Cover not available
Part of
Lexicalization patterns in color naming: A cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar and Barbara Kerovec
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 78] 2019
► pp. 333–356

Universals and variability of color naming in Icelandic, Icelandic Sign Language, and North American Icelandic

| University of Iceland
| University of Iceland

Color naming remains a lively area of debate pitting supporters of universal neuro-psychological constraints against cultural relativists. The Evolution of Semantic Systems project offered an extensional semantic approach, using statistical methods to measure relative variability. This chapter uses a similar methodology to compare color naming in Icelandic with a typologically unrelated sign language (Icelandic Sign Language) in the same community, and with a heritage language developing in an English-speaking environment (North American Icelandic). Data from North American English and British English are provided for context. The statistical analysis shows very little variation in naming patterns. However, a more detailed analysis of formal mechanisms of color naming (compounding, object-naming, opaque lexemes) shows rich variation obscured by a methodological emphasis on transparent semantic heads and basic color terms.

Keywords: color, semantic categories, universals, relativism, extensional semantics, Icelandic, Icelandic Sign Language, North American Icelandic, compounding, heritage language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data elicitation
    • 3.3Coding
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Statistical analysis
      • 4.1.1Color naming task
      • 4.1.2Focal color task
    • 4.2Main terms and dominant terms
      • 4.2.1Main coded terms
      • 4.2.2Dominant terms
    • 4.3Morphology and semantics of full responses
      • 4.3.1Derivation
      • 4.3.2Compounding
      • 4.3.3Semantic feature analysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.78.14bec
References
Arnbjörnsdóttir, B.
(2006) North American Icelandic – the Life of a Language. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, B.
(1992) Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berlin, B., & Kay, P.
(1969) Basic Color Terms, Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California.Google Scholar
Berthele, R., Whelpton, M., Næss, Å., & Duijff, P.
(2015) Static spatial descriptions in five Germanic languages. Language Sciences, 49, 82–101.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conklin, H. C.
(1955) Hanunóo Color Categories. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 11(4), 339–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1973) Color Categorization. American Anthropologist, 75(4), 931–942.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corbett, G. G., & Davies, I. R. L.
(1997) Establishing basic color terms: measures and techniques. In C. L. Hardin & L. Maffi (Eds.), Color Categories in Thought and Language (pp. 197–223). Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guðmdundsdóttir Beck, Þ., & Whelpton, M.
(2018) Það besta úr báðum heimum – um litaheiti í vesturíslensku. In B. Arnbjörnsdóttir, H. Þráinsson, & Ú. Bragason (Eds.), Sigurtunga – Vesturíslenskt mál og menning (375–400). Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.Google Scholar
Hay, J.
(2002) From Speech Perception to Morphology: Affix Ordering Revisited. Language, 78(3), 527–555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jameson, K., & D’Andrade, R.
(1997) It’s not really red, green, yellow, blue: an enquiry into perceptual color space. In Clyde L Hardin & L. Maffi (Eds.), Color categories in thought and language (pp. 295–319). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, P., Berlin, B., Maffi, L., Merrifield, W. R., & Cook, R.
(2011)  The World Color Survey (1st edition). Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar
Kay, P., Berlin, B., & Merrifield, W.
(1991) Biocultural Implications of Systems of Color Naming. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1(1), 12–25.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, P., & McDaniel, C. K.
(1978) The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms. Language, 54(3), 610–646.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lucy, J. A.
(1997) The linguistics of “color.” In C. L Hardin & L. Maffi (Eds.), Color categories in thought and language (pp. 320–346). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majid, A., Jordan, F., & Dunn, M.
