Colour words across languages

RussianISO 639-3: rus

The blue area is divided by lightness into two everyday words, neither of which is a kind of the other. A speaker has to choose one.

Basic colour terms: Twelve in most accounts, with two blues; Berlin and Kay (1969) already named Russian as a possible exception to their limit of eleven.

• синийsiniy

  The darker blues.

  Usually translated as:

  blue, dark blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The darker part of what English calls blue: the deeper blues of the English blue region and all of navy. It stops where the lighter blues begin, so sky blue is outside it. The line between the two Russian words is one of lightness, not hue.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Fuzzy and context-dependent. In Winawer and colleagues (2007) each speaker's boundary was found by sorting twenty blues from light to dark; in Martinovic and colleagues (2020) the boundary moved lighter or darker with the mix of shades shown.

  Basic term:

  Treated as a basic term throughout the literature reviewed by Paramei (2005).

  Translation caution. Rendering it as plain 'blue' is correct but drops a distinction Russian makes obligatory; a light blue is not siniy.

  English landmarks: blue, navy.

  • Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination (PNAS 104: 7780–7785, 2007)
  • Russian blues reveal the limits of language influencing colour discrimination (Cognition 201: 104281, 2020)
  • Singing the Russian blues: An argument for culturally basic color terms (Cross-Cultural Research 39: 10–38, 2005)

• голубойgoluboy

  The lighter blues.

  Usually translated as:

  light blue, sky blue, blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The lighter part of what English calls blue: sky blue and the paler end of the English blue region. English has no basic word here, only the compound 'light blue' and secondary names.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Fuzzy against siniy (see that record). Martinovic and colleagues (2020) also tested its boundary with green.

  Basic term:

  Counted as a twelfth basic term in Davies and Corbett's 1994 naming study, as reported by Rätsep (2012), and by Paramei (2005), who argues it became basic for cultural reasons. Its status is why Russian breaks the proposed limit of eleven.

  History

  Paramei (2005) describes the word as symbolically charged and treats its rise to basic status as a cultural development, not a perceptual necessity.

  Translation caution. Not a kind of siniy and not interchangeable with it. 'Sky blue' is the nearest English secondary term, but in English that is a shade of blue; in Russian goluboy stands beside siniy as an equal.

  English landmarks: sky blue, blue.

  • Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination (PNAS 104: 7780–7785, 2007)
  • Singing the Russian blues: An argument for culturally basic color terms (Cross-Cultural Research 39: 10–38, 2005)
  • Emphasis on the blue: Turkish basic colour terms (Rätsep; Studia uralo-altaica 49: 447–457, 2012)
  • Russian blues reveal the limits of language influencing colour discrimination (Cognition 201: 104281, 2020)

Modern GreekISO 639-3: ell

Two blue terms separated mainly by lightness. The division resembles the Russian and Turkish ones, but the best examples of the terms differ between the three languages.

Basic colour terms: Twelve including two blues, according to text counts and four naming studies (Androulaki and colleagues 2006).

• μπλεble

  The darker blues.

  Usually translated as:

  blue, dark blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The darker part of the English blue region. Its range differs from that of ghalazio mainly in lightness.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Established across four naming studies with different samples, lighting and instructions; the authors report the result was stable across those changes. No single boundary value is given here.

  Basic term:

  Androulaki and colleagues (2006): one of twelve basic terms.

  Translation caution. Its best example is not the same as that of Russian siniy or Turkish lacivert, so the three 'dark blues' cannot be treated as translations of one another.

  English landmarks: blue, navy. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Basic colour terms in Modern Greek: Twelve terms including two blues (Androulaki and colleagues, Journal of Greek Linguistics 7: 3–47, 2006)
  • Cognitive representation of colour in bilinguals: The case of Greek blues (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12: 83–95, 2009)

• γαλάζιοghalazio

  The lighter blues.

  Usually translated as:

  light blue, sky blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The lighter part of the English blue region, around sky blue. Among the most frequent colour words in Greek texts, alongside the eleven that match Berlin and Kay's categories.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Separated from ble mainly by lightness. Athanasopoulos (2009) found the separation weakens in bilinguals the longer they live in an English-speaking country.

  Basic term:

  Androulaki and colleagues (2006): the twelfth basic term.

  Translation caution. Thierry and colleagues (2009) found Greek speakers' brain responses distinguished the two blues more strongly than English speakers' did; that is a measured difference in automatic processing, not evidence that English speakers cannot see the difference.

  English landmarks: sky blue, blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Basic colour terms in Modern Greek: Twelve terms including two blues (Androulaki and colleagues, Journal of Greek Linguistics 7: 3–47, 2006)
  • Unconscious effects of language-specific terminology on preattentive color perception (PNAS 106: 4567–4570, 2009)
  • Cognitive representation of colour in bilinguals: The case of Greek blues (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12: 83–95, 2009)

ItalianISO 639-3: ita

Naming data from Verona, Alghero (Sardinia) and Tuscany

The blue area is divided by lightness into two or three terms, and which term takes the light end depends on where the speaker is from.

