University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education

Black, White, and Red All Over: The Riddle of Color Term Salience
Author(s): Ralph Bolton
Source: Ethnology, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 287-311
Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3773198
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Black,White, andRedAll Over:The Riddleof

ColorTermSalience1
Ralph Bolton
PomonaCollege

Revivingideas presentedby Magnus (1877, I880) and Rivers (9goia, 9goIb,

I905) and adoptinga techniquepioneeredby Lennebergand Roberts(I956),
Berlinand Kay in I969 offeredan interpretation
of variationsin colorlexicon
that was radicallydifferentfrom the prevailingexplanationderivedfrom the
theoryof linguisticrelativity.Their researchinvolvedan intensiveand experimentalinvestigationof twentylanguagesand a comparativeanalysisof color
in ninety-eightlanguages.Berlinand Kay arguedthat basiccolor
vocabularies
termscouldbe distinguishedfromnonbasiccolorterms;a basictermis defined
by a set of four majorcriteria:(i) it is monolexemic;(2) its significationis not
by thatof anyothercolorterm;(3) it is potentiallyapplicableto a
encompassed
broadarrayof objects;and(4) it is psychologically
salient.Analyzingtheirdata
these
Berlin
and
discovered
that
the maximumnumberof
criteria,
using
Kay
basiccolortermsin any languageis,eleven,and that the minimumnumberis
two. Moreover,they establishedthatcolorlexicons,with few exceptions,could
be classifiedas belongingto one of seventypesaccordingto the patternof terms
includedin the basiccolorvocabulary.Further,thesetypes,they noted,constitute a chronologicalsequenceof evolutionarystages,as follows:
STAGE

II

BLACK
TERMS

WHITEJ

III

IV

GREEN-YELLOW
REDN
-BLUE'YELLOW--GREEN"

VI

VII

PINK
BROWN-- PURPLE
ORANGE
GRAY

ThroughStageVI, a colorlexiconat anygivenstagecontainsall precedingcolor

termsplus the one indicatedfor that stage;StageVII lexiconsincorporateall
priortermsplusoneor moreof the StageVII newterms(i.e., PINK, PURPLE,
ORANGE,and GRAY).
weaknesses(cf. HickAlthoughattackedbecauseof variousmethodological
erson I97I; Conklin 1973), the Berlin and Kay formulationhas withstood
subsequentempiricaltestingremarkablywell. In general,later investigations
the BerlinandKay findings,while suggesting
yieldedresultsthat corroborated
refinementsin areas where anomaliesrequiredmodificationof the original
287

288

ETHNOLOGY

argument. Naroll (I970) and Hays et al. (I972), for example, reported results of

a cross-culturalstudy which confirmed the existence of an associationbetween

societal complexity and the size of the basic color vocabulary; this hypothesis
had been raised but not tested systematicallyby Berlin and Kay. Durbin (I972)
found an associationbetween the average number of phonemes of color terms
and the evolutionary sequence posited by Berlin and Kay; color terms for
BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, and BLUE tend to be shorter
than the terms for BROWN, PINK PURPLE, ORANGE, and GRAY.
According to Durbin, older terms should be shorter than more recent terms.
Similarly, the more salient a term is, the shorter it should be (Hays et al. I972:
IIIo-IIII). It might be pointed out that the above studiesprobing the evolutionary hypothesis do not necessarilylend supportto the specificseven-stagetheory
of Berlin and Kay; rather, they could be interpretedas supportfor a two-stage
scheme which merely differentiated the primary from the nonprimarycolors.
Merrifield (I97I) provided data on eight additional languages from Mexico,
all of which supported the Berlin-Kay ordering. Hage and Hawkes (1975)
describedBinumarien color categories and classifiedthis New Guinea system in
Stage IIIb of the Berlin and Kay scheme (i.e., in which BLACK, WHITE,
RED and YELLOW occur). Snow (I97I), in contrast,claimed that the Samoan
color lexicon does not fit the evolutionaryorder proposed by Berlin and Kay,
thus adding another problematicalcase to the list of deviant cases reported in
Basic Color Terms. Likewise, Hill and Hill (I970) showed that many UtoAztecan languages do not fit the Berlin and Kay formulation since they have a
term for GRAY but none for BLUE.
The acquisition of color terms was studied by Harkness (I973). She found
that not only is the evolutionary order of basic color terms "substantially
paralleled by the learning of color terms" (1973: I99) in two languages (Guate-

malan Spanish and Mam), but also that the continuing evolution of basic color
terms in Mam follows the sequence proposed by Berlin and Kay. Studying
intracultural variability in color lexicons, Dougherty (I974: I3) concluded that

contiguous developmental stages exist concurrentlyamong the West Futunese

and that "the Berlin and Kay sequence successfullypredicts development and
change for the West Futunese system of color classification."Berlin and Berlin
(I975: 8I) reportedthat the acquisitionof new color terms among the Aguaruna
of Eastern Peru is "preciselythat predicted by the Berlin and Kay sequence for
the diachronic addition of basic color terms."
It would appear, then, that the available evidence to date permits certain
conclusions. First, it is clear that most color lexicons do fit into one of the seven
types described by Berlin and Kay originally; even fewer exceptions remain
when a proposed revised set of types is employed (Berlin and Berlin 1975;
Dougherty I974; Kay I975).2 Second, these seven types can be arranged into an

evolutionarysequence of stages that correlateswith societal complexity. Third,

color lexicons expand by adding new basic color terms in the order predictedby
the evolutionaryhypothesis.And fourth, the learning of color terms by individuals follows essentially the same sequence as the evolutionaryone.
But significant, unresolvedproblemspersist.One such problemcenterson the
conflicting results produced by studies involving the measurement of relative
salience among basic color terms. Basic color terms by definition (Berlin and

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

289

Kay 1969: 6) must be more salient than nonbasic color terms, and presumably
the terms found earlier in the evolutionarysequenceshould be more salient than
those found later in the sequence. Berlin and Kay (I969: 6) mentioned three
indicators of "psychological salience." A color term high in salience should
appearat the beginning of color-termlists given by informants,it should exhibit
"stability of reference" with respect to both informants and occasions of use,
and it should exist in the ideolects of all informants.3According to Hays et al.
(I972), salience refers to "prominence" and "conspicuousness."Does relative
salience among basic color terms in fact correspondto the Berlin-Kay evolutionary sequence? In some cases, salience data have supported the evolutionary
order, while in others they have not.
Probably the strongest evidence showing an association between salience
measures and the evolutionary sequence was published by Hays et al. (1972).
Examining frequencycounts of color words in written texts of seven languages
(English, French, German, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish), these
investigatorsfound that the basic color terms used most frequently are those of
supposedgreater antiquityin the Berlin and Kay scheme; the correlationswere
impressivelyhigh (rs = .76 and above). Additionally, Hays et al. showed that
the frequencywith which ethnographersdiscuss specificcolors in their writings
agrees well with the proposedevolutionaryorder.
A series of experiments by Rosch (Heider I97I, I972a, I972b; Rosch I973,
1974, I975) demonstratedthat focal colors are more salient than nonfocal colors,