(2011) Evolution of Semantic Systems Procedures Manual. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Google Scholar
(2015) Semantic systems in closely related languages. Language Sciences, 49, 1–18.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malt, B. C., & Majid, A.
(2013) How thought is mapped into words. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 4(6), 583–597.
https://doi.org/
Google Scholar
Malt, B. C., Sloman, S. A., Gennari, S., Shi, M., & Wang, Y.
(1999) Knowing versus Naming: Similarity and the Linguistic Categorization of Artifacts. Journal of Memory and Language, 40(2), 230–262.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nida, E. A.
(1959) Principles of translation as exemplified by Bible translating. In R. A. Brower (Ed.), On translation (pp. 11–31). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Regier, T., Kay, P., & Cook, R. S.
(2005) Focal Colors Are Universal after All. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(23), 8386–8391. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Regier, T., Kay, P., & Khetarpal, N.
(2007) Color Naming Reflects Optimal Partitions of Color Space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(4), 1436–1441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009) Color naming and the shape of color space. Language, 85(4), 884–892.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, E., Jóhannsdóttir, K. M., Steingrímsson, S., Loftsson, H., & Helgadóttir, S.
(2011)  Languages in the European Information Society – Icelandic. Berlin: META-NET DFKI Projektbüro.Google Scholar
Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D.
(2006) Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sverrisdóttir, R., & Thorvaldsdóttir, K. L.
(2016) Why is the SKY BLUE? On colour signs in Icelandic Sign Language. In U. Zeshan & K. Sagara (Eds.), Semantic Fields in Sign Languages, Colour, Kinship and Quantification (pp. 209–250). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
The Isshinkai Foundation
(2005) Ishihara’s Design Charts for Colour Deficiency of Unlettered Persons. Tokyo, Japan: Kanehara Trading.Google Scholar
Thorvaldsdóttir, K. L., & Stefánsdóttir, V.
(2015) Icelandic Sign Language. In J. B. Jepsen, G. De Clerck, S. Lutalo-Kiingi, & W. B. McGregor (Eds.), Sign Languages of the World: A Comparative Handbook (pp. 409–430). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tryggvadóttir, G.B. &Jónsdóttir, G.A.
(2016) Colour naming. Reykjavík: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands. Google Scholar
Vejdemo, S., Levisen, C., van Scherpenberg, C., Guðmundsdóttir Beck, Þ., Næss, Å., Zimmermann, M., Stockall, L., & Whelpton, M.
(2015) Two kinds of pink: development and difference in Germanic colour semantics. Language Sciences, 49, 19–34.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de. Vos, C.
(2011) Kata Kolok Color Terms and the Emergence of Lexical Signs in Rural Signing Communities. The Senses and Society, 6(1), 68–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waggoner, T. L.
(2002) Quick six colour vision test pseudoisochromatic plates. Colour vision testing made easy. Good-Lite company. Google Scholar
Webster, M., & Kay, P.
(2007) Individual and population differences in focal colors. In R. E. MacLaury, G. V. Paramei, & D. Dedrick (Eds.), Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling (pp. 29–54). John Benjamins Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whelpton, M.
(2018) The variability of semantic categories: An experiment in extensional semantics. Nordiske Studier I Leksikografi, 14, 29–44.Google Scholar
Whelpton, M., Guðmundsdóttir Beck, Þ., & Jordan, F. M.
(2015) The semantics and morphology of household container names in Icelandic and Dutch. Language Sciences, 49, 67–81.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whorf, B. L.
(1956) Science and linguistics. In S. Chase & J. B. Carroll (Eds.), Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 207–219). New York: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A.
(1996) The Meaning of Colour Terms and the Universals of Seeing. In Semantics, Primes and Universals (pp. 287–330). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2008) Why there are no “colour universals” in language and thought. Pourquoi Il N’y a Pas D’universaux de La Couleur Dans Le Langage et La Pensée., 14(2), 407–425.
https://doi.org/
Google Scholar
Zimmermann, M., Levisen, C., Guðmundsdóttir Beck, Þ., & van Scherpenberg, C.
(2015) Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe. Language Sciences, 49, 35–50.
https://doi.org/
. DOI logoGoogle Scholar