Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T22:45:35.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ethnographic evidence of unique hues and elemental colors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2019

Robert E. MacLaury
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 maclaury@sas.upenn.edu

Abstract

Contrary to argument that unique hues are undemonstrated, the World Color Survey shows that speakers of more than 100 minor and tribal languages focus color categories predominantly on 4 of the 40 hue columns of the ethnographic Munsell array. The pattern is not conditioned by saturation levels or other arbitrary structures among the color chips, nor is Western influence likely to be the cause. Moreover, all evidence suggests that color cognition is autonomous despite the connotations and polysemies of color terms.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
1997 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)