but, for the most part, her studies failed to support the hypothesis that the
relative salience of focal colors would conform to the predicted evolutionary
sequence. Nonetheless, she did conclude that primary colors tend to be more
salient than nonprimary colors (indicators of salience in her experiments included length of color names, latency of naming, short- and long-term memory,
and ease of learning color names). Rosch's studies, like those by Naroll and
Durbin mentioned above, would supporta two-stagedevelopmentaltheory. The
failure of her data to confirm the Berlin-Kay evolutionarysequence should not
be interpreted,in Rosch's view, as evidence againstBerlin and Kay. She (Rosch
I973:341) states that "there need be no simple relation between order of
individual acquisitionof terms and linguistic evolution. The present study only
representsa case in which a possible evolutionaryorder could have been, but
was not, reflected on the level of individual learning."
Pollnac (I975) asked I02 Baganda informants to list all of the color names
they could think of. The twelve terms at the head of the resultantcomposite list
with respect to frequency of mention and mean rank included all of the basic
color terms designated by Berlin and Kay. But Pollnac (I975: 93) pointed out
that the relative salience of these terms "does not follow Berlin and Kay's
evolutionary sequence."While the Baganda data indeed do not exactly parallel
the Berlin-Kay sequence, it should be noted that there does exist a statistically
significantcorrelationbetween the Berlin-Kay sequence and Pollnac's materials
(absolute frequency of mention, Spearmanrho = .54, p < .05; mean ranks,
Spearman rho = .57, p < .o5). To account for Pollnac's data on chromatic
color terms, again, a two-stage theory might be sufficient since YELLOW,
GREEN, RED, and BLUE (the primary colors) are more salient in the
Baganda list than the other basic color terms.

290

ETHNOLOGY

In sum, while the evidence in none of these studies directly contradictsthe

expectations concerning the relative salience of basic color terms derived from
the Berlin and Kay formulation, only the Hays et al. analyses offer strongly
positive findings. Consequently,furtherwork on salience in relation to linguistic
evolution is needed. In this paper, I shall report the results of a test of the
hypothesis of an associationbetween the Berlin and Kay evolutionarysequence
and the relative salience of basic color terms. One limitation of previous
attempts to test this hypothesis has been a tendency to rely on a single type of
indicator of salience (e.g., psychologicalmeasuresin the case of Rosch, elicited
lists of color terms in the case of Pollnac, and publishedword counts in the case
of Hays et al.). Each indicator may tap only a segment of the overall relative
salience of basic color terms, thus yielding weak results.A more comprehensive
approach to the measurement of salience should eliminate this problem and
produce better results. In my research,I have used a multiple-indicatordesign
that includes data from elicited lists of color terms and data on the frequencyof
occurrence of basic color terms in materials pertaining to a variety of cultural
domains. This approachpermits the constructionof a broad index of relative
salience. Since this investigation focused on a single culture area, that of the
highlands in southernPeru, this approachalso makes feasible the explorationof
differences and similarities in relative salience across domains and across indicators. Therefore, in addition to reportingthe results of a test of the salienceevolution hypothesis, I shall examine cross-domaindifferences in relative salience of basic color terms.
THE SALIENCEOF BASIC COLORTERMSIN SOUTHERNPERU

Twenty indicatorsof basiccolor term salience were developed in the course of

this investigation,includingfive compositemeasures.These indicatorswere then
correlated with the Berlin and Kay evolutionary sequence. The results of all
tests are reported below. For the sake of convenience in presentation, I have
grouped individual studies into three categories: (I) relative salience in color
term lists, (2) relative salience in subsistencedomains, and (3) relative salience
in domains of expressive culture. Data and methods are described in each
section prior to the discussion of results.
Relative Salience in Lists of Color Terms
In June I974, an assistantand I interviewed 113high school students in two
locations in the Department of Puno, Peru (55 in Chapa and 58 in SanJuan del
Oro). Most of these interviews (89) were conducted by my assistantwho was
not familiar at that time with the Berlin and Kay theory. The studentsranged in
age from 13 to 26 years. All but a few of the informants were bilingual in
Spanish and Quechua or Aymara. Questions were posed and answered exclusively in Spanish. As part of the interview, informantswere asked to list all the
color terms that they could think of.
The elicited lists contained an averageof 6.54 color terms, and they ranged in
length from a low of two termsto a high of twelve terms (the median numberof
terms was six). The terms for the eleven basic color categories designated by
Berlin and Kay are given in Table i, along with the frequencyof occurrenceof
each of those terms; Table 2 contains data on the position of terms within the

TABLE 1

Relative'Salience

(Frequencies)

Terms
Color
Terms

Color Terms on List

SAN JUAN

CHAPA

Berlin-Kay
Color

of Basic

Evolutionary

Ran

Frequency

Frequency

Frequency

Rank

BLACK (Negro)

1.5

37

41

WHITE (Blanco)

1.5

27

26

RED (Rojo)

54

50

YELLOW (Amarillo)

4.5

49

2.5

53

GREEN (Verde)

4.5

49

2.5

52

BLUE (Azul)

38

49

BROWN (Cafe)

11

25

PINK (Rosado)

9.5

19

19

PURPLE (Morado)

9.5

10

14

ORANGE (Anaranjado)

9.5

16

27

GRAY (Gris)

9.5

11

Freq

TABLE 2

Relative

Color

Color
Terms
Terms

Salience

Berlin-Kay
Evolutionary
Evolutionary
Rank

of

(Mean Ranks)

Basic

CHAPA

Mean
Position

Color

Terms

on Listin

SAN JU

Mean
Rank

Mean
Position

BLACK (Negro)

1.5

3.95

4.49

WHITE (Blanco)

1.5

3.78

5.54

RED (Rojo)

2.07

1.98

YELLOW (Amarillo)

4.5

3.45

3.04

GREEN (Verde)

4.5

2.96

2.92

BLUE

4.03

3.37

BROWN(Cafe)

5.27

6.48

PINK (Rosado)

9.5

5.00

6.58

PURPLE (Morado)

9.5

6.13

10

5.93

ORANGE (Anaranjado)

9.5

5.31

5.94

GRAY (Gris)

9.5

7.67

11

10.00

(Azul)

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

293

TABLE 3
Nonbasic

Color

Terms on the

Listing

Task

FREQUENCIES
Terms

Color

Chapa

Celeste

Blue)

(Light

Plomo

(Gray)

Violeta

San Juan

Total

22

17

39

(Violet)

Marron

(Maroon)

Granate

(Garnet)

(Cinnamon)

(Charcoal)

Mulberry?)

