Lexicology Monolexemic color words are composed of individual
lexemes, or
root words, such as 'red', 'brown', 'fuchsia', or 'olive'. The root words generally describe the hue of the color, but some root wordsnamely browncan also describe the other dimensions. Compound color words make use of prefix adjectives (e.g. 'light brown', 'sea green'), that generally describe the saturation or luminosity, or compounded basic color words (e.g. 'yellow-green'), which refine the hue of the color relative to root words. , the
Finnish word for 'pink', is a clear
agglutination of the language's words for 'pale' () and 'red' ().
Basic color terms Basic color terms meet the following criteria:\begin{Bmatrix}\text{white} \\ \text{black} \end{Bmatrix} Berlin and Kay's study identified seven stages of color distinction systems. Each progressive stage features a color term that the previous stages do not.
Stage I (dark and light) Stage I contains two terms, white and black (light and dark); these terms are referenced broadly to describe other undefined color terms. For example, the
Yali highland group in New Guinea identify the color of blood as black. This is because blood, as a relatively dark liquid, is grouped into the same color classification as black. In the
Bassa language, there are two terms for classifying colors: (white, yellow, orange, and red) and (black, violet or purple, blue, and green). In the
Pirahã language, there appear to be no color terms beyond describing lightness and darkness. The
Dani language of
western New Guinea differentiates only two basic colors: for cool/dark shades such as blue, green, and black; and for warm/light colors such as red, yellow, and white.
Stage II (red) Stage II implements a third term for red. Objects begin to rely less on their brightness for classification and instead, each term cover a larger scope of colors. Specifically, blue and other darker shades continue to be described as black, yellow and orange colors are classified with red, and other bright colors continue to be classified with white. In the
Bambara language, there are three color terms: (white, beige), (reddish, brownish), and (dark green, indigo, and black).
Stage III/IV (yellow + green) Stage III identifies a third term referring either to green (IIIa) or yellow (IIIb). Most languages in the study with this system identify yellow over green, such as the
Komi language, where green is considered a shade of yellow (, ), called ( . However, the Nigerian
Ibibio language and the Philippine
Hanunoo language both identify green instead of yellow. The
Ovahimba use
four color names: stands for dark shades of blue, red, green, and purple; is white and some shades of yellow; is some shades of green and blue; and is some other shades of green, red, and brown. It is thought that this may
increase the time it takes for the Ovahimba to distinguish between two colors that fall under the same
Herero color category, compared to people whose language separates the colors into two different color categories. Stage IV incorporates green or yellow, whichever was not already present, i.e. stage IIIa languages will adopt yellow and stage IIIb languages will adopt green. Most stage IV languages continue to
colexify blue and green, as listed in
Blue–green distinction in language. The
Chinese character 青 (pronounced in
Mandarin and in Japanese) has a meaning that covers both blue and green. In more contemporary terms, they are
藍 (, in Mandarin) and
綠 (, in Mandarin) respectively. Japanese also has two terms that refer specifically to the color green, (, derived from the classical Japanese descriptive verb in reference to trees) and (, which is derived from the English word 'green').
Stage V (blue) Stage V introduces blue as its own color term, differentiating from black or from green.
Stage VI (brown) The seventh basic color term is likely to be brown. In English, this is the first basic color term (other than black and white) that is not differentiated on hue, but rather on lightness. English splits some hues into several distinct colors according to lightness: such as red and pink or orange and brown. To English speakers, these pairs of colors, which are objectively no more different from one another than light green and dark green, are conceived of as belonging to different categories.
Stage VII Stage VII adds additional terms for orange, pink, purple, or gray, but these do not exhibit the same hierarchy as the previous seven colors. English contains eleven basic color terms: 'black', 'white', 'red', 'green', 'yellow', 'blue', 'brown', 'orange', 'pink', 'purple', and 'gray'.
Stage VII+ Languages with further color distinction use relativistic light/dark terms like light blue/
dark blue (in comparison to blue sky/ blue ocean), or
pale red/
deep red.
Italian,
Russian and
Hebrew have twelve basic color terms, each distinguishing blue and light blue. A Russian will make the same red/pink and orange/brown distinctions, but will also make a further distinction between () and (), which English speakers would call dark and light blue. To Russian speakers, and are as separate as red and pink, or orange and brown.
Hungarian and
Turkish distinguish multiple words for 'red': and (Hungarian; is a darker red), and , , and (Turkish); now includes all reds but originally referred to
crimson, to which it is cognate, while mainly refers to scarlet and other orange-tinted or brownish reds. Two words for 'red' are also found in Irish and
Scottish Gaelic: ( for light, bright red and or respectively for dark, brownish red). Turkish also has two words for 'white' ( and ) and 'black' ( and ). and have the same meaning, while is a broader term than and also includes dark browns; which word is used also depends on the kind of object being described. Both and are of Turkic origin, while is borrowed from
Persian, and from Arabic . In
Serbo-Croatian there are differences in dark brown (), brown ( and ), red (), pink (), and orange (), as well as in blue hues: navy blue (), dark blue (), blue (), and ash blue (). An interesting case that deviates from this pattern is
Irish's two words for green: • denotes the green color of plants • denotes artificial greens of dyes, paints etc. This distinction is made even if two shades are identical. is also used for "natural" grays, such as the
gray squirrel, .
Linguistic relativity These colors roughly correspond to the sensitivities of the retinal ganglion cells, leading Berlin and Kay to argue that color naming is not merely a cultural phenomenon, but is one that is also constrained by biology—that is, language is shaped by perception. suggested that the origin of this hierarchy may be tied to human vision and the time ordering in which these color names get accepted or agreed upon in a population perfectly matches the order predicted by the hierarchy.
Non-hue terms This article mostly describes the color terms that define the
hue of a color, since hue is considered the most innate dimension of the three. However, other terms are often used to describe the other two dimensions, which can be seen as common prefixes to the root terms that generally describe hue. Adding prefixes to root color terms generates
multilexemic colors. Examples of common prefix adjectives can be seen in a
list of color names and are described: •
Brightness: can describe either high luminosity or high saturation, according to the
Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect and/or
Hunt effect. •
Lightness: describes both a high luminosity
and low saturation •
Darkness: the opposite of lightness, or low luminosity •
Paleness,
dullness: a measure of desaturation •
Deep,
Royal: may refer to darkness and/or high saturation; unrelated to
color depth. •
Pure,
Bold,
Vivid,
Rich: all referring to high saturation •
Pastel: refers to colors with high luminosity and low saturation. •
Neon: bright, in either of the word's connotations; alluding to the bright glow of
neon lighting. •
Fluorescent: very bright, sometimes also highly saturated. Named after the
fluorescence effect of
pigments and
dyes, which can produce a luminous glow when viewed under
ultraviolet light, thereby appearing significantly brighter than their surroundings.
Non-dimensional terms Other terms sometimes used to describe color are related to physical phenomenon that do not describe a single color, but describe the dynamic nature of an object's color. These include: •
Glossy: whether the surface reflects
diffusely or
specularly (sharply) •
Metallic: distinguishing 'gold' and 'silver' from shades of 'yellow' and 'gray', respectively •
Iridescent: dependence of color on viewing angle, innate to
structural coloration •
Opacity: opaque (solid) vs. translucent (transparent or see-through)
Abstract and descriptive color terms Color terms can be classified as
abstract or
descriptive, though the distinction is often unclear.
Abstract color terms refer only to the color they represent and any etymological link to an object of that color is lost. In English white, black, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, and gray are abstract color terms. These terms are also
basic color terms (as described above), though other abstract terms like
maroon and
magenta are not considered basic color terms.
Descriptive color terms are secondarily used to describe a color but primarily refer to an object or phenomenon. 'Salmon', 'rose', 'saffron', and 'lilac' are descriptive color terms in English because their use as color terms is derived in reference to natural colors of
salmon flesh,
rose flowers, infusions of
saffron pistils, and
lilac blossoms respectively. Abstract color terms in one language may be represented by descriptive color terms in another; for example in Japanese pink is (, ) and gray is either or (, , lit. 'ash-color' for light grays and 'mouse-color' for dark grays respectively). Nevertheless, as languages evolve they may adopt or invent new abstract color terms, as Japanese has adopted () for pink and () for gray from English. While most of the 11 basic color terms in English are decidedly abstract, three of them (all stage VII, so understandably the youngest basic color terms) are arguably still descriptive: •
Pink was originally a descriptive color term derived from the name of a
flower called a 'pink'. However, because the word 'pink' is rarely used to refer to the flower anymore, relative to its common usage as a color, it is often regarded as an abstract color term. •
Purple is another example of this shift, as it was originally a word that referred to the
dye named
Tyrian purple, which took its name from the Latin , which referred to both the dye and the
sea snail from which the dye was derived. However, this etymological link has been lost in translation. •
Orange is difficult to categorize as abstract or descriptive because both its uses, as a color term and as a word for an object, are very common and it is difficult to distinguish which of the two is primary. In English, the use of the word 'orange' for a fruit predates its use as a color term. The word comes from French , which derives via
Arabic () and
Sanskrit () from a
Dravidian language such as
Tamil or
Tulu. The derived form
orangish as a color is attested from the late 19th century by reference to the fruit. ==Struggle in linguistics==