดง = red. I've no idea why they use red here.
This isn't a color disagreement. The Thai word for red is otherwise identical to the red English speakers know of, and there are other words for the actual colors of yolks (i.e. yellow or orange) and Thai chickens don't produce red yolks :(
This isn't a color disagreement. The Thai word for red is otherwise identical to the red English speakers know of, and there are other words for the actual colors of yolks (i.e. yellow or orange) and Thai chickens don't produce red yolks :(
Well, in italian, conversely, the egg parts are "bianco" (white) and "rosso" (red).
It may well be that in the past, there was no separate word for yellow or orange, they were just considered shades of red. So people used 'red'. Then later, people felt enough need to create more nuanced terms.
In a similar way, if I remember correctly, Apple used to be the English word for all fruit[1]. We later added specific words for more fruits, and Apple only remains as the name of a single fruit - however, we still have 'Pineapples', which gained the name when apple was a generic fruit moniker.
Apparently it's common for blue and green to be clumped together - green (midori) is a surprisingly recent term in Japanese, so lots of green things are referred to as blue (aoi) because of traditional usage - including the green light on traffic lights, apparently.[2]
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apple#Etymology [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction...
In a similar way, if I remember correctly, Apple used to be the English word for all fruit[1]. We later added specific words for more fruits, and Apple only remains as the name of a single fruit - however, we still have 'Pineapples', which gained the name when apple was a generic fruit moniker.
Apparently it's common for blue and green to be clumped together - green (midori) is a surprisingly recent term in Japanese, so lots of green things are referred to as blue (aoi) because of traditional usage - including the green light on traffic lights, apparently.[2]
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apple#Etymology [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction...
As long as we're randomly talking about Russian colors, there's a color that I used to hear a fair amount in Russia that I don't know of an equivalent to here in the US: рыжый.
Maybe it's not a common color term there, either - the most context I've heard it in was describing a dachshund's hair color[1], and the second most common is describing a redhead's hair. Maybe the English equivalent is "ginger", but I always thought of ginger as being a much lighter color.
[1] http://www.allsmalldogbreeds.com/breeds/dachshund-smooth.jpg <-- an example. Это рыжая такса.
Maybe it's not a common color term there, either - the most context I've heard it in was describing a dachshund's hair color[1], and the second most common is describing a redhead's hair. Maybe the English equivalent is "ginger", but I always thought of ginger as being a much lighter color.
[1] http://www.allsmalldogbreeds.com/breeds/dachshund-smooth.jpg <-- an example. Это рыжая такса.
I think it's hard to find an exact equivalent because Russian has a number of color words that are used mostly for one category of objects. For example, рыжий for human or animal hair, русый for human hair, карий and болотный for eyes, смуглый for skin, etc. So when translating, you might pick the English equivalent for describing that type of object (рыжие волосы = red hair), but it doesn't feel quite right, because that same English word would be perfectly OK for describing the color of all sorts of unrelated things (and might imply a different shade when applied to those unrelated things!), and the original Russian word wouldn't be.
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Auburn?
It would be interesting to see some color map for each of those groups.
Also, do parents who moved abroad have kids with different perception? And would have analysis in some genetic factors (as babies seem to indicate) and the cultural influence.
Also, do parents who moved abroad have kids with different perception? And would have analysis in some genetic factors (as babies seem to indicate) and the cultural influence.
It's not a difference in perception, it's a difference in communication. Imagine a room full of people wearing "pink" shirts, and you want to call out specifically one of those people, but you don't know the word "salmon" in the context of a color of shirt. You absolutely see the difference in the colors of the shirt. Your lack of language does not change your perception. You know the color and you could pick it again when asked. You just have to go through convolutions to communicate the exact nature of the color to others.
But the article states that even babies, who don't express those knowledge verbally, can have different reaction.
In my experience, sample size=1, you don't talk that much with a baby about colors. The article doesn't explain details, and that made me wonder: is this genetic? Cultural? How does it goes when the parents have different cultures? Moving to another city/country changes that? Being in a nursery with caregivers of the same/different culture?
Once I read a discussion about teaching your child colors, and how some take longer to differentiate colors from the object, so that color is an attribute and not _the_ object. That's where this caught my attention.
In my experience, sample size=1, you don't talk that much with a baby about colors. The article doesn't explain details, and that made me wonder: is this genetic? Cultural? How does it goes when the parents have different cultures? Moving to another city/country changes that? Being in a nursery with caregivers of the same/different culture?
Once I read a discussion about teaching your child colors, and how some take longer to differentiate colors from the object, so that color is an attribute and not _the_ object. That's where this caught my attention.