Cherry)

Esmeraldino

(Emerald)

Azul

(Navy

36

35

71

Lila

(Lilac)

Canelo
Carbon
Moral

(Black

Guinda

(Sour

Marino

Blue)

Morday (?? may be corruption

of morado, "purple")

TOTALS

lists (mean ranks). Twenty-four different color terms appear in these 113 lists.
The eleven basic color terms account for 89.6 per cent (668) of all terms
mentioned; thirteen nonbasic terms account for the remaining 10.4 per cent
(7I). (See Table 3 for information on the nonbasic color terms.) With one
exception, the basic color terms are more salient than the nonbasiccolor terms.
Indeed, nine terms were mentioned by fewer than four informants.
Two color categories merit our attention. First, informantslabeled GRAY by
two terms, gris and plomo. Only one informant mentioned both terms; thus, it
would seem that these terms serve as alternativenames for the same focal color.
In my analysis,I have enteredgris as the basic color term becausegris is not also
the name of an object whereasplomo may refer either to GRAY or to lead (the
metal). It would have been possible to use data on plomo instead of gris or data
on both terms combined without altering the results. Second, informantsgave
two terms for BLUE, azul and celeste. On the basis of frequencies and mean
ranks,azul must be consideredmore salient than celeste; azul was mentioned 87
times while celeste was mentioned 39 times, and the mean ranks were 3.66 and

294

ETHNOLOGY

7.25 respectively.However, these termsco-occurin 24 lists. Although we did not

attempt to map these two terms in color space, there are differences between
them. Celeste refers to "light blue," while azul can be used to indicate the entire
range of blue hues or it can be used to refer to a more restrictedrange of darker
blue. At times, though not in these lists, celeste is used as a modifier of the term
azul; i.e., azul celeste. It is conceivablethat celeste should be given the status of
basic color terms; it occurswith greater frequencyin our lists than do BROWN,
PINK, PURPLE, and GRAY. Our data for Peruvian Spanish parallel the
findings reported by Berlin and Kay (I969: 35) for Russian and possibly for
other Slavic languages with respectto BLUE. In Russian, siniy is the term for
"dark blue" and goluboy for "light blue," with the former term being more
salient than the latter. A similar finding is reported by Harkness (I973) for
Guatemalan Spanish in which celeste also occurs as a possible basic color term.
In the following analyses,I have not included celeste as a basic color term, but
the fact that it is so salient in our data should lead to the consideration of
designating it as the twelfth basic color term. If celeste were included with the
basic color terms, then fully 96.7 per cent of the data in our lists would be
accounted for by basic terms.
The results of the tests of the hypothesis of association between the Berlin
and Kay evolutionarysequence and the salience of basic color terms in the data
derived from the listing task are presented in Table 4. It should be noted that
there are statistically significant correlations,as predicted, for all measures of
salience in Table 4. Absolute frequenciesof mention as well as rank position
within the lists correlatewith the Berlin and Kay sequencefor the data analyzed
separatelyfor each researchlocation and for the combined data. An analysisof
the first term in the lists (see Table 5) produced one of the highest levels of
association (rs = 0.77); in fact, 112 of the first color terms were basic color
terms, the only exception being a single occurrenceof celeste at the head of a
list.
Additional supportfor the hypothesisis to be found in the analysispresented
in Table 6. By tabulating the number of occurrencesof a given term preceding
another basic color term in these lists (e.g., RED before BLUE) and then
comparing that number with the number of reversalsof those terms (BLUE
before RED), it is possible to calculate whether one term is significantlymore
salient than another term. Of 47 predictions of differences on these paired
comparisonsbased on the Berlin and Kay theory, 25 were confirmedat the 0.05
probability level, and only five were shown to be significantlydifferent in the
opposite direction. This distributionitself (25 significanthits versus five significant misses) is highly significant(Binomial Test, p < o.oooI). Moreover, if the
"wrong" color term comes first, less space exists between it and the paired term
than exists when the "right" color term comes first (Binomial Test, p <
0.0033).
The most prominent deviations from our predictions involve the relative
salience of BLACK and WHITE. In the lists in Tables I and 2 and in the results
reportedin Table 5, it can be seen that BLACK and WHITE are not as salient
as they should be. They tend to be less salient than the four primary colors
(RED, YELLOW, GREEN, and BLUE), whereasaccordingto the theory they
should be the most salient color terms. I shall offer an interpretationof this

TABLE4
Intercorrelation

Matrix of Relative

Color Terms and the Berlin

Salience

Variables

Berlin-Kay

Chapa Frequency Ranks

San Juan Frequency Ranks

Total

Chapa Mean Position

San Juan Mean Position

Total

Frequence

Evolutionary

Sequence

Salience

Variables

and Kay Evolutionary

CORRELA
4

.70

.62

.73

.93

.97

->

_--

Sequ

.96

Sample Frequency Ranks

--_

Ranks
Ranks

Sample Mean Position

Ranks of First

Ranks
Color Term

N = 11.
Based on Spearman rank-order correlations.
p < 0.025; 0.709 for p < 0.01; 0.818 for p < 0.005;

Critical
values of r :
(one-tailed
test).

0.5

ETHNOLOGY

296

TABLE 5

Relative

Salience
for

(Frequencies)

the First

of Basic

Color

Terms

Task

Term on Listing

TERMLISTED FIRST
Color

Terms Color

Terms

Frequency

Frequency
Rank

BLACK (Negro)

WHITE (Blanco)

RED (Rojo)

57

YELLOW (Amarillo)

16

GREEN (Verde)

15

BLUE (Azul)

10

BROWN (Cafe)

PINK

9.5

PURPLE (Morado)

9.5

ORANGE (Anaranjado)

9.5

GRAY (Gris)

9.5

(Rosado)

finding below. A second area of discrepancybetween the theory and our data
involves the term for BROWN. BROWN should be more salient than it
appearsto be; in our data BROWN is essentiallyindistinguishablein salience
from the other nonprimarycolors (PINK, PURPLE, ORANGE, and GRAY).
On the whole, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the data from the
listing task provide substantial support for the Berlin and Kay formulation.
Although the fit between theory and data is not perfect, the relative salience of
color terms in these lists does correspond to expectations derived from that
formulation.
Relative Salience in SubsistenceDomains
The listing task generates valuable data for measuring the psychological
salience of color terms, but such data tell us little about the relative salience of
color termsgenerally in a culture. Naturalistic methods of measuringcolor term
salience in terms of normal use patterns are needed to supplement the more
experimentallyoriented approachrepresentedby the listing task. The analyses
that follow attemptto deal with salience in context; they are based on materials
gathered not with the topic of color terms in mind, as was the case with the
listing task, but ratherin connectionwith investigationsfocusing on a numberof

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

297

TABLE 6

Probabilities

Associated

With the Relative

Terms in Paired-Comparisons

Salience

of Listing

of Basic

Color

Task Data

PROBABILITIES
Color Terms

BLACK (Negro)

WHITE (Blanco)

RED (Rojo)

YELLOW(Amarillo)

GREEN (Verde)

BLUE (Azul)

BROWN

PINK

PURPLE

----

.001

.077

.035

.078

.001

.001

.060

.001

.022

n.s.

---

.001

.001

.001

.001

NP

.047

NP

---

---

---

10

11

.015

n.s.

.044

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

.032

n.s.

.001

.001

.001

.061

.001

.001

.001

.001

.061

..038

.001

.001

.001

.001

.061

----

.006

.002

.001

.001

---

(Cafe)

---

(Rosado)

ORANGE (Anaranjado)

11

GRAY (Gris)

NP = No Prediction;

NP
----

(Morado)

10

. n.s.

n.s.

.061
n.s.

NP

NP

NP

NP

---

NP

---

n.s.

= not significant;

underlining

= opposite

predicted

direction.

Binomial

Test.

specificdomains in southernPeruvianculture. In this section I shall discusscolor

term salience in two subsistence domains, potato agriculture and guinea pig
husbandry.
Potatoes constitute the staple crop throughout the highlands of southern
Peru, and indigenous knowledge and practices surroundingpotato cultivation
are highly elaborated. In the millenia since potatoes were domesticated in the
Andes, literally hundreds of named varieties of the tuber have been developed.
Many tuber names are composite forms and include a color term as one of the
elements. Furthermore,color terms are used extensivelyin relation to important
dimensions on which potatoes are classified and to aspectsof the cultivation of
potatoes; e.g., color of the skin, color of the pulp, color of the flowers, color of
the stalk, and color of the soil in which they produce best. In short, color is
important in the domain of potatoes.
In June I974, an assistant and I interviewed eighteen Quechua-speaking
adults, nine males and nine females, in the community of Santa Barbara,
Department of Cuzco. The interviewswere conducted in Quechua. Among the
questions included in these interviews were three sets that yielded data on the
use of color terms to describepotatoes and their cultivation. First, we asked each
informantsimply to list the names of all the varietiesof potato with which he or
she was familiar (Task I). This task produced an average of 50.77 names per
informant. Informants mentioned in excess of 350 different names for potato
varieties. Approximately38 per cent of all responsesincluded a color term; i.e.,
35I out of a total of 9I4. Most of these color terms were in Quechua, with a few
in Spanish, and almost all of them correspondedto basic color terms. Second, we
asked informantsto describe in their own words the characteristicsof a sample
of fifteen named potato varieties (Task II). This task yielded a total of 298 color

298

ETHNOLOGY
TABLE 7

Relative

Salience
II,

(Frequencies)
and III

of Basic

Color

Terms on Tasks

I,

in the Domain of Potatoes

POTATOTASKS
Color

Terms

Berlin-Kay
r T nayE
Evolutionary

I
Frequency

II
Frequency
Rank

Frequency

III
Frequency
Rank

Frequency

Frequency
Rank

BLACK

(Yana)

1.5

84

55

48

WHITE

(Yurah)

1.5

106

87

107

RED (Puka)

113

73

54

YELLOW (Q'ellu)

4.5

6.5

15

GREEN

4.5

9.5

13

10.5

(Gomer)

BLUE (Azul)

27

BROWN(Sani)

PINK (Rosado)

9.5

9.5

10

7.5

PURPLE

9.5

9.5

7.5

11

10.5

33

(Morado)

ORANGE [none]

9.5

GRAY (Oqe)

9.5

0
29

9.5
4

6.5

44

terms, again mostly in Quechua basic color terms. Finally, informants were
shown examples of fifteen potato varieties and asked to name them and respond
to a series of questions about them; e.g., color of the skin, color of the pulp,
numberof eyes, size of plant, and optimal productionconditions (Task III). On
this task, responsesincluded 286 color terms, once more, with few exceptions,
Quechua basic color terms. The frequenciesof occurrenceof each basic color
term are given in Table 7 for each of these interview tasks.
Overwhelmingly, BLACK, WHITE, and RED are the most salient colors;
they account for 86.3 per cent, 72.2 per cent, and 73.1 per cent of all color terms
elicited on Tasks I, II, and III respectively.GRAY, BLUE, YELLOW, and
BROWN are of lesser prominence, while GREEN, PINK, PURPLE, and
ORANGE are mentioned rarely,if at all. A combinedsalience score was created
for the domain of potatoes by adding the frequenciesof color terms on all three
tasks (see Table 8). As shown in Table 9, all of these indicators of salience
correlated significantly with the Berlin and Kay evolutionary sequence and
among themselves are highly intercorrelated.There are two major differences
between the predicted ordering and our data. First, GRAY is more salient than
it should be, and second, GREEN is less salient than it should be. I shall discuss
these discrepanciesfrom the theory in the comparativesection of the paper.
Color terms in the potato domain tend to be associatedwith objects in the
following manner:
Color of the skin:
BLACK, WHITE, RED, YELLOW, BROWN,
GRAY, BLUE, PURPLE, PINK, GREEN, GARNET, and MAROON;
Color of the pulp:
WHITE, YELLOW, RED, BLACK, BLUE,
PURPLE, GRAY, GREEN;

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

299

TABLE 8

Relative

Salience

of Basic

(Frequencies)
Domains:

Potatoes

COMBINED
POTATOTASKS
Color
Terms

Frequency

Color

Terms in Two Subsistence

and Guinea Pigs

HAWKES'POTATOLIST

Frequency
Rank

Frequency

GUINEAPIGS

Frequency
Rank

Frequency

Frequency
Rank

BLACK (Yana)

187

46

55

WHITE (Yurah)

300

44

49

RED (Puka)

240

62

30

10

YELLOW (Q'ellu)

GREEN (Gomer)

BLUE (Azul)

45

BROWN (Sani/Chumpi)

13

PINK (Rosado)

9.5

15

14

8.5

10

36

9.5

10.5

PURPLE (Morado)

10

ORANGE [none]

11

10.5

10

106

8.5

23

GRAY (Oqe)

Color of the eyes:

Color of the soil:
Colors in names:

WHITE, BLUE, RED, BLACK, and GRAY;

BLACK and RED;
RED, WHITE, BLACK, GRAY, YELLOW,
BROWN, and BLUE.
PURPLE, BLUE, and WHITE.

Color of the flowers:

In an effort to verify these results with data in the domain of potatoes from
elsewhere in the Andes, I examined a list of potato names published by Hawkes
TABLE 9

Intercorrelation

Matrix

of Relative

Color Terms in Subsistence

Evolutionary

Salience

Variables

Berlin-Kay

Potato

Task I,

Potato

Task II,

Potato

Task III,

Hawkes' Potato

Combined Potato

Guinea Pigs,

Evolutionary

Ranks

Frequency
Frequency
List,
Tasks,

Frequency

Sequence

Frequency

Salience

for Basic
and Kay

Sequence

CORRELATION
COEFFICIENTS
4
5

.69

.70

.65

---

.94

.85

--

.88

Ranks

---

Ranks

Frequency

Variables

Domains and the Berlin

Ranks

Frequency

.83

.69

.60

.81

.94

.66

.86

1.00

.60

.73

.91

.46

---

.85

.42

---

Ranks

.58
-

Ranks

Based on Spearman rank-order

correlations.
N = 11.
p < 0.025; 0.709 for p < 0.01; 0.818 for p < 0.005;

Critical
(one-tailed

values of rs:
test).

