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. 113–126

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

The green-blue border does not depend on the number of blues in a language

Evidence from cross-linguistic colour-naming data

 | Tallinn University
 | Independent researcher
Published online: 20 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.244.06bim
Abstract
Among languages that recognise different categories for ‘blue’ and ‘green’ in their colour lexicons, some further partition ‘blue’ according to lightness. We asked whether this subdivision would affect the ‘blue’/‘green’ boundary. We identified this boundary in seven European languages, using a dataset in which speakers of each language gave colour names to sixty-five standardised colour samples. The frequencies of ‘blue’- and ‘green’-naming for each sample were expressed as functions of hue-angle, with the angle where the two functions cross being the category boundary. No differences were found between languages with or without separate basic terms for ‘light blue’, implying that the emergence of these ‘light blue’ terms is not caused by reduced salience or coverage of ‘blueness’.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Stimuli
    • 2.2Participants
    • 2.3Task
    • 2.4Analysis
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (30)
References
Androulaki, A., N. Gómez-Pestaña, C. Mitsakis, J. Lillo Jover, K. Coventry and I. R. L. Davies. 2006. “Basic colour terms in modern Greek: Twelve terms including two blues.” Journal of Greek Linguistics 7(1): 3–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ardener, E. 1971. Introductory essay: Social anthropology and language. In E. Ardener (ed.), Social Anthropology, 14–107. Tavistock.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bimler, D. 2007. “From color naming to a language space: An analysis of data from the World Color Survey.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(3-4): 173–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bimler, D. and M. Uusküla. 2014. ““Clothed in triple blues”: Sorting out the Italian blues.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 31(4): A332–A340. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “A similarity-based cross-language comparison of basicness and demarcation of “blue” terms.” Color Research and Application 42(3): 362–377. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Individual variations in color-concept space replicate across languages.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 35(4): B184–B191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolton, R., A. T. Curtis and L. L. Thomas. 1980. “Nepali color terms: Salience on a listing task.” Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 12(1): 309–322.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, I. R. L. and G. Corbett. 1995. “A practical field method for identifying probable basic colour terms.” Languages of the World 9: 25–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, I. R. L., C. MacDermid, G. Corbett, H. McGurk, D. Jerrett, T. Jerrett and P. Sowden. 1992. “Color terms in Setswana: A linguistic and perceptual approach.” Linguistics 30(6): 1065–1103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Del Viva, M., I. Marini, C. De Caro and G. V. Paramei. 2022. “Florence “blues” are clothed in triple basic terms.” i-Perception 13(5): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hård, A., L. Sivik and G. Tonnquist. 1996. “NCS, natural color system — From concept to research and applications, Part I.” Color Research and Application 21: 180–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuriki, I., R. Lange, Y. Muto, A. M. Brown, K. Fukuda, R. Tokunaga, D. T. Lindsey, K. Uchikawa and S. Shioiri. 2017. “The modern Japanese color lexicon.” Journal of Vision 17(3): 1. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindsey, D. and A. M. Brown. 2009. “Color difference scaling at the blue-green color category boundary as a test of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.” (Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract). Journal of Vision 9: 8.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “World Color Survey color naming reveals universal motifs and their within-language diversity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106(47): 19785–19790. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “The color lexicon of American English.” Journal of Vision 14(2):17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacLaury, R. E. 1987. “Color-category evolution and Shuswap yellow-with-green.” American Anthropologist 89: 107–124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martinovic, J., G. V. Paramei and W. J. MacInnes. 2020. “Russian blues reveal the limits of language influencing colour discrimination.” Cognition 201: 1–15. [URL]
Panitanang, N., C. Phuangsuwan and M. Ikeda. 2022. “Basic color terms in Thai.” Color Research and Application 47(6): 1402–1425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paramei, G. V., M. D’Orsi and G. Menegaz. 2018. Diatopic variation in referential meaning of “Italian blues.” In L. MacDonald, C. P. Biggam and G. V. Paramei (eds.), Progress in Colour Studies: Cognition, Language and Beyond, 83–105. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rätsep, K. 2018. Colour terms in Turkish, Estonian and Russian: How Many Basic Blue Terms are There? Ph.D dissertation, University of Tartu. [URL]
Regier, T., P. Kay and R. S. Cook. 2005. “Universal foci and varying boundaries in linguistic color categories.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 27. Cognitive Science Society. [URL]
Roberson, D., I. R. L. Davies, G. G. Corbett and M. Vandervyver. 2005. “Free-sorting of colors across cultures: Are there universal grounds for grouping?” Journal of Cognition and Culture 5(3–4): 349–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ryabina, E. 2011. “Differences in the distribution of colour terms in colour space in the Russian, Udmurt and Komi-Zyrian languages.” Eesti ja soome-ugri keeleteaduse Ajakiri = Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics 2(2): 191–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Starko, V. 2013. “Ukrainian colour concepts for blue.” Slovo: Journal of Slavic Languages and Literatures 54: 150–163.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sutrop, U. 2011. Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman. In C. P. Biggam, C. A. Hough, C. J. Kay and D. R. Simmons (eds.), New Directions in Colour Studies, 39–48. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uusküla, M. 2011. Terms for red in Central Europe: An areal phenomenon in Hungarian and Czech. In C. P. Biggam, C. A. Hough, C. J. Kay and D. R. Simmons (eds.), New Directions in Colour Studies, 147–156. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uusküla, M. and Bimler, D. L. 2016. How universal are focal colors after all? A different methodology for identifying focal color terms. In G. Paulsen, M. Uusküla and J. Brindle (eds.), Color Language and Color Categorization, 2–39. Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uusküla, M., C. Mohr, D. Epicoco, and D. Jonauskaite. 2023. “Is purple lost in translation? The affective meaning of purple, violet, and lilac cognates in 16 languages and 30 populations.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 52(3), 853–868. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmer, A. C. 1982. “What really is turquoise? A note on the evolution of color terms.” Psychological Research 44: 213–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zollinger, H. 1984. “Why just turquoise? Remarks on the evolution of color terms.” Psychological Research 46(4): 403–409. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue