Editing Linguistic relativity (section)

== Colour terminology ==
{{Main|Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate}}

=== Brown and Lenneberg ===
Since Brown and Lenneberg believed that the objective reality denoted by language was the same for speakers of all languages, they decided to test how different languages codified the same message differently and whether differences in codification could be proven to affect behavior. Brown and Lenneberg designed experiments involving the codification of colors. In their first experiment, they investigated whether it was easier for speakers of English to remember color shades for which they had a specific name than to remember colors that were not as easily definable by words. This allowed them to compare the linguistic categorization directly to a non-linguistic task. In a later experiment, speakers of two languages that categorize colors differently ([[English language|English]] and [[Zuni language|Zuni]]) were asked to recognize colors. In this manner, it could be determined whether the differing color categories of the two speakers would determine their ability to recognize nuances within color categories. Brown and Lenneberg found that Zuni speakers who [[Distinguishing blue from green in language|classify green and blue together]] as a single color did have trouble recognizing and remembering nuances within the green/blue category.{{sfn|D'Andrade|1995|p= 185}} This method, which Lucy later classified as domain-centered,<ref name=":3" /> is acknowledged to be sub-optimal, because color perception, unlike other [[semantic domain]]s, is hardwired into the neural system and as such is subject to more universal restrictions than other semantic domains.

=== Hugo Magnus ===
In a similar study done by German ophthalmologist Hugo Magnus during the 1870s, he circulated a questionnaire to missionaries and traders with ten standardized color samples and instructions for using them. These instructions contained an explicit warning that failure of a language to distinguish lexically between two colors did not necessarily imply that speakers of that language did not distinguish the two colors perceptually. Magnus received completed questionnaires on twenty-five African, fifteen Asian, three Australian, and two European languages. He concluded in part, "As regards the range of the color sense of the primitive peoples tested with our questionnaire, it appears in general to remain within the same bounds as the color sense of the civilized nations. At least, we could not establish a complete lack of the perception of the so-called main colors as a special racial characteristic of any one of the tribes investigated for us. We consider red, yellow, green, and blue as the main representatives of the colors of long and short wavelength; among the tribes we tested not a one lacks the knowledge of any of these four colors" (Magnus 1880, p.&nbsp;6, as trans. in Berlin and Kay 1969, p.&nbsp;141). Magnus did find widespread lexical neutralization of green and blue, that is, a single word covering both these colors, as have all subsequent comparative studies of color lexicons.<ref>P. Kay, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001</ref>

=== Response to Brown and Lenneberg's study ===
Brown and Lenneberg's study began a tradition of investigation of linguistic relativity through color terminology. The studies showed a correlation between color term numbers and ease of recall in both Zuni and English speakers. Researchers attributed this to focal colors having greater codability than less focal colors, and not to linguistic relativity effects. Berlin/Kay found universal typological color principles that are determined by biological rather than linguistic factors.{{sfn|Berlin|Kay|1969}} This study sparked studies into typological universals of color terminology. Researchers such as Lucy,<ref name=":3" /> Saunders<ref name=":4">{{cite journal|last1=Saunders|first1=Barbara|year=2000|title=Revisiting Basic Color Terms|journal=Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute|volume=6|pages=81–99|doi=10.1111/1467-9655.00005}}</ref> and Levinson<ref name=":5">{{cite journal|last1=Levinson|first1=Stephen C.|year=2000|title=Yeli Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms|journal=Journal of Linguistic Anthropology|volume=10|pages=3–55|doi=10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3|hdl-access=free|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0013-2A6B-F}}</ref> argued that Berlin and Kay's study does not refute linguistic relativity in color naming, because of unsupported assumptions in their study (such as whether all cultures in fact have a clearly defined category of "color") and because of related data problems. Researchers such as Maclaury continued investigation into color naming. Like Berlin and Kay, Maclaury concluded that the domain is governed mostly by physical-biological universals.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last1=MacLaury|first1=Robert E.|last2=Hewes|first2=Gordon W.|last3=Kinnear|first3=Paul R.|last4=Deregowski|first4=J. B.|last5=Merrifield|first5=William R.|last6=Saunders|first6=B. a. C.|last7=Stanlaw|first7=James|last8=Toren|first8=Christina|last9=Van Brakel|first9=J.|date=1 April 1992|title=From Brightness to Hue: An Explanatory Model of Color-Category Evolution [and Comments and Reply]|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=33|issue=2|pages=137–186|doi=10.1086/204049|issn=0011-3204|s2cid=144088006}}</ref><ref name="MacLaury1997">{{cite book|last=MacLaury|first=Robert E.|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=-GG-hq9ii6kC}}|title=Color and Cognition in Mesoamerica: Constructing Categories as Vantages|date=1 January 1997|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-75193-4}}</ref>

=== Berlin and Kay ===
Studies by [[Brent Berlin|Berlin]] and [[Paul Kay|Kay]] continued Lenneberg's color research. They studied color terminology formation and showed clear universal trends in color naming. For example, they found that even though languages have different color terminologies, they generally recognize certain hues as more focal than others. They showed that in languages with few color terms, it is predictable from the number of terms which hues are chosen as focal colors: For example, languages with only three color terms always have the focal colors black, white, and red.{{sfn|Berlin|Kay|1969}} The fact that what had been believed to be random differences between color naming in different languages could be shown to follow universal patterns was seen as a powerful argument against linguistic relativity.{{sfn|Gumperz|Levinson|1996|p=6}} Berlin and Kay's research has since been criticized by relativists such as Lucy, who argued that Berlin and Kay's conclusions were skewed by their insistence that color terms encode only color information.{{sfn|Lucy|1992b}} This, Lucy argues, made them unaware of the instances in which color terms provided other information that might be considered examples of linguistic relativity.