Cover not available

In:Progress in Colour Studies: Colour Expression and Cognition
Edited by Carole P. Biggam, Domicele Jonauskaite, Mari Uusküla and Dimitris Mylonas
[Not in series 244] 2026
► pp. 1–14

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Basic kala terms and the end of history

An invitation to visual semantics

 | Roskilde University
Published online: 20 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.244.01lev
Abstract
In this essay, I will critically explore “colour” as a category in cross-linguistic semantics. Contrasting Berlin and Kay’s paradigm of “Basic Colour Terms” with Wierzbicka’s paradigm of “Visual Semantics”, the aim is partly to make explicit the inherent problems within the Basic Colour Terms tradition, but also to envision a new role and place for “colour” within a broader paradigm of Visual Semantics. Arguing for an approach based on the Humboldtian principle of “no outside to language”, on linguacultural relativity, and on emic-based analytical commitments, the essay proposes a broad, environmental cosmovision of Visual Semantics that allows for a renewal of the study of language, culture, and vision.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.“Visual Semantics” or “Basic Colour Terms”?
  • 3.Doing visual semantics
    • 3.1Identifying visual words and expressions
    • 3.2Hypothesising meaning
    • 3.3Representing meaning
  • 4.Case studies
  • 5.After the End
  • Notes
  • References
References (42)
References
Aragón, K. 2016. Mexican colours and meanings: An ethnolinguistic study of visual semantics in Oaxaca. In G. Paulsen, M. Uusküla, and J. Brindle (eds.), Colour Language and Colour Categorisation, 302–332. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017. Visuality, identity and emotion: Rosa Mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword. In C. Levisen and S. Waters (eds.), Cultural Keywords in Discourse, 132–156. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berlin, B. and P. Kay. 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biggam, C. P. 2012. The Semantics of Colour: A Historical Approach. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bille, M. 2019. Homely Atmospheres and Lighting Technologies in Denmark: Living with Light. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. 1964 [1955]. Hanunóo color categories. In D. Hymes (ed.), Language in Culture and Society, 189–192. Harper Row.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gladkova, A. 2021. “What is beauty? Cultural semantics of the Russian folk aesthetics.” International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 84–105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, C. 2018. Ten Lectures on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Exploring Language, Thought and Culture using Simple, Translatable Words. Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, C. and A. Wierzbicka. 2014. Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics across Domains, Languages and Cultures. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, P., B. Berlin, L. Maffi, W. R. Merrifield, and R. Cook. 2009. The World Colour Survey. CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levisen, C. 2012a. Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A case study on the Danish Universe of Meaning. De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012b. “Reds” and “Pinks” in Scandinavia and Beyond: Language as the Key to the Ethnotheory of Colour. Departmental Lecture, 6 June. Aarhus University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. “Postcolonial lexicography: Describing Creole emotion words with the natural semantic metalanguage,” Cahiers de Lexicologie 2: 35–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017. “The social and sonic semantics of reggae: Language ideology and emergent socialities in postcolonial Vanuatu.” Language and Communication 52: 102–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019a. “Biases we live by: Anglocentrism in linguistics and cognitive sciences.” Language Sciences, 76: 101173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019b. “Brightness” in colour linguistics: New light from Danish visual semantics. In I. Raffaelli, D. Katunar and B. Kerovec (eds.), Lexicalization Patterns in Colour Naming: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective, 83–105. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2021. “Pæn, flot, dejlig, and lækker: A lexical anthropology of Danish folk aesthetics”. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 14–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2024. Postcolonial Semantics: Meaning and Metalanguage in a Multipolar World. De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levisen, C., E. Sippola, and K. Aragón. 2016. Colour and visuality in Iberoromance Creoles: Towards a postcolonial semantic interpretation. In G. Paulsen, M. Uusküla, and J. Brindle (eds), Colour Language and Colour Categorisation, 270–301. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lucy, J. 1997. The linguistics of colour. In C. L. Hardin and L. Maffi (eds.), Colour Categories in Thought and Language, 320–346. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyngfelt, B., L. Borin, K. Ohara, and T. T. Torrent. 2018. Constructicography: Construction Development Across Languages. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, A., F. Jordan, and M. Dunn. 2015. “Semantic systems in closely related languages.” Language Sciences 49: 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petrollino, S. 2021. “The Hamar cattle model: The semantics of appearance in a pastoral linguaculture.” Language Sciences 89: 101448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saunders, B. 1992. The Invention of Basic Colour Terms. ISOR.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saunders, B. and J. van Brakel, (eds.). 2002. Theories, Technologies, Instrumentalities of Colour: Anthropological and historiographic perspectives. University Press of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tao, J. and J. Wong. 2019. The confounding Mandarin colour term ‘qīng’: Green, blue, black or all of the above and more? In L. Sadow, B. Peeters, and K. Mullan, (eds.), Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication, 95–116. Springer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turton, D. 1980. “There’s no such beast: Cattle and colour naming among the Mursi”. Man 15(2): 320–338. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Underhill, J. 2009. Humboldt: Worldview and Language. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Brakel, J. 1993. “The plasticity of categories: The case of colour.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44: 103–135. [URL].
Vejdemo, S., C. Levisen, T. Beck, C. von Scherpenberg, Å. Næss, M. Zimmerman, L. Stockall, and M. Whelpton. 2012. “Two kinds of pink: Development and difference in Germanic colour semantics”. Language Sciences 49: 19–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Warnke, I. 2019. “Three steps in chromatic abysses. On the necessity of studying colonialism in late linguistics.” Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics 1: 41–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. “There are no ‘color universals’, but there are universals of visual semantics.” Anthropological Linguistics 47(2): 217–244.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In C. P. Biggam and C. J. Kay (eds.), Progress in Colour Studies, Volume 1: Language and Culture, 1–24. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008. “Why there are no ‘colour universals’ in language and thought.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 407–425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. Deconstructing ‘colour’, exploring indigenous meanings. In D. Young (ed.), Rematerializing Colour: From Concept to Substance, 67–90. Sean Kingston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. and C. Goddard. In preparation. Anchoring Anthropological Categories in Simple, Translatable Words: The Case of ‘Art’ and ‘Religion’.
Wnuk, E., A. Verkerk, S. C. Levinson, and A. Majid. 2022. “Color technology is not necessary for rich and efficient color language”. Cognition 229: 105223. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wong, J. O. 2014. The Culture of Singapore English. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmermann, M., C. Levisen, T. Beck, and C. van Scherpenberg. 2015. “Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe”. Language Sciences 49: 35–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue