Talk:Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 May 2020 and 6 July 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jsun26.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:08, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2019 and 7 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Linneasmith, AlexGiesting. Peer reviewers: Buffy0123, Vbrownj, Larsonrc.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
We would like to ask the Wikipedia community for suggestions regarding the current request for deletion of this page. The authors are still refining the scope and tone of the content, but any specific feedback would be immensely helpful. Bepett (talk) 19:24, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would that the title were less obtuse, but the study of language as it applies to colors is in fact a topic in and of itself. Not sure if it's a debate, though. xerxesbeat (talk) 19:40, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Removed prod
I have removed the "proposed deletion" template from this article -- I know just enough of the background to know that there are real scientific controversies relating to this. However I haven't read the article with care and won't claim that it doesn't contain any OR or other inappropriate stuff. Looie496 (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

There may or may not be controversy if you can call this science, but the entire thing reads like a third year university student's research paper. It summarizes several obscure papers by even more obscure authors that ultimately don't say much of anything. This entire page needs to be rolled up in a paragraph in the color term page with cited references if people want to read the individual arguments of all these separate authors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.169.212.26 (talk) 06:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Obscure? Who are you referring to? Berlin? Kay? Wierzbicka? They are all very well known and respected in the linguistic community. I have a doctorate in linguistics and read this article with considerable interest to catch up on developments in the analysis of color vocabulary since my graduate days. --Thnidu (talk) 07:03, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

using separate summary page
This paged was summarized on Linguistic relativity with almost exactly the same text as the 2nd and 3rd para's of the lead here. I placed these in a separate page to be transcluded to ensure both pages remain compatible. Hpvpp (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree with that approach. The summary may be fine here but not at the article on linguistic relativity. Secondly it makes it difficult for editors to edit the summary when there is only a transclusion template - wikipedia is supposed to be directly editable. Thirdly I don't think the summary you wrote is very good and specifically on the linguistic relativity page it only contains information that is already mentioned elsewhere in the article. ·Maunus· ƛ · 07:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)d
 * The benefit of having a summary in a separate page (or a template) is twofold. Firstly, the information when transcluded will always remain up-to-date.  That way it will be easier for editors because they then don't need to check WhatLinksHere to find other pages that need to be updated as well.  Secondly, transcluding summaries helps to draw together topics in different pages and promotes coherence and consistency amongst those pages making the information in wikipedia less fragmented.
 * Concerning your arguments. (i) In principle, the transcluding context should have no effect which means, firstly, that the summary should be written in such a way that it reasonably fits in elsewhere and secondly, that if the summary doesn't fit in, it should be rewritten. (ii) Templates can be edited by any editor and they can be written in such a way as to make them editably directly.  I am working on it to make the usage more streamlined, but I am still learning.  Please be patient.  (iii) I did not write the summary.  I copied it EXACTLY as I found it on the linguistic relativity page.  If you didn't like it before then why didn't you change it earlier?
 * My change made no outward difference to what was there before and so I assumed I could be bold and just go ahead and do it. Seeing you disagree I invite you to continue the discussion at Talk:Linguistic_relativity
 * Hpvpp (talk) 07:55, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You did well to be bold - I just didn't find the result to be an improvement - actually I don't think we need a summary of this article at Linguistic Relativity as the color research is already summarised chronologically in the article's history section. Lets keep discussing at Talk:Linguistic_relativity how best to improve the article and related articles.·Maunus· ƛ · 09:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh and sorry for saying you wrote it when you didn't - I didn't change it because I actually hadn't noticed it was there.·Maunus· ƛ · 09:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

My proposal for separate summary pages was rejected and so I have reverted the transclusion scheme.

Hpvpp (talk) 22:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why concentrate on color ?
Tribal genetic variation in Color vision could be mistaken for cultural + linguistic causes.

Even studying one person, color perception is heavily dependent on environment.

Even the left and right eyes of one person often show differences.

It must be possible to find something more reliable to test !

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 08:53, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There are no documented examples of "tribal genetic variation in color vision".User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:54, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Additional universalist arguments
In the paragraph in the section Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate is the following:


 * "The lengths of habituation were measured and found to be longer when the infant was presented with successive hues surrounding a certain focal color than with successive focal colors. Kessen, Bornstein and Weiskopf therefore claim that the ability to perceive the same distinct focal colors is present even in small children."