0.536

for

p < 0.05;

0.618

for

300

ETHNOLOGY

(I944). Approximatelyone-third of the names in his list contain color terms in

Quechua, Aymara, or Spanish; the frequencydistributionof basic color terms in

Hawkes's data are given in Table 8. His data are even more highly correlated
with the Berlin and Kay sequence than are my own (rs = o.83), thus
confirming the correctnessof the findings from Santa Barbara.
While potatoes are quantitativelyof critical importanceto subsistencein the
region under study, providing the inhabitantswith the major source of calories
in their diet, guinea pigs contribute significantlyto the meeting of nutritional
requirementsin a qualitative sense; they are a source of high quality protein
during times of relative food scarcity(Bolton and Calvin I976). In order to shed
some light on the role of guinea pigs in Andean culture, Linda Calvin and I
interviewed more than twenty men and women in the community of Santa
Barbara about the raising and consumptionof these rodents.While color seems
not to be as pertinent to this domain as it is to the domain of potatoes,
nonetheless, color terms are found in the protocols of those interviews. In
approximately2I,000 words of text, I92 color terms are encounteredand 97.4
per cent of these refer to basic color categories (nonbasic terms and their
frequenciesare as follows: castano, "chestnut," 3; medio manteca, "half lard,"
i; and color de vicuna, "color of the vicunia,"i). The frequenciesof basic color
terms in the domain of guinea pigs are noted in Table 8. There exists a
statistically significant association between salience in this domain and the
Berlin and Kay sequence (see Table 9). This indicator of salience shows
numerous deviations from the predicted ordering: RED, GREEN, and BLUE
appear to be less salient than they should be, and GRAY and BROWN are
more salient than one would predict on the basis of Berlin and Kay. Color terms
are used most frequentlyin discussionsof guinea pigs in referencespecificallyto
the colors of the animals themselves. A few terms, notably GREEN, emerged
in the context of talk about food supplied to the guinea pigs.
These findings on the relative salience of basic color terms in two subsistence
domains can be regarded as further evidence in favor of the Berlin and Kay
formulation. Significant positive results were obtained on every test of the
hypothesis involving salience in subsistencedomains.
Relative Salience in Domains of Expressive Culture
The relative salience of color terms was studied in four domains of expressive
culture: a) rituals, b) folktales, c) folksongs, and d) truck names. The choice of
these domains was dictated by the availabilityin our field materialsor published
sources of sufficientlydetailed information to permit us to measurethe relative
salience of color terms.
During our research in Santa Barbara, my wife, Charlene Bolton, interviewed four ritual specialists.These interviewswere conductedin the context of
rituals performed on her behalf. Several of these interview-performanceswere
recordedon tape and later transcribedverbatim. Detailed data on three types of
ritual were obtained; coca divination, sorcery, and earth payment rites. Since
these rituals are discussed elsewhere (Bolton and Bolton 1976), I shall not
describe them in this paper, but I might mention that they are among the most
common types of ritual performed in rural communities throughout southern
Peru. The corpus of these interviews contains approximately 65,000 words.

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

30I

TABLE 10

Relative

of Basic Color
Salience
(Frequencies)
in Four Domains of Expressive
Culture

RITUALS
Color Terms

BLACK

(Negro)

WHITE (Blanco)

Frequency

FOLKSONGS

FOLKTALES

Frequency
Rank

Frequency

Frequency
Rank

Terms

Frequency

Frequency
Rank

137

TRUCKNAMES
Frequency

22

Frequency
Rank

35

27

39

17

71

26

RED (Rojo)

3.5

3.5

16

YELLOW(Amarillo)

12

5.5

9.5

GREEN (Verde)

3.5

60

BLUE (Azul)

3.5

11

10

BROWN(Cafe/Moreno)

10

8.5

PINK (Rosado)

9.5

8.5

9.5

PURPLE (Morado)

9.5

10

12

5.5

9.5

ORANGE(Anaranjado)

9.5

10

10

9.5

GRAY (Gris)

9.5

11

7.5

7.5

Leaving aside references to gold and silver (qori and qollqe, respectively, in
Quechua) which in some instances labeled precious metals rather than colors,
we find 93 instances of color terms in these texts, all but one referringto basic
color categories (the exception is a single mention of color manteca, "color of
lard"). The frequencies and rank ordering of basic color terms in rituals are
noted in Table io. The association between the Berlin and Kay evolutionary
sequence and the relative salience of basic color terms in rituals is strong (r =
0.95). Furthermore,there are no serious deviations between the ritual salience
rankings and the predicted ordering.
To test the hypothesis on another domain of expressiveculture, I turned to
two published collections of folktales, most of which had been gathered in rural
communities in southern Peru (Arguedas and Stephan 1957: 93-I60; Miranda
I971: I-I36). The 74 folktales in these collections contain approximately60,ooo
words of text. An English edition of the tales collected by Arguedaswas used in
this analysis; the tales collected by Miranda were published in Spanish. References to colors are relatively rare in these materials (only 84 items) and the
proportion of nonbasic terms is higher in this domain than in the others (I7.8
per cent). The nonbasic terms included "golden" (5), "emerald" (6), "ivorycolored" (I), "maroon" (i), "color of vicunia" (i), and "walnut" (i). The
objects referred to by basic color terms in this and other domains of expressive
culture are contained in Table ii, and information on the frequenciesand rank
ordering of basic color terms in folktales is found in Table io. In this domain,
too, we find a high correlation between the Berlin and Kay evolutionary
sequence and the relative salience of basic color terms (rs = o.9I). And again
we find no significant differences between the predicted outcome and the
folktale data, although it should be kept in mind that several nonbasic color
terms in this context are more salient than some basic color terms.

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ETHNOLOGY
TABLE 11

Basic

Color

Colors

and Their

in Domains of Expressive

Referents

with
Sample of Objects Associated
in Domains of Expressive

Categories

BLACK

scarf,
sheep, suit,
young girl,
forest,
tarantula,
eyes,
angel,
soul, ear of corn,
fare, eagle,
mountain, homespun, bundle

WHITE

girl,
jacket,
pants,
snow, mountain, fog,
cloud,

message,

feather,
flamingo,
paper,

peach,

Culture

Color Categories
Culture

ash, cat, bull,

feather,
man, flower,
cigarette
jacket,
Indian, fox,
person, hot pepper seeds, ungratefulness,
candle wick, thread, hair, yarn,
coca seeds,
clothing,
dove, horse, arrow, cigarette
dust, body, calf,
burnt candle wick, truck,
handkerchief,
lily,
alpaca,

homespun,

poncho,
field-

ash, eagle,
heart, beer,

bear,

sugar

shade, hair,
eyes, poncho, hornet, whip, laurel,
rose, horse, truck, covering
flamingo,
eagle,

devil,

diamond,

arrow,

RED

water, cloak, blanket,

cat, lightning,
flower,

YELLOW

hot pepper,

GREEN

bird, arrow,
bowman, beans, eagle,
water, cloak, blanket,
sea, hornet,
handkerchief,.
collar,
onion stem, willow tree, wings of a bird, lemon, papaya,
sweater,
eyes, pointed hood, kindling,
ear of corn
totora reed, grasslands,
automobile,
verbena,
field,
rose, cloak, skirt,

