The modern Japanese color lexicon

Abstract

Despite numerous prior studies, important questions about the Japanese color lexicon persist, particularly about the number of Japanese basic color terms and their deployment across color space. Here, 57 native Japanese speakers provided monolexemic terms for 320 chromatic and 10 achromatic Munsell color samples. Through k-means cluster analysis we revealed 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories. These included eight chromatic basic color terms (aka/red, ki/yellow, midori/green, ao/blue, pink, orange, cha/brown, and murasaki/purple) plus eight additional terms: mizu ("water")/light blue, hada ("skin tone")/peach, kon ("indigo")/dark blue, matcha ("green tea")/yellow-green, enji/maroon, oudo ("sand or mud")/mustard, yamabuki ("globeflower")/gold, and cream. Of these additional terms, mizu was used by 98% of informants, and emerged as a strong candidate for a 12th Japanese basic color term. Japanese and American English color-naming systems were broadly similar, except for color categories in one language (mizu, kon, teal, lavender, magenta, lime) that had no equivalent in the other. Our analysis revealed two statistically distinct Japanese motifs (or color-naming systems), which differed mainly in the extension of mizu across our color palette. Comparison of the present data with an earlier study by Uchikawa & Boynton (1987) suggests that some changes in the Japanese color lexicon have occurred over the last 30 years.

Acquisition of the Meaning of the Word Orange Requires Understanding of the Meanings of Red, Pink, and Purple: Constructing a Lexicon as a Connected System

“…When participants used loan words (e.g., bur u ["blue"] instead of ao ["blue"]), these were counted as different word types from the basic color words. They had 57 native Japanese speakers produce color words for all of the 340 Munsell color samples and revealed that there exist 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories, which were identical to words identified as "basic" in our study, with an exception of kimidori ("yellowish green"): Kuriki et al (2017) excluded this word from the list of basic words because the color name can be morphologically decomposed into ki ("yellow") and midori ("midori"). The 16 color words included Berlin and Kay's (1969) 11 basic color terms (i.e., color categories that are widely observed in different languages): shiro ("white"), kuro ("black"), haiiro ("gray"), aka ("red"), ao ("blue"), midori ("green"), ki ("yellow"), orenji ("orange"), pinku ("pink"), cha ("brown"), and murasaki ("purple").…”

“…We thus considered a word form to be a basic word if the word is applied most dominantly (i.e., most frequently) for at least one color swatch in our stimuli. These operationally defined basic words were also reported to be basic color words by Kuriki et al (2017), who attempted to identify basic color words in Japanese. Sixteen color word types were included in our list of "basic" words.…”

“…In addition, five Japanese-specific color words-mizu-iro ("light blue"), kimidori ("yellowish green"), hada-iro (literal translation: "skin tone," but the closest color with an English name would be "peach"), odo ("ochre"), and kon ("deep blue")-were identified. These operationally defined basic words were also reported to be basic color words by Kuriki et al (2017), who attempted to identify basic color words in Japanese. They had 57 native Japanese speakers produce color words for all of the 340 Munsell color samples and revealed that there exist 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories, which were identical to words identified as "basic" in our study, with an exception of kimidori ("yellowish green"): Kuriki et al (2017) excluded this word from the list of basic words because the color name can be morphologically decomposed into ki ("yellow") and midori ("midori").…”

“…These operationally defined basic words were also reported to be basic color words by Kuriki et al (2017), who attempted to identify basic color words in Japanese. They had 57 native Japanese speakers produce color words for all of the 340 Munsell color samples and revealed that there exist 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories, which were identical to words identified as "basic" in our study, with an exception of kimidori ("yellowish green"): Kuriki et al (2017) excluded this word from the list of basic words because the color name can be morphologically decomposed into ki ("yellow") and midori ("midori"). We, in contrast, included it, because on a daily basis, most speakers of Japanese consider kimidori a monomorphemic word.…”

Colorimetry and Dichromatic Vision

“…Much of the modern work on color and language [22][23][24] has been inspired by the seminal work of Berlin and Kay [25] about the basic color terms (BCTs). These terms are monolexemic, known and used by all members of the language community and can be used to communicate about the color of any type of object.…”