Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 113, Issue 48, Pages 13666-13671Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1613666113
Keywords
linguistics; color; cognitive science; evolution; Australian languages
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [BCS-0844550, BCS-1423711]
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [1423711] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The naming of colors has long been a topic of interest in the study of human culture and cognition. Color term research has asked diverse questions about thought and communication, but no previous research has used an evolutionary framework. We show that there is broad support for the most influential theory of color term development (most strongly represented by Berlin and Kay [Berlin B, Kay P (1969) (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA)]); however, we find extensive evidence for the loss (as well as gain) of color terms. We find alternative trajectories of color term evolution beyond those considered in the standard theories. These results not only refine our knowledge of how humans lexicalize the color space and how the systems change over time; they illustrate the promise of phylogenetic methods within the domain of cognitive science, and they show how language change interacts with human perception.
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