BLUE

light,

BROWN

virgin,

PINK

ribbon,

PURPLE

dress,

ORANGE

(none)

GRAY

suit,

sky,

dress,

flowers,

sea gull,

goose,

hawk, siren,
rose,
flower,
cloud,

lips,

blanket,

bird,

fruit,

rose,

swan, prince,

skirt,

eyes,

automobile,

beard,

lake,

barley

paper

person
stockings,

chicha,

carnation

carnation

hat

Folksongs comprise the third domain of expressive culture in which I

investigated the salience-evolution hypothesis. Color term frequencies were
tabulated for a corpus of 723 huaynos that I have collected over the years in
southern Peru. These songs contain approximately60,ooo words of text, largely
in Spanish. Huaynos are an extremely popular form of music throughout the
Andes. They are regular fare on radio stations that cater to the rural populace.
In this domain, color terms are rathercommon; we counted a total of 372 terms,
only 26 of which referredto nonbasiccolors (7 per cent). Moreover, there was
little overlap between the frequenciesof basic color terms and the frequenciesof
nonbasic color terms. Celeste (light blue) occurredfive times, placing it above
the terms for ORANGE and GRAY, and colorado, another term for RED,
occurred 14 times, i.e., more frequently than all basic terms except BLACK,
WHITE, RED, and GREEN. Other nonbasic terms appearing only once or
twice were color vicun-a(color of vicunia),esmeralda(emerald), color granada
(color of pomegranate), color de nieve (snow-colored), rubio (blond), and
canela (cinnamon). The frequencies and rank ordering of basic color terms in
folksongs are shown in Table Io. In this domain, too, there is a very high degree
of agreementbetween the Berlin-Kay sequenceand the relativesalience of basic
color terms (rs = 0.88). Only the term "PURPLE" (morado) is somewhat
more salient than anticipatedby the theory (see Table I2).
Throughout Peru and Bolivia, a considerable proportion of large, openbodied trucks receive individualized names. These names are generally painted
in large letters on the box that extends over the cabin of the truck.Farfan (I957)
has published a list of more than I,8oo truck names collected by him in various
places in the Andes. Over the years I have kept records of trucks that I
encountered, and my list contains more than 500 names from southern Peru.
The total corpus of 2,300 names includes 78 names which contain a basic color

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

303

TABLE 12

Intercorrelation

Matrix

of Relative

Salience

Terms in Four Domains of Expressive

and Kay Evolutionary

Salience

Variables

Berlin-Kay

Ritual

Evolutionary

Frequency

Sequence

---

Folktale

Frequency

Ranks

Folksong

Frequency

Ranks

Truck Name Frequency

for Basic

Color

and the Berlin

Sequence

Ranks

Variables

Culture

CORRELATION
COEFFICIENTS
4
3

.95

.91

.88

.72

--

.85

.79

.78

---

.83

.69

---

.57
--

Ranks

N = 11.
Based on Spearman rank-order
correlations.
p < 0.025; 0.709 for p < 0.01; 0.818 for p < 0.005;

Critical
(one-tailed

values of r :
test).

0.536

for p < 0.05;

0.618

for

term; nonbasiccolor terms are extremelyrare in this context (dorado, "golden,"

and canela, "cinnamon," are two examples of such terms). But in spite of the
relatively small number of cases involved in this analysis, a significant relationship emerges between basic color term salience in the domain of truck names
and the Berlin and Kay sequence(rs = .57); the degree of association,however,
is lower in this domain than in the other domains of expressiveculture. WHITE
and YELLOW appear to be lower in salience than predicted, while BLUE is
slightly higher than anticipated in the original Berlin and Kay formulation.
To sum up the findings reported in this section, indicators of relative color
term salience in all four domains of expressivecultureare significantlyassociated
with the evolutionary sequence, and these results offer further confirmationof
the Berlin and Kay theory.
A methodological issue needs to be covered at this point. The preceding
analyseswere based on salience measuresdevised through fairly straightforward
scanning and counting procedures. Since all tabulations were performed by
myself, it is possible that an unconsciousbiasing in the direction of the theory
could have occurredin the processof detecting color terms in textual materials.
To test whether or not this had occurred, I asked two assistantswho were not
familiar with the Berlin and Kay formulation to rescore a sample of materials
from various domains. The reliability between their judgments and mine was
high.
AGGREGATE ANALYSES AND CROSS-DOMAIN COMPARISONS OF SALIENCE

It is necessary to go beyond the individual domain-by-domain analyses of

basic color term salience and their relationshipsto the Berlin and Kay evolutionary sequence. An adequate test of the Berlin and Kay formulation should
incorporate a fairly comprehensive measure of color term salience. By combining the salience data from the seven domains discussedabove, it is possible to
construct a broad index of basic color term salience. Table 13 contains salience
orderings based on aggregated data. Since I had no theoretical reason for
placing greater emphasis on any given domain, in developing the aggregate

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ETHNOLOGY
TABLE 13

Indicators
Berlin

Color Terms

of Basic

Salience

Relative

Berlin-Kay
Evolutionary
Rank

Color Terms on Aggregate

and Their Relationship

and Kay Evolutionary

Aggregated
Salience
Score

to the

Sequence

Average
Mean
Score

Aggregated
Salience
Rank

Average
Mean
Rank

BLACK

1.5

1576

2.14

WHITE

1.5

1507

2.71

RED

928

3.14

YELLOW

4.5

362

5.43

GREEN

4.5

568

5.00

BLUE

420

5.50

BROWN

335

7.07

PINK

9.5

98

8.79

PURPLE

9.5

71

10

8.93

10

ORANGE

9.5

60

11

9.58

11

GRAY

9.5

268

7.71

Salience

Evolutionary

Rank versus

Aggregated

Evolutionary

Rank versus

Average Mean Rank

Rank

= .96

p<0.0001

= .97

p<0.0001

salience scores,I gave equal weight to each of the seven domains for which there
was information. These two overall salience scores, one based on absolute
frequenciesand the other on mean ranks, were then correlatedwith the Berlin
and Kay sequence. The results suggest an almost perfect fit between basic color
term salience and the predictions (rs = 0.96 and rs = 0.97, respectively). I
believe that these findings must be interpretedas overwhelmingconfirmationof
the Berlin and Kay theory. Although I did not attempt to measure basic color
term salience in all of the cultural domains in which colors are certain to be
important, I did include a set of extremely diverse domains. It seems unlikely
that the addition of data from other domains (e.g., clothing or other areas of
material culture) could alter these findings to any significant degree. These
results, moreover, underscorethe inadequacyof any approachto salience that is
based on only one or two limited indicatorsof salience. Obviously, effortsshould
be made to replicatethese findings using a similar approachin other cultures.
Pollnac (I975:94) has observed that "different measures of salience may
result in orderingswhich do not exactly parallel Berlin and Kay's evolutionary
sequence for color terms." Our work clearly supportshis observationsin this
regard. Although salience orderingstend to be highly correlated(see Table 14),