Basic colour terms: Twelve with two blues in a study of standard Italian (Paggetti and colleagues 2016); three basic blues argued for Tuscan speakers (Del Viva and colleagues 2022).

• blu

  Dark blue.

  Usually translated as:

  blue, dark blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The dark end of the English blue region, consistently across the Italian locations studied.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  The one Italian blue term whose reference does not vary by region in the studies read: glossed as dark blue throughout.

  Basic term:

  Paggetti, Menegaz and Paramei (2016).

  Translation caution. English 'blue' is wider. A mid or light blue translated into Italian as blu will read as too dark a word.

  English landmarks: blue, navy. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color naming in Italian language (Color Research & Application 41: 402–415, 2016)
  • Diatopic variation in the referential meaning of the “Italian blues” (in Progress in Colour Studies, pp. 83–106, 2018)

• azzurro

  Light to medium blue; how light depends on the region.

  Usually translated as:

  light blue, blue, azure

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The medium and light blues in Verona; a darker medium blue only in Alghero, where the lighter blues go to celeste; a medium blue between blu and celeste for Tuscan speakers.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Its extent differs markedly between regions measured with the same method, so no single boundary can be stated for 'Italian'.

  Basic term:

  Paggetti, Menegaz and Paramei (2016): behaves as a basic term beside blu.

  Translation caution. The English cognate 'azure' is a literary word for a bright sky colour and is not an everyday equivalent.

  English landmarks: sky blue, blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color naming in Italian language (Color Research & Application 41: 402–415, 2016)
  • Diatopic variation in the referential meaning of the “Italian blues” (in Progress in Colour Studies, pp. 83–106, 2018)
  • Florence “blues” are clothed in triple basic terms (i-Perception 13(5), 2022)

• celeste

  Light blue; literally 'of the sky'.

  Usually translated as:

  light blue, sky blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The lightest blues. For Tuscan speakers it sits above azzurro in lightness as a third division; in Alghero it takes most of the light and medium range that Verona speakers call azzurro.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Separated from azzurro and blu mainly along lightness in the Tuscan data, with smaller differences on the other two CIELAB dimensions.

  Basic status contested:

  A third basic blue for Tuscan speakers according to Del Viva and colleagues (2022, 31 participants); the same method gave two basic blues in Verona and in Alghero.

  Translation caution. Whether it is basic, and how much of the light-blue range it takes from azzurro, depends on the region. A national audience will not read it uniformly.

  English landmarks: sky blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Florence “blues” are clothed in triple basic terms (i-Perception 13(5), 2022)
  • Diatopic variation in the referential meaning of the “Italian blues” (in Progress in Colour Studies, pp. 83–106, 2018)

TurkishISO 639-3: tur

A general blue term plus a salient dark-blue term that speakers use consistently and still classify under the general one.

Basic colour terms: Eleven or twelve. Özgen and Davies (1998) found twelve on salience and consensus but judged eleven the safest conclusion, because most speakers treat the twelfth as a kind of blue.

• mavi

  Blue.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The general blue term. Most speakers count the dark-blue word lacivert as a kind of mavi, so mavi extends over the dark blues as English 'blue' does.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  A comparison quoted by Rätsep (2012) from the Greek study puts mavi on average a little darker than the cross-language blue landmark; the edges are not otherwise reported in the sources read.

  Basic term:

  Özgen and Davies (1998), as reported by Rätsep (2012).

  English landmarks: blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Turkish color terms: tests of Berlin and Kay's theory of color universals and linguistic relativity (Linguistics 36(5): 919 onwards, 1998)
  • Emphasis on the blue: Turkish basic colour terms (Rätsep; Studia uralo-altaica 49: 447–457, 2012)

• lacivert

  Dark blue.

  Usually translated as:

  navy blue, dark blue

  Relation to English:

  Narrower than the English term

  What it covers

  The dark blues, darker on average than Russian siniy according to the comparison Rätsep quotes. In Rätsep's own field test its best-named sample was a purple-blue one outside the standard sample set.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Used with high agreement for dark blue samples, yet 85.5% of the students Özgen and Davies asked said lacivert is a kind of mavi.

  Basic status contested:

  Özgen and Davies (1998) found it meets the salience and consensus tests for a twelfth basic term but fails the test that a basic term must not be included in another; Rätsep (2012) calls it a candidate, not a settled basic term.

  Translation caution. Unlike Russian siniy it is, for most speakers, a kind of blue. It is the nearest thing in this dataset to English 'navy': salient, consistent and still a subdivision.