We absolutely can differ in perception.
As long as the boundaries are the same we can perceive something different, call it the same, and never be confused; all the while 'seeing' a completely different colour to one another.
As long as the boundaries are the same we can perceive something different, call it the same, and never be confused; all the while 'seeing' a completely different colour to one another.
Meaningless distinction
How so?
I'm colour-blind (a bit red-green, a bit other things) - that's a blurring of boundaries; so we absolutely will disagree on what a colour is (though oddly I can literally see colours change in front of me once I 'know').
Why is it so implausible that people may have the same boundaries, but with things swapped such that they experience a different 'colour', say what you see to be 'blue', every time that you say 'red'? They'll still call it 'red'. You'll agree every time you see it.
I'm colour-blind (a bit red-green, a bit other things) - that's a blurring of boundaries; so we absolutely will disagree on what a colour is (though oddly I can literally see colours change in front of me once I 'know').
Why is it so implausible that people may have the same boundaries, but with things swapped such that they experience a different 'colour', say what you see to be 'blue', every time that you say 'red'? They'll still call it 'red'. You'll agree every time you see it.
The linguistic relativist's position (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is specifically that people with different color words perceive colors differently.
It's mostly discredited now, but that's exactly the position being discussed in the article.
It's mostly discredited now, but that's exactly the position being discussed in the article.
> It's mostly discredited now
Unjustly so. There is experimental evidence that at least in for some languages and some colors, language affects the ability to distinguish colors.
Here is one example: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short
> English and Russian color terms divide the color spectrum differently. Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”). We investigated whether this linguistic difference leads to differences in color discrimination. We tested English and Russian speakers in a speeded color discrimination task using blue stimuli that spanned the siniy/goluboy border. We found that Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). Moreover, this category advantage was eliminated by a verbal, but not a spatial, dual task. These effects were stronger for difficult discriminations (i.e., when the colors were perceptually close) than for easy discriminations (i.e., when the colors were further apart). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. These results demonstrate that (i) categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks and (ii) the effect of language is online (and can be disrupted by verbal interference).
Unjustly so. There is experimental evidence that at least in for some languages and some colors, language affects the ability to distinguish colors.
Here is one example: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short
> English and Russian color terms divide the color spectrum differently. Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”). We investigated whether this linguistic difference leads to differences in color discrimination. We tested English and Russian speakers in a speeded color discrimination task using blue stimuli that spanned the siniy/goluboy border. We found that Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). Moreover, this category advantage was eliminated by a verbal, but not a spatial, dual task. These effects were stronger for difficult discriminations (i.e., when the colors were perceptually close) than for easy discriminations (i.e., when the colors were further apart). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. These results demonstrate that (i) categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks and (ii) the effect of language is online (and can be disrupted by verbal interference).
Not quite. The position being discussed in the article is a more nuanced revival, in that not having a distinct word doesn't prevent one from distinguishing the color, but having the word does affect behavior (speed of distinction, grouping of colors where it's called for, association of colors with other things etc).
It's funny that the author points to the possibility of a synthesis, when one was just published within the last month by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/40/11178.abstract.
Red in French is "rouge" which is close enough :)
Which doesn't necessarily mean the color red in French.
french rouge and english red correspond to mostly the same shades of red, though. if you did a detailed study, you might find a slight difference but that's it.
I'm French and I have no idea what you mean by that.
It's often used to refer to cosmetic for coloring the lips.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=define+rouge+&oq=define+rouge http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rouge
https://www.google.ca/search?q=define+rouge+&oq=define+rouge http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rouge
No one calls it "rouge" in France. It's always referred to as "rouge à lèvres" (lit. "red for lips").
What this is trying to say is that human languages all over the world come up with color names in a similar path, but they stop at different points.
It's all very fascinating, and interestingly is the argument some use against strong AI -- that is they believe that to truly understand language you must have a human or human-like body that can perceive the world in the same way as a human, because these color words develop based on the physical properties of your eye and brain. For example, many people that are blind from birth have a hard time understanding the concept of color.
A few of you mentioned that Russian has two words for red. Russian is actually at the end of the spectrum (pun intended) -- that is they have the maximum number of color words.
English is close but we don't have separate words for blue and light blue.
You can see this as English speaking children learn words -- they will call "pink" "red" until they learn pink, and will almost always learn "red" before "pink".
Some cultures just stop with "warm" and "cold" (which are red orange yellow vs green blue purple).
Ah the joys of being a CogSci major -- we had entire weeks of classes devoted to this.