Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Introduction
- I THE WORLD COLOR SURVEY
- II VISUAL PSYCHOLOGISTS
- III ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND LINGUISTS
- 9 Establishing basic color terms: measures and techniques
- 10 Color shift: evolution of English color terms from brightness to hue
- 11 Two observations on culture contact and the Japanese color nomenclature system
- 12 Skewing and darkening: dynamics of the Cool category
- 13 Genes, opsins, neurons, and color categories: closing the gaps
- IV DISSENTING VOICES
- 16 Closing thoughts
- Subject index
- Author index
10 - Color shift: evolution of English color terms from brightness to hue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Introduction
- I THE WORLD COLOR SURVEY
- II VISUAL PSYCHOLOGISTS
- III ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND LINGUISTS
- 9 Establishing basic color terms: measures and techniques
- 10 Color shift: evolution of English color terms from brightness to hue
- 11 Two observations on culture contact and the Japanese color nomenclature system
- 12 Skewing and darkening: dynamics of the Cool category
- 13 Genes, opsins, neurons, and color categories: closing the gaps
- IV DISSENTING VOICES
- 16 Closing thoughts
- Subject index
- Author index
Summary
In the evolution of English color terms, a gradual semantic shift occurred from largely brightness color concepts to almost exclusively hue concepts. Brightness was the predominant sense of color words in the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, period (c. 600–1150). Hue was only minimally conceptualized in Old English, and did not become salient in conceptualizations of color until the Middle English period (c. 1150–1500). The set of Old English terms that evolved into English basic color terms followed the same pattern: they were predominantly brightness terms in the Old English period and almost entirely hue terms in the Middle English period. In keeping with the basic color categories theme of this volume, the evolution of English basic terms will be highlighted in this chapter.
Secondary or non-basic terms, which were uniformly hue terms, did not occur in the Anglo-Saxon period, but entered the English color vocabulary for the first time late in the Middle English period (1350–1500). This was the turning point in the English color shift. Secondary color terms increased gradually during the Early Modern English period (1500–1700) and the Modern English period (1700–present) until the second half of the nineteenth century, after which they increased rapidly.
Brightness to hue
The color shift is evident in two sets of coordinated lexical innovations. The first concerns the evolution of Old English brightness terms to Middle English hue terms, and the second deals with the advent and development of secondary color terms.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Color Categories in Thought and Language , pp. 224 - 239Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997
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