  English landmarks: navy. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Turkish color terms: tests of Berlin and Kay's theory of color universals and linguistic relativity (Linguistics 36(5): 919 onwards, 1998)
  • Emphasis on the blue: Turkish basic colour terms (Rätsep; Studia uralo-altaica 49: 447–457, 2012)

JapaneseISO 639-3: jpn

Modern speakers separate green and blue with basic terms, but the blue term is still used for some things English calls green, and a light-blue term has become near-universal within about thirty years.

Basic colour terms: Eleven in a 1987 study of ten observers (Uchikawa and Boynton); a 2017 study of 57 speakers proposes a twelfth, mizu (Kuriki and colleagues). For the eighth-century Man'yōshū one analysis accepts only four terms as basic (Tobioka 2020), revising an earlier proposal that counted more.

• 青ao

  Blue; also said of some things English calls green.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  The English blue region, with the sky and the sea as its typical examples, plus a set of green things by convention: lawns, forests, traffic lights, unripe tomatoes and green apples are all described as ao.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  On colour samples modern speakers keep ao and midori apart as blue and green. The overlap is in which word is used of particular objects, not in where the boundary falls on a chart.

  Basic term:

  Uchikawa and Boynton (1987) and Kuriki and colleagues (2017) for modern Japanese; Tobioka (2020) for the eighth century.

  History

  The word once covered green and blue together. Hsieh and colleagues (2020), citing Stanlaw and Kuriki, place the borrowing of the character in a period when ao meant both, probably the fifth century, with blue and green separating in the ninth to tenth centuries. In the eighth-century Man'yōshū it also described greyish things such as clouds and horses (Tobioka 2020).

  Translation caution. Translating ao as 'blue' is wrong for the objects conventionally called ao that are green. The convention is about words; it does not mean speakers see a green light as blue.

  English landmarks: blue, green.

  • Searching for the semantic boundaries of the Japanese colour term 'ao' (doctoral thesis, 2005)
  • The modern Japanese color lexicon (Journal of Vision 17(3): 1, 2017)
  • Basic color categories in Mandarin Chinese revealed by cluster analysis (Journal of Vision 20(12): 6, 2020)
  • Basic colour terms in Old Japanese revisited (Tobioka, Kansai Linguistic Society 45th meeting, 2020)

• 緑midori

  Green.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The English green region on colour samples. Some green objects are nonetheless called ao by convention.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  One of the eight chromatic basic categories in the 2017 cluster analysis, broadly matching American English green.

  Basic term:

  Uchikawa and Boynton (1987) and Kuriki and colleagues (2017) for modern Japanese.

  History

  Not a basic colour term in the eighth-century Man'yōshū on Tobioka's (2020) analysis, where it fails the criterion of not being an object name; an earlier proposal by Stanlaw had counted it as basic at that stage.

  English landmarks: green.

  • The modern Japanese color lexicon (Journal of Vision 17(3): 1, 2017)
  • Categorical color perception of Japanese observers: comparison with that of Americans (Vision Research 27: 1825–1833, 1987)
  • Basic colour terms in Old Japanese revisited (Tobioka, Kansai Linguistic Society 45th meeting, 2020)

• 水mizu

  Light blue; the word means 'water'.

  Usually translated as:

  light blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The light blues, taken out of ao. The 2017 study found no matching category in American English naming of the same samples.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Speakers fall into two groups that differ mainly in how far mizu extends across the samples, so its edge is the least settled part of the modern Japanese system.

  Moving towards basic status:

  Kuriki and colleagues (2017): used by 98% of 57 informants and proposed as a twelfth basic term. Uchikawa and Boynton (1987) did not find it basic.

  History

  A change within about thirty years: the 1987 study of ten observers concluded Japanese had eleven basic terms; by 2017 almost every informant used mizu.

  Translation caution. English 'light blue' is a compound understood as a kind of blue. For most speakers in the 2017 sample mizu is a category of its own.

  English landmarks: sky blue.

  • The modern Japanese color lexicon (Journal of Vision 17(3): 1, 2017)
  • Categorical color perception of Japanese observers: comparison with that of Americans (Vision Research 27: 1825–1833, 1987)

• 紺kon

  Dark blue; the word is glossed 'indigo' in the cited study.

  Usually translated as:

  navy blue, dark blue

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The dark blues, as a statistically distinct category in Japanese naming. The study found no matching category in American English naming of the same samples, although English has the secondary word navy for the same area.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  One of eight non-basic chromatic categories recovered by cluster analysis.

  Not a basic term:

  Kuriki and colleagues (2017).

  Translation caution. Colourwise links it to 'navy' as the nearest English lexicon term; that link is editorial. The study compared naming categories and did not test English navy against kon.

  English landmarks: navy.

  • The modern Japanese color lexicon (Journal of Vision 17(3): 1, 2017)

Mandarin ChineseISO 639-3: cmn

Naming data from Taiwan; usage notes for Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

Green and blue have separate basic terms. An older word covering both survives with different meanings in different regions.

Basic colour terms: Nine in one study (Gao and Sutrop 2014, with no basic brown or orange); eleven in a cluster analysis of speakers in Taiwan (Hsieh and colleagues 2020).

• 青qīng

  A green-to-blue word whose meaning depends on period and region.

  Usually translated as:

  green, blue, cyan, blue-green

  Relation to English:

  No single equivalent

  What it covers

  In Mainland China today, a specific blue-green between green and blue, taught as one of the colours of the rainbow — the area English fills with teal and cyan. For younger speakers in Taiwan, a vague word placed mainly on greens and reaching into blue. Historically, the whole range from greenish to bluish.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Very fuzzy. The regional meanings are reported by Hsieh and colleagues (2020) from earlier work in which speakers matched samples to the term.

  Not a basic term:

  Absent from the nine basic terms of Gao and Sutrop (2014) and from the eleven basic categories of Hsieh and colleagues (2020).

  History

  Frequent in early Chinese texts and less common now. Hsieh and colleagues describe it as covering greenish to bluish shades in ancient usage and as a single green-blue term from the Tang period.

  Translation caution. No single English word fits. The right rendering depends on the date and origin of the text and often on the object described; a fixed gloss of 'blue' or 'green' will be wrong in a share of cases.

  English landmarks: green, blue, teal, cyan.

  • Basic color categories in Mandarin Chinese revealed by cluster analysis (Journal of Vision 20(12): 6, 2020)
  • The basic color terms of Mandarin Chinese: A theory-driven experimental study (Studies in Language 38: 335–359, 2014)

• 藍lán

  Blue.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The English blue region. In the Taiwan naming data blue and green are clearly separate categories.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  No separate light-blue category appeared in the Taiwan data, unlike modern Japanese.

  Basic term:

  Gao and Sutrop (2014); Hsieh and colleagues (2020).

  History

  The same character in Japanese is read ai and names indigo, the dye and its deep blue, not blue in general.

  English landmarks: blue.

  • Basic color categories in Mandarin Chinese revealed by cluster analysis (Journal of Vision 20(12): 6, 2020)
  • The basic color terms of Mandarin Chinese: A theory-driven experimental study (Studies in Language 38: 335–359, 2014)

• 綠lǜ

  Green.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The English green region, as a category clearly separate from blue in the Taiwan naming data.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Used by at least 93% of the Taiwan sample; one of the terms on which studies of Mandarin agree.

  Basic term:

  Gao and Sutrop (2014); Hsieh and colleagues (2020).

  English landmarks: green.

  • Basic color categories in Mandarin Chinese revealed by cluster analysis (Journal of Vision 20(12): 6, 2020)
  • The basic color terms of Mandarin Chinese: A theory-driven experimental study (Studies in Language 38: 335–359, 2014)

KoreanISO 639-3: kor

What English calls green is divided between a yellow-green term and a green term, with no single everyday word covering both.

Basic colour terms: Not counted in the sources read here; they establish only that yeondu and chorok are distinct basic terms (Hanley 2015).

• 연두yeondu

  Yellow-green.

  Usually translated as:

  yellow-green, light green

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The yellow side of what English calls green — the area English reaches only with secondary names such as lime and chartreuse.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Its boundary with chorok falls inside English green. Korean speakers searched faster across it; English speakers showed no such effect there.

  Basic term:

  Hanley (2015), summarising Roberson, Pak and Hanley (2008).

  Translation caution. The same research group measured discrimination thresholds and found them no different between Korean and English speakers. The boundary affects speeded judgements, not what can be told apart.

  English landmarks: green, chartreuse, lime.

  • Categorical perception of colour in the left and right visual field is verbally mediated: Evidence from Korean (Cognition 107: 752–762, 2008)
  • Color Categorical Perception (Hanley; Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, 2015)
  • Thresholds for color discrimination in English and Korean speakers (Cognition 112: 482–487, 2009)

• 초록chorok

  Green, excluding the yellow-greens.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Splits an English category

  What it covers

  The English green region without its yellow side, which goes to yeondu. The sources read here say there is no single Korean term covering both.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  See yeondu: the boundary between the two is the one studied.

  Basic term:

  Hanley (2015), summarising Roberson, Pak and Hanley (2008).

  Translation caution. English 'green' is wider. A yellow-green translated as chorok names the wrong category for a Korean reader.

  English landmarks: green.

  • Categorical perception of colour in the left and right visual field is verbally mediated: Evidence from Korean (Cognition 107: 752–762, 2008)
  • Color Categorical Perception (Hanley; Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, 2015)

VietnameseISO 639-3: vie

One stem word covers green and blue, and speakers make the distinction with modifiers taken from things: leaf, ocean, sky. Multi-word names do work that single words do in English.

Basic colour terms: Not counted in the sources read here. They describe one basic stem across green and blue (Jameson and Alvarado 2003).

• xanh

  Green and blue together.