Even after reading the lead in the article on habituation, I still don't understand this. From the article on habituation I understood that habituation is gradual decreased reaction to a stimulus. "The lengths of habituation" I presume means the time it took for the infant to cease reacting to a particular colored light. Why would habituation take longer when the infant is "presented with successive hues surrounding a certain focal color" (such as several shades of red) than when presented with "successive focal colors" (such as red, then blue, then yellow)? I don't see the connection between this and K, B and W's claim as expressed in the last sentence. Obviously, I'm not an expert in this field, but I'd still like to understand this. CorinneSD (talk) 23:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Not my area of specialty either, but I believe this is meant to imply that the color habituation if infants is similar in this respect to that of adults, although I could be wrong. Whether that is correct or not, as Corinne is point out, it needs to be explained better.  Let me see if I can look up the article in question...StoneProphet11 (talk) 03:15, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I see the sentence starting "This is to say" and the subsequent one, both sentences expressing what the researchers thought their study proved, but to me, the connection with what the infants saw, habituation, and the researchers' claims is not made clear enough. CorinneSD (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Barbara Saunders
In the second paragraph in the section on Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate is the following sentence:


 * She feels that "use of this chart exemplifies one of the mistakes commonly made by the social sciences: that of taking data-sets as defining a (laboratory) phenomenon which supposedly represents the real world", and entails "taking a picture of the world for the word and then claiming that that picture is the concept".

In the second quote-within-the-quote, in the phrase, "taking a picture of the world for the word", I was just wondering whether the word "world" was correct. I was thinking that maybe it should be "word", so that it would read: "taking a picture of the word for the word", which to me makes more sense in the context. CorinneSD (talk) 00:30, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

List of colors in various languages merge
Is this really the right place for that article to be merged? If it has to be merged anywhere, seems like Color term would be a better choice, or better yet wiktionary's color appendix. PaleAqua (talk) 06:00, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I dont think list articles should be merged with topic articles.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 06:06, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Reference desk discussion
There's a conversation at Reference desk/Humanities which includes material that is relevant to this article. Daask (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

List of colours in various languages
My feedback: TudorTulok (talk) 10:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * should cyan be in the table
 * should the table be after the universalist pattern discovered by Berlin and Kay

Relative vs Universal
Isn't the truth somewhere in between, we inherit some universals from the DNA and we learn some relative perceptions of colors from the usage of language? TudorTulok (talk) 10:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

US Centric?
The article, about blue, says:


 * Western Culture: The feeling of melancholy is typically referred to as having "the blues"
 * Latin America: Virgin Mary is often depicted wearing a blue robe and headscarf.

Well, I'm Western European, and in my language we do not «have the blues» nor anything similar. It looks like this is an English idiom. Wiktionary does not translate it to any language as nothing similar to the blue colour. Wikipedia article about blue clearly says «blue» relate to sadness is something of English language.

About Virgin Mary in blue, well, just visit the wikipedia page. Look at the images. She is in blue in almost all images. In Sinai in a Eastern Orthodox monastery, in a painting by a Dutch master, in an Annutiation by a French painter, a French nativity scene, a painting by a German Benedictine monk, one by an Italian painter, a mosaic from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a stained glass from a Lutheran church in South Carolina, a Madonna of humility by another Italian painter, an icon in Łukawiec, a Byzantine representation, a Lamentation from Assisi, a Black Madonna from Ethiopia... Hell, if you look at her atributes, you'll read: «Blue mantlep, crown of 12 stars, pregnant woman,...» not a blue mantle in Latin America, no. In general. More:


 * In paintings, Mary is traditionally portrayed in blue. This tradition can trace its origin to the Byzantine Empire, from c. 500 AD, where blue was "the colour of an empress". A more practical explanation for the use of this colour is that in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, the blue pigment was derived from the rock lapis lazuli, a stone imported from Afghanistan of greater value than gold. Beyond a painter's retainer, patrons were expected to purchase any gold or lapis lazuli to be used in the painting. Hence, it was an expression of devotion and glorification to swathe the Virgin in gowns of blue. Transformations in visual depictions of the Virgin from the 13th to 15th centuries mirror her "social" standing within the Church as well as in society.

Thinking it's only blue in Latin America seems to come from the same mindset that thinks «the blues» is «Western culture».

--77.75.179.1 (talk)