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Is the way we classify colour physiologically hardwired or culturally shaped? As a new analysis comes out in favour of the former, Heidi Ledford takes a hard look at the decades-old debate.
It is essentially a 'nature versus nurture' argument about how different languages divide colours into categories. For instance, in English, there is a word for red and a word for purple, but is that the case in every language?
Read the briefing here.
Posted by Nicola Jones on October 16, 2006
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A really curious topic between psychophysics and neurolinguistics!
It may be of interest for specialists discussing distribution of
'grue' among world languages that in Russian we have distinct words
for blue and green colors, but have no 1 specific word for cyan. For
example, the word 'cyanobacteria' translated from Russian word-by-word
is 'blue-green algae'. So, 'grue' may be more common phenomenon not
dependent on yellowing of the crystalline lens, as noted Dr. Paul Kay.
IMHO it is more logical to consider 'grue' not as a combination of blue
and green but quite the contrary: blue and green was derived from
'grue' during the evolution of language. I don't know if such
specialization in the word evolution is accepted by linguistics or
not, but it has a good biological basis. As far as I know, it was
shown by psychophysical experiments that many people are confused when
asked to choose the color name in pale blue — light grey color space,
and in the case of alternative choice the percentage of answers may
differ among populations. Such variations may be the origin for
beginnings of new color names in this color space.
The question of biological basis of the variations in the case of
'grue' is still open, but at least one possible genetic mechanism was
elaborated. Different percentage of appearance of red-green
blindness was shown among human populations. This abnormality in
vision is mediated by the deletion or the formation of hybrid genes of
cone opsins [three types in Homo]. In the case of smaller
modification, like a few amino acids substitution in the opsin pigments,
the shift of sensitivity to light with different wavelength was
clearly demonstrated. Considering the correlation of 'grue' phenomenon
with latitude, spectral tuning of the rod visual pigment, rhodopsin,
to the light condition at habitat environment was shown in a range of
different species.
Turning back to the case of cyan color, it is possible to suppose that
at least in some Russian-speaking populations the distinguishing of
colors in cyan color range is worse than in some English-speaking
populations. I haven't any idea how neurolinguistics solves the
problem of one-language populations with crucial differences in genetic
background (cf. Spain and SA Spanish) and vice verse. Nevertheless, I
guess that the differences in color lexicons in dialects can somehow
reflect the origin of color names. Can anybody cite a good example?
--
Sincerely yours,
'asenic'
Posted by: asenic | October 31, 2006 06:28 PM