  Usually translated as:

  green, blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  The English green and blue regions and the blue-green band between them, as one category. Used alone it does not say which.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Speakers divide it with modifiers, not with a boundary between two words. The focal sample Berlin and Kay recorded for it, tabulated in the cited study, is a dark blue Munsell chip.

  Basic term:

  Jameson and Alvarado (2003) treat it as the basic stem term for the combined category.

  Translation caution. A lone xanh cannot be translated without context. The speaker is not being vague: Vietnamese puts the distinction in a modifier where English puts it in the head word.

  English landmarks: green, blue, teal. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Differences in color naming and color salience in Vietnamese and English (Color Research & Application 28: 113–138, 2003)
  • The use of modifying terms in the naming and categorization of color appearances in Vietnamese and English (Journal of Cognition and Culture 2: 53–80, 2002)

• xanh lá cây

  Leaf xanh: green.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The green part of xanh, named after leaves. Among the most frequent responses to green samples in the cited naming study.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Not reported separately from xanh in the sources read.

  Not a basic term:

  A multi-word name, so it fails the single-word criterion; Alvarado and Jameson (2002) argue that single-word tasks therefore understate Vietnamese colour naming.

  English landmarks: green.

  • Differences in color naming and color salience in Vietnamese and English (Color Research & Application 28: 113–138, 2003)
  • The use of modifying terms in the naming and categorization of color appearances in Vietnamese and English (Journal of Cognition and Culture 2: 53–80, 2002)

• xanh nước biển

  Ocean xanh: blue.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The blue part of xanh, named after the sea. The study also records xanh biển and xanh dương as responses to blue samples, so there is more than one current way of marking blue.

  Its edges (naming experiment)

  Not reported separately from xanh in the sources read.

  Not a basic term:

  A multi-word name; see xanh lá cây for the argument about single-word criteria.

  English landmarks: blue.

  • Differences in color naming and color salience in Vietnamese and English (Color Research & Application 28: 113–138, 2003)

WelshISO 639-3: cym

The recorded senses of the main cool-colour words overlap: one word runs from blue through the green of grass to slate grey, and the words usually given as 'green' and 'grey' each reach into their neighbours.

Basic colour terms: Not counted in the source read here, a historical dictionary that records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

• glas

  Blue; also the green of grass and leaves, and pale or slate grey.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  Three recorded sense groups: the blue of a clear sky or the sea, including greenish sea colours; the green of fresh grass, summer leaves and unripe fruit; and pale blue, slate-coloured, livid or grey, including the grey of frost and ice.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  Senses from dated citations between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, not a measured region. The dictionary lists blue first.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  History

  From a Celtic root shared with Cornish and Breton glas and Old Irish glas, all glossed by the dictionary as blue, green or grey. The compound for grass is built on it.

  Translation caution. 'Blue' is the usual modern translation, but in older texts, place names and fixed expressions glas may be green or grey. A historical dictionary shows the range the word has had; it does not show how often each sense is used today.

  English landmarks: blue, green, grey, sky blue.

  • Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru: A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (entries glas, gwyrdd, llwyd)

• gwyrdd

  Green.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The green of grass and summer leaves. The dictionary also records bluish green, pale and grey among its senses, and medieval citations apply it to the sea.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  Overlaps glas in the dictionary's own definitions: each word is used to define the other.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  History

  A borrowing from Latin viridis, recorded from the ninth century. It did not displace glas from the green of grass.

  English landmarks: green.

  • Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru: A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (entries glas, gwyrdd, llwyd)

• llwyd

  Grey; also pale, and russet or brown.

  Usually translated as:

  grey

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  A mixture of black and white, the colour of ash or lead; also faint, pale or wan; also russet or brown, as of undyed cloth; and turbid or muddy, of water.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  The brown sense is attested in the dictionary's sixteenth-century citations, which gloss it as the colour of russet cloth.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  History

  Cognate with Old Irish líath, grey, according to the dictionary's etymology.

  Translation caution. In older texts llwyd may describe something brown or merely pale. 'Grey' is safe for present-day everyday use only.

  English landmarks: grey, brown.

  • Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru: A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (entries glas, gwyrdd, llwyd)

Irish (Old and Middle Irish)ISO 639-3: sga

Three words share the green-to-blue range and are contrasted with each other by the dictionary itself: a light, greyish one between a vivid green and a deep blue.

Basic colour terms: Not counted in the source read here, a historical dictionary that records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

The dictionary cited covers Old Irish (sga) and Middle Irish (mga) texts together. Present-day Irish (gle) is not described by these records.

• glas

  Light green, blue and grey shades.

  Usually translated as:

  green, grey, blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  Various shades of light green and blue, passing from grass-green to grey. Used of growing things; of eyes, sky and sea; of metal, frost and ice; of grey horses, mantles, stone and mist; and of a wan or livid complexion.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  The dictionary defines it by contrast: opposed to úaine, green, on one side and gorm, blue, on the other.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  History

  The dictionary also links it to the blue dye from woad. It is cognate with Welsh glas.