TABLE 14

Intercorrelation

Matrix

Terms in Seven

Berlin

Salience

of Relative

Domains

Peruvian

and Kay Evolutionary

Variable

Berlin-Kay

San Juan/Chapa

Combined Potato

Guinea

Pig Frequency

Ritual

Frequency

Folktale

Frequency

Ranks

Folksong

Frequency

Ranks

Truck Name Frequency

Evolutionary

Sequence

Sample Frequency
Tasks

Frequency

Ranks

for

Culture

an

Sequence

Variables

Salience

of Southern

.73

CORRELATIO
3

.69

.5

.31

.0
-

Ranks

.5

Ranks

Ranks

Ranks

correlations.
Based on Spearman rank-order
0.818 for
0.709 for p < 0.01;
p < 0.025;

N = 11.
p < 0.005;

values
of r :
Critical
(one-tailed
test).

3.536

306

ETHNOLOGY

they do differ from one domain to the next, and this raisesfascinatingquestions.
For example, why does the salience of color terms vary according to domain,
and why is salience in some domains more closely associatedwith the Berlin and
Kay sequence than in other domains? In this section I would like to present
some hypotheses and comment on these mattersin relation to the results of the
studies described above.
Part of the answercan be found, I believe, in the constraintsimposed by the
fact that certain colors may be virtually absent in the objectsassociatedwith any
given domain. And, therefore, those colors are not likely to be salient in that
domain. By way of illustrationof this point, I would remind the reader of the
data in the domain of guinea pigs. Color is importantin that domain particularly with respectto the animals themselves, and the set of colors of guinea pigs
is limited. Can our findings on color term salience in the guinea pig domain be
explained by the relative frequencies of guinea pigs of various colors? The
answer is "Yes, to a large extent." As one part of our investigation of this
domain, we (Bolton and Calvin I976) examined the guinea pigs in eight flocks,
recording their colors, and we obtained information on the actual colors of
guinea pigs in several other flocks not personally observed. The correlation
between those figures and the salienceof basiccolor terms in this domain is high
(rs = 0.84); indeed, that correlationis higher than the one with the Berlin and
Kay theory (rs = 0.59). I pointed out above that GRAY and BROWN are
more salient in this domain than they should be; in view of the frequency of
occurrence of guinea pigs with these colors, that discrepancyis easily understood. RED, GREEN, and BLUE were said to be less salient than they should
have been, and this, too, is understandablesince these colors have little or no
importance in relation to the raising and consuming of guinea pigs. This same
interpretation can be applied to the problems encountered in the domain of
potatoes, where GRAY occurredmore frequentlythan expected.Many potatoes
do exist with gray pulp or a gray skin, and these attributes are important in
classifying tubers. But I also noted that GREEN was less salient in this domain
than it should have been. Surely, green is a prominentcolor in plant cultivation.
GREEN may be deviant for several reasons: first, we did not specificallyraise
questions about the colors of plants in our interviews; we did not do so because
this matter had not appearedin preliminary,nondirectiveinterviewsconcerning
the potato domain; second, it may be that green, while conspicuousin nature, is
not significant for the human activitiescarried out in this domain; and third, it
may be that where there is invariancewith regard to a given color, that color
does not become salient (all leaves are green) in spite of its physicalpresencein
objects of a domain. In short, it could be argued that both the environmentand
the use-significanceof objects in a domain may lead to deviations from the
predicted Berlin-Kay sequencein that domain.
Support for this hypothesis can be gained by comparing the closeness of fit
between salience and the Berlin-Kay sequence in the various domains investigated. In descending order of agreement, our findings were as follows:
DOMAIN
rs
Ritual

Folktales
Folksongs

0.95
0.9I

0.88

THE

RIDDLE

OF COLOR TERM

Listing task

SALIENCE

307

0.73

Truck Names

0.72

Potatoes
0.69
Guinea Pigs
o.59
The lowest correlations are found in relation to subsistence domains where
environmentaland use-significanceconstraintsare obvious. The highest correlations are found in the domains of expressiveculture where fewer constraintsof
an environmental or use-significance exist. Apparently where the choice of
objects is relatively free, as in the case of ritual, the evolutionary sequence is
most closely approximated.Recall that only a single deviation from the predicted ordering was found in the domains of ritual, folktales, and folksongs.
Truck names, though, present another problem. In that domain, it was
discovered that WHITE and YELLOW were less salient and BLUE was
slightly more salient than expected. An analysis of truck names (Bolton and
Stuart I975) led us to believe that "power" is the dominant attribute that an
owner attemptsto convey when he names his truck. Therefore, I hypothesized
that colors which expresspowerfulnessare more likely to be chosen as elements
in truck names. Osgood and his collaborators (Adams and Osgood I973;
Osgood, May and Miron I975) have studied the affective meanings of colors.
They found widespreadcross-culturalsimilaritiesin feelings about colors. Their
rank-orderingof eight colors on the potency dimension is given in Table 15. To
TABLE 15
Relative

Salience

of Basic

Color Terms in the Domain

of Truck Names and the Dimension

Osgood's Mean
Potency Score

Ters
Color Color
Terms

of Potency

Potency
Rank

Truck Names
Frequency

Truck Names
Rank

RED

2.2

26

BLACK

2.8

22

BLUE

3.7

GREEN

4.0

WHITE

6.0

GREY

6.1

YELLOW

6.9

rs

= 1.0

p < .008

Note:
Low score equals high potency,
and high score equals low potency.
Potency
scores for four basic color terms are not given by Osgood, May, and Miron (1975),
and therefore
those terms are excluded from this analysis
(purple,
pink, brown,
and orange are the missing colors).

