Basic color terms

About “Basic color terms”

Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution is a book by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay. The book presents a theory about how color terms develop in different cultures. According to the authors, all cultures have terms for dark (black) and light (white). When a culture has three color terms, the third is usually red. If a culture has four terms, it typically includes either yellow or green. The study suggests that the development of color terms follows a predictable pattern based on the number of terms a culture uses. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)