  Translation caution. The English word depends on the thing described: green for foliage, grey for a horse or stone, blue or grey for eyes. The record describes medieval Irish, not present-day usage.

  English landmarks: green, blue, grey, sage.

  • eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (entries glas, gorm, úaine)

• gorm

  Deep blue; also dark.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  Blue, generally deep blue, in contrast to glas: of crystal, the sheen of weapons and armour, sea and sky. Also green, of vegetation and water; and dark, swarthy or black, of people, animals and things.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  The contrast with glas is one of depth: gorm is the deep term, glas the light one.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  Translation caution. In medieval texts gorm may mean dark or black as well as blue, so 'blue' cannot be assumed. The record describes medieval Irish, not present-day usage.

  English landmarks: blue, navy, black.

  • eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (entries glas, gorm, úaine)

• úaine

  Green, verdant.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The green of fields, hills and woods, and of cloth. The dictionary also records it of rivers and estuaries, translated blue or green, and of eyes, where editors have rendered it grey or blue.

  Its edges (dictionary senses)

  The dictionary sets it against glas as the green term proper.

  Not assessed:

  The dictionary records senses and does not apply basic-term criteria.

  English landmarks: green.

  • eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (entries glas, gorm, úaine)

HungarianISO 639-3: hun

Two everyday words are both translated 'red'. The studies read here find one is the general term and the other is tied to a narrower set of things and to figurative use.

Basic colour terms: Eleven according to a field study (Uusküla and Sutrop 2007) and a corpus study (Benczes and Tóth-Czifra 2014); Berlin and Kay (1969) had supposed twelve, with two reds.

• piros

  Red; the general term.

  Usually translated as:

  red

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The English red region. The corpus study tests the view that it is the more generic of the two reds, used for a larger and looser range of things and mostly in a literal sense.

  Its edges (corpus study)

  No published study read here separates piros from vörös by colour region; the difference reported is in what the words are used of.

  Basic term:

  Uusküla and Sutrop (2007): the most salient of eleven basic terms.

  English landmarks: red.

  • Preliminary study of basic colour terms in modern Hungarian (Linguistica Uralica 43(2): 102–123, 2007)
  • The Hungarian colour terms piros and vörös: a corpus and cognitive linguistic account (Acta Linguistica Hungarica 61: 123–152, 2014)

• vörös

  Red; the term tied to particular things and to figurative use.

  Usually translated as:

  red

  Relation to English:

  Narrower than the English term

  What it covers

  Also translated 'red'. The corpus study tests the view that it is associated with a more limited range of concepts and leans towards figurative use, having had longer to settle into idioms.

  Its edges (corpus study)

  The difference from piros is one of usage, not a measured region of colour space. Colourwise does not state which reds are vörös.

  Basic status contested:

  Berlin and Kay (1969) supposed Hungarian had two basic reds; Uusküla and Sutrop (2007) and Benczes and Tóth-Czifra (2014) both conclude vörös is not basic.

  Translation caution. Choosing between the two reds is a matter of collocation, which a colour value cannot settle. Ask a native speaker which word goes with the object.

  English landmarks: red.

  • Preliminary study of basic colour terms in modern Hungarian (Linguistica Uralica 43(2): 102–123, 2007)
  • The Hungarian colour terms piros and vörös: a corpus and cognitive linguistic account (Acta Linguistica Hungarica 61: 123–152, 2014)
  • Basic Color Terms and Basic Color Categories (C. L. Hardin; chapter 11 of Backhaus, Kliegl and Werner, eds, Color Vision: Perspectives from Different Disciplines, 1998)

Dani

Highlands of western New Guinea

Two terms divide all colours between them: one for cool and dark colours, one for warm and light colours.

Basic colour terms: Two, as reported from Rosch Heider's fieldwork of the early 1970s and cited by later studies.

The studies describe the Dugum Dani of the highlands of western New Guinea. ISO 639-3 divides Grand Valley Dani into three codes (dni, dnt, dna) and the sources read here do not say which applies.

• mili

  Cool and dark colours.

  Usually translated as:

  dark, black

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  One of two terms that between them cover every colour: the dark colours and the cool ones, which in English terms means black together with the greens and blues.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Described by Hardin (1998) from Rosch Heider's fieldwork. Later work reports that choices of best examples varied between speakers.

  Basic term:

  Rosch Heider's studies of 1972, as reported by Hardin (1998) and Roberson and colleagues (2005).

  Translation caution. 'Black' and 'dark' are both poor glosses: the term is defined by coolness as well as darkness. A two-term vocabulary names colours broadly; it is not a report that only two colours are seen.

  English landmarks: black, blue, green.

  • Basic Color Terms and Basic Color Categories (C. L. Hardin; chapter 11 of Backhaus, Kliegl and Werner, eds, Color Vision: Perspectives from Different Disciplines, 1998)
  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

• mola

  Warm and light colours.