308

ETHNOLOGY

test the hypothesisthat the potencyconnotationsof colors may be responsiblefor

a lowering of our findings on color term salience in relation to the Berlin and
Kay sequence, I correlatedthe Osgood et al. rank-orderingon potency with the
frequenciesof colors in truck names. There is a perfect fit between our data and
the potency dimension. This finding suggests that in some domains certain
feelings associated with colors may reduce, though perhaps not obliterate, the
relationship between basic color term salience and the evolutionarysequence.
It will be recalledthat some discrepanciesbetween the Berlin-Kay theory and
the data on the listing task were reported earlier. Specifically BLACK and
WHITE were less salient in those data than they should have been. Interestingly, this problem is pronouncedonly in these data, not in other domains.
The difference between this task and the other sources of data revolve around
the term "color." Only on this task was that term mentioned. Thus I would
speculate that the difficulties encounteredare due to connotationsof the word
"color."
It may be that color is interpreted to mean hue; more specifically, it may
connote the primary hues. Cross-culturally,there is evidence that the term
"color" is closer in meaning to RED, YELLOW, GREEN, and BLUE than it
is to BLACK, WHITE, and GRAY on three dimensions of meaning, Evaluation, Potency, and Activity (Osgood, May and Miron I975:385-386). Both
Pollnac and I found BLACK and WHITE to be less salient than the primary
colors on the listing task. Future studies using this measure of salience should
include research on the meaning of the word "color." It is worth pointing out
that the general agreementbetween Pollnac's data for the Baganda and my data
for Peruvianson the listing task is high and significant(frequencies,rs = 0.83,
p < 0.005; mean ranks, rs = 0.77, p < o.oi), although the degree of
association is not as high as it is between the two Peruvian samples from Chapa
and San Juan (frequencies,rs = 0.93, p < 0.005; mean ranks,rs = 0.87, p <
0.005).
If the environmentaland use-significanceargumentsraisedearlier are correct,
they could help to explain differences between the listing task data from San
Juan and the data from Chapa. I hypothesized that ORANGE and BROWN
should be mentioned more often in SanJuan than in Chapa not because of the
ubiquity of these colors in the environment generally but because the words
themselves, anaranjadoand cafb, refer to oranges and coffee respectively,and
these are importantcrops in the SanJuan region. Indeed the informantsin San
Juan were mostly the sons and daughtersof coffee and orange growers. In other
words, if a color term is also the name of a significantobject in the environment
and lives of a group, then that color term will be more salient for that group
than for others. Testing this hypothesisresulted in its confirmation.There were
significant differences in frequency of mention of specific color terms between
San Juan and Chapa on only two terms, anaranjadoand cafi (Binomial Test, p
= 0.02
for "orange" and p = o.oo6 for "coffee"; one-tailed test). While
anaranjado and cafb qualify as basic color terms, they are not totally disassociated from the objects carrying the same name. The importanceof those
objects in the lives of the people of San Juan apparently raises the level of
salience of these terms.
To summarizebriefly, the following factorsappearto influencethe expression
or measurementof the relative salience of basic color terms in specificdomains

THE RIDDLE OF COLOR TERM SALIENCE

309

within a culture: i) the presence and ubiquity of the actual color in objects
associated with the domain; 2) the significance of a color in providing useful
information for decision-making processes and behavior in a domain; 3) the
nature of the task used to elicit color terms regardinga domain; 4) the affective
meanings being conveyed concerning objects and activities in a domain; and 5)
semantic links between a basic color term and specificsignificant objects. These
factors operate differentiallyto produce distortionsfrom the evolutionaryorder
when individual domains are considered separately, but they seem to have a
minimal impacton the overall assessmentof the relativesalience of color terms.
CONCLUSION

The preceding analyses amply demonstrate the existence of considerable

concordance between the Berlin and Kay evolutionary sequence of basic color
terms (a measure of cross-culturalsalience) and the relative salience of basic
color terms in southern Peruvian culture. While variations in the relative
salience of basic color terms exist with respect to specific cultural domains
because of such factors as the ubiquity of a color in objects in a given domain,
the significanceof color for decision-makingprocesses,the affectivemeanings of
objects and activities in the domain, and semantic links between basic color
terms and specificobjects, nonetheless, the relative salience remains fairly stable
across numerous domains. The demonstrationof the existence of this ordering
of basic color terms, while adding to the support already generated for the
Berlin and Kay formulation, does not imply a necessary causal relationship
between these two phenomena. Logically, of course, it is possible that the
evolutionaryorderdeterminesintraculturalrelative salience of basic color terms;
i.e., older terms are more widely known and used. But it is possible, too, that a
third variable is responsiblefor both phenomena, or even that the associationis
purely coincidental, although this latter interpretationseems doubtful in view of
the high degree of association between the evolutionary order and relative
salience established in the present study.
We are confronted with a set of interlocking questions: What mechanisms
can explain the relative salience of basic color terms at the intraculturallevel?
What factors lie behind the evolution of basic color lexicons?What determines
the specificsequenceof evolution of basic color terms as proposedby Berlin and
Kay? How can we account for synchronic patterns of distribution of color
naming practices throughout the world?
To date there has been no comprehensive attempt to answer this set of
questions. Most theories have tended to be single-factor theories, usually
directed toward only one or two of the above issues, and none answers all of
these questions satisfactorily.Indeed, conflictinghypotheseshave been presented
with respectto single questions in this set. In view of the complex nature of the
problem, its synchronic and diachronic dimensions and its intraculturalas well
as cross-culturalaspects,undoubtedly a multifactorialtheory will be requiredto
explain the differences and similaritiesfound in color lexicons.
The results of the present research on color term salience, inasmuch as they
lend support to the Berlin and Kay formulation, should encourage scholars to
seek answers to these additional questions related to the riddle of color term
salience.

3Io

ETHNOLOGY
NOTES

I. I wish to express my appreciationto a number of people whose assistancehas been essential to

the completion of this paper. In particular I am grateful to my colleague Lynn Thomas for his
valuable criticisms of my research as it developed. I am also grateful to Charlene Bolton, Eileen
Flinn, James Likens, Robert L. Munroe, Ruth Munroe, and Susan Seymour for their comments
on an earlier draft of the paper. Thanks are due as well to Corinne Bybee, Linda Calvin, Valentin
Cusihuaman,Jorge A. Flores Ochoa, and Yemira Najar Vizcarra, all of whom contributedto one
or more phases of the research. Data for the present analysis were obtained during periods of field
work supported by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program (I968-70), the Project on Cultural
Adaptation in the Andes, sponsored by Pomona College in collaboration with the San Antonio
Abad National University of Cuzco, Peru (I974), and a Richard Carley Hunt Memorial
Fellowship granted by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (I973/1974).
2. The revised evolutionary sequence involves the introduction of a category called GRUE, i.e., a
combination of GREEN and BLUE, which replacesGREEN in the original Stage III. Thus Stage
III may consist of BLACK, WHITE, and RED and either GRUE or YELLOW. In Stage IV
GRUE again substitutes for GREEN. By Stage V we return to the sequenceoriginally postulated
by Berlin and Kay with GREEN, YELLOW, and BLUE differentiated. Thus in the revised
formulation YELLOW may appear for the first time in Stage III or in Stage IV, GREEN may
appear in Stage III, IV, or V, in essence, and the same is true for BLUE.'Because this new
formulation increases the indeterminacy, thus making it difficult to find an appropriatestatistical
technique for correlating the sequence with other variables, throughout this paper I utilize the
original evolutionary sequence in all analyses.
3. Recently a number of investigators have documented intracultural variations in the color
vocabularies of individuals (e.g., Berlin and Berlin I975; Hage and Hawkes 1975). Consequently,
it is now clear that not all individuals in a given society will possess the same set of basic color
terms.

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