  Usually translated as:

  light, white

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  The other of the two terms: the light colours and the warm ones, which in English terms means white together with the reds and yellows.

  Its edges (field survey)

  See mili: the two are described as dividing the whole colour space.

  Basic term:

  Rosch Heider's studies of 1972, as reported by Hardin (1998) and Roberson and colleagues (2005).

  Translation caution. 'White' and 'light' are both poor glosses: the term takes in saturated warm colours such as red. It did not fit Berlin and Kay's first description of a two-term language, which had to be revised.

  English landmarks: white, red, yellow.

  • Basic Color Terms and Basic Color Categories (C. L. Hardin; chapter 11 of Backhaus, Kliegl and Werner, eds, Color Vision: Perspectives from Different Disciplines, 1998)
  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

BerinmoISO 639-3: bit

Villages near the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea

A boundary English does not have, between nol and wor, runs through what English calls green; English's green-blue boundary falls inside nol.

Basic colour terms: Five (Roberson, Davies and Davidoff 2000).

Registered as Berinomo. Kay and Regier (2007) confirm that the two spellings refer to the same language.

• nol

  Green, blue and purple together.

  Usually translated as:

  green, blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  Roughly the English green, blue and purple regions as one category, though without some of the yellowish greens, which belong to wor.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Its boundary with wor runs through English green. Speakers showed categorical effects at that boundary in similarity and memory tasks.

  Basic term:

  Roberson, Davies and Davidoff (2000): one of five basic terms. Kay and Regier (2007) describe it as a green-blue term of a kind common in the World Color Survey.

  Translation caution. No English word covers it, and it is not English green plus English blue: its edge with wor cuts through green. See the language record for the dispute about what the experiments show.

  English landmarks: green, blue, purple.

  • Color categories are not universal: replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129: 369–398, 2000)
  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)
  • Color naming universals: The case of Berinmo (Cognition 102: 289–298, 2007)

• wor

  Yellow, orange, brown and yellowish green together.

  Usually translated as:

  yellow

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  The English yellow, orange and brown regions together with the yellowish greens and olives.

  Its edges (field survey)

  See nol: the boundary between the two is the one studied.

  Basic term:

  Roberson, Davies and Davidoff (2000): one of five basic terms.

  Translation caution. 'Yellow' leaves out most of what the term covers. A leaf-green sample may be wor where an English speaker expects it to group with the other greens.

  English landmarks: yellow, orange, brown, green, olive.

  • Color categories are not universal: replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129: 369–398, 2000)
  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)
  • Color naming universals: The case of Berinmo (Cognition 102: 289–298, 2007)

Himba (a variety of Herero)ISO 639-3: her

Northern Namibia

Five widely extended terms named 86% of the samples, with further terms specific to the colours of cattle hides. Agreement between speakers was lower than in Berinmo.

Basic colour terms: Five by the study's criteria, one of them a recent borrowing (Roberson and colleagues 2005).

The code is Herero's. The study describes Himba as a dialect of Herero that differs from it in colour vocabulary.

• serandu

  Red, broadly.

  Usually translated as:

  red

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  The Herero dictionary gives 'red', but Himba speakers used it across a broad range: it named about two fifths of the range of samples in the study.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Agreement between speakers was moderate; some samples were named with two terms together.

  Basic term:

  Roberson and colleagues (2005), by the criteria of Kay and colleagues.

  Translation caution. Which English regions beyond red it reaches is not stated term by term in the text read; the orange and pink landmarks are Colourwise's reading of 'broad', not the study's list.

  English landmarks: red, orange, pink.

  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

• dumbu

  Beige and yellow, extended widely over light warm and green colours.

  Usually translated as:

  yellow, beige

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  Dictionary translations vary between beige and yellow. In the study it named well over half the range of samples, and its boundary with burou falls close to where Berinmo divides wor from nol, inside English green.

  Its edges (field survey)

  The dumbu–burou boundary is the one tested for categorical effects; it sits slightly away from the Berinmo boundary it resembles.

  Basic term:

  Roberson and colleagues (2005).

  Translation caution. Neither 'yellow' nor 'beige' conveys its extent. The study's finding is about where a boundary falls, not about failing to see green.

  English landmarks: yellow, beige, green.

  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

• zoozu

  Dark colours, including black.

  Usually translated as:

  black

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  The Herero dictionary gives 'black', but only about a third of Himba observers chose a black sample as its best example; others chose a blue or a mid green, and almost all used it for chromatic samples as well as black.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Best examples were diverse, which the authors also report for Berinmo and Dani.

  Basic term:

  Roberson and colleagues (2005).

  Translation caution. 'Black' is the dictionary gloss, not the term's range. It covers dark colours with a hue.

  English landmarks: black, navy, green, blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

• vapa

  Light colours, including white.

  Usually translated as:

  white

  Relation to English:

  Broader than the English term

  What it covers

  The Herero dictionary gives 'white'. About a third of observers chose the white sample as best example and the rest chose other very light samples; most extended the term to light chromatic colours.

  Its edges (field survey)

  All best-example choices were at the lightest level of the sample chart.

  Basic term:

  Roberson and colleagues (2005).

  Translation caution. The cream and ivory landmarks are Colourwise's shorthand for 'very light colours with a hue'; the study does not use English secondary names.

  English landmarks: white, cream, ivory. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

• burou

  Blue, green and purple together.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  Mostly the blue, green and purple range; the most used of the five terms, accounting for about a third of all naming.

  Its edges (field survey)

  A minority of observers used it only together with another term, and a few did not use it unprompted, though they could pick out its range when asked.

  Basic term:

  Roberson and colleagues (2005), who note it is a recent borrowing and identify it with the green-blue term of Berlin and Kay's scheme.

  History

  Borrowed from Afrikaans by way of Herero, where the dictionary translates it as blue. In Himba the borrowed word took on a wider range than its source.

  Translation caution. The Herero dictionary's 'blue' is too narrow for Himba usage. A loanword's meaning in the borrowing language cannot be read off the language it came from.

  English landmarks: blue, green, purple.

  • Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411, 2005)

Tsimane'ISO 639-3: cas

Bolivian Amazon

Agreement between speakers is high for black, white and red and low elsewhere. Two words are used interchangeably across green and blue by most monolingual speakers.

Basic colour terms: No agreed count. Speakers use only a few terms with consensus (white, black and red); other terms vary from person to person (Gibson and colleagues 2017; Malik-Moraleda and colleagues 2023).

• shandyes

  Green or blue for monolingual speakers; green for bilinguals.

  Usually translated as:

  green

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  For most monolingual speakers, the whole green and blue range, used interchangeably with yụshñus. For Tsimane'–Spanish bilinguals, the green part only, in line with Spanish verde.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Agreement between speakers on the green and blue samples was low in both versions of the naming task.

  Basic status contested:

  Listed as the most common term for green samples by Gibson and colleagues (2017), who nonetheless report low consensus; no cited study applies the full basic-term criteria.

  History

  Malik-Moraleda and colleagues (2023) report the word's meaning narrowing among bilinguals without any Spanish word being borrowed.

  Translation caution. The published gloss '~green' marks the most frequent use, not an equivalence. For a monolingual speaker it may equally be said of a blue thing.

  English landmarks: green, blue. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color naming across languages reflects color use (PNAS 114: 10785–10790, 2017)
  • Concepts are restructured during language contact: the birth of blue and other color concepts in Tsimane'-Spanish bilinguals (Psychological Science 34: 1350–1362, 2023)

• yụshñus

  Blue or green for monolingual speakers; blue for bilinguals.

  Usually translated as:

  blue

  Relation to English:

  Merges English categories

  What it covers

  For most monolingual speakers, the whole green and blue range, used interchangeably with shandyes. For bilinguals, the blue part only, in line with Spanish azul.

  Its edges (field survey)

  See shandyes: the two words were used interchangeably across the same samples.

  Basic status contested:

  Listed as the most common term for blue samples by Gibson and colleagues (2017), with low consensus.

  History

  The study's title calls the bilingual pattern 'the birth of blue': an existing word acquiring a narrower meaning under contact with Spanish.

  Translation caution. The published gloss '~blue' marks the most frequent use. Two interchangeable words for one category are not the same as one word, and neither is a separate blue for monolinguals.

  English landmarks: blue, green. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color naming across languages reflects color use (PNAS 114: 10785–10790, 2017)
  • Concepts are restructured during language contact: the birth of blue and other color concepts in Tsimane'-Spanish bilinguals (Psychological Science 34: 1350–1362, 2023)

• jäinäs

  Red.

  Usually translated as:

  red

  Relation to English:

  Near-equivalent

  What it covers

  The red samples. One of only three terms, with those for white and black, that speakers used consistently.

  Its edges (field survey)

  Red was the only chromatic area where variability between Tsimane' speakers was not much greater than in the Spanish and English groups.

  Basic term:

  Consistent use reported by Gibson and colleagues (2017) and Malik-Moraleda and colleagues (2023).

  English landmarks: red. The cited study publishes focal colours for this term; Colourwise does not reproduce them.

  • Color naming across languages reflects color use (PNAS 114: 10785–10790, 2017)
  • Concepts are restructured during language contact: the birth of blue and other color concepts in Tsimane'-Spanish bilinguals (Psychological Science 34: 1350–1362, 2023)

Hadza (Hadzane)ISO 639-3: hts

Tanzania

Informants were allowed to answer 'don't know', and often did outside black, white and red. The low-agreement terms they did use still grouped colours along the lines found in other languages.

Basic colour terms: Three terms with full agreement — black, white and red — among 55 informants naming 23 samples (Lindsey and colleagues 2015).

The source read for this language describes its system but does not list its colour words, so no individual terms are recorded.