On the second part of this article, we had paused our journey at Stage five, i.e., where “blue” first appears. After blue is established as a basic color term, things start to get fuzzier. Brown is next in line but in a lot of different languages, it is subsumed under red or black. The Majang compound word used for brown, ‘koʤua-deyi’, means ‘black and red’ and is a great example of how brown isn’t often perceived as an independent color on its own. In Gumer, there exists different terms for different brown-colored objects, of which most call back to ‘blood’. In Spanish too, the word for brown is “Marrón”, a term that is suspiciously close to the English word “Maroon”, indicating that the two share an etymological origin. When brown isn’t grouped under other colors, the term for it is often derived from one particular natural object – coffee. The Amharic word “ቡኒ”, for brown, is clearly derived from the word for coffee, “ቡና”. The same holds true for the color term in Tigrigna, Harari, Shinasha, Gamo, and Wolayta. As for the connotative meaning brown holds, since the color is associated with the earth, it subsequently calls to the psychological traits of security, maturity, and reliance in at least the anglophone world. Within the Ethiopian languages, however, the color is not salient enough to indicate strong connotative meanings.

Following brown, the final stage includes names for grey, pink, purple, orange, or some combination of these. Of the four, grey is evidently more salient than the rest as it is often associated with ash, a common natural phenomenon with which the terms for grey originates from in at least the Awngi and Tigrigna languages. It is also seen as an intermediate color between white and black so its ambiguity is its most dominant connotative interpretation. In English, the phrase “grey area” is used to express exactly that. So, the function of grey as a descriptor is related to not its presence as a color by itself but as a detractor from the pure and rigid shades of white and black. Hence, its cultural meaning is entirely dependent on the meanings tied to its parent colors. A similar thing could be said of pink, although it is not nearly as salient as grey is. Being a combination of red and white, pink, in the anglophone world represents a gentler, purer version of the intense red. Where there was once fiery passion, there is now gentle romanticism. The same could be said with its connotation in Italian. But when it comes to Ethiopian languages, things are not nearly as clear. Pink is associated with the color black in Wolayta, with Blue in Nuer, with yellow in Kafinono, and with grey in Gedeo. In Amharic the word for pink “ወይን ጠጅ”, meaning ‘wine-mead’ is often confused with the word for purple, “ሐምራዊ”. Their common interchangeability indicates that both color words are not stable in usage. The adoption of the word “ሮዝ” [rose] also seems to have further complicated the terminology of the two. Orange as well, is not a very important color term. In most Ethiopian languages, it is either subsumed under red and yellow or is a direct reference to the fruit orange. In English, the word orange also arose from the fruit but its lexical stability allows it to remain a basic color term. Nevertheless, there is little to no connotative meaning attached to orange in many of the world’s languages, indicating that it is perhaps the most non-basic of all the basic color terms. Even purple, the rarest color in nature, has connotation associated with it because of its scarcity. It is associated with royalty and prestige because purple dyes were very expensive and could only be afforded by nobility. It’s important to note that this association purple has is mostly localized to the European context. The same can’t be said for Ethiopian languages. Overall, it is unlikely that most Ethiopian languages have progressed to the final stage of basic color terminology.

Now, what does it all mean in the grand scheme of things? Well, as we have established at the start, linguistic color studies are important in the study of linguistic relativism. What Berlin & Kay discovered was in direct contradiction to that and would become essential for the dominance of universalist linguistic theory, at least when it came to color perception. Of course, this was not the end though. Research on the topic is still being conducted and the Universalist-vs-Relativist debate is still going strong. But things are not so black and white. New studiesindicates that both schools of thought might have a say. While a relativist maintains that color perception is affected by color terms and that color categories are determined by largely arbitrary linguistic convention, the universalist thinks contrary to this. However, novel research shows that color perception isindeed determined by language, but only partly, as it affects half of our visual field. As it turns out, there is evidence for “categorical perception” (faster or more accurate discrimination of stimuli – in this case, color) that is based on language. But as the part of our brain responsible for language is present on the left hemisphere, this categorical perception only affects the contralaterally operated right visual field. So, half of our color perception is viewed through our linguistic filter while the other half operates without it.

As for how color naming comes about, the two positions may reconcile once again. The universalist account assigns dominant “focal points” within the color wheel (the focal point of a color is the most ideal example of that same color; like how ‘true red’ is the most ideal ‘red’, and is a better illustration of the color than ‘maroon’) while maintaining that the outer borders themselves are fuzzy. The relativist position argues that linguistic convention is important in the demarcation of color terms, and that what a language chooses to name is entirely localized. With the two views resolved, it is likely that environmental structure might be internalized in the mind over evolutionary time, and then externalized in the form of language in accordance with the steady shape of perceptual color space in our mind. There are probably universal, or close to universal, color focal points that have their boundaries determined by a linguistic convention which has been shaped by environmental factors.

The successful reconciliation of the two schools of thought and stronger research into linguistic color terminology in general is likely to open the door wide for the theories’ applicability into other domains within linguistics as well as cognition itself. Language and thought are inextricably linked, we just don’t yet know the full extent or direction to which it lends itself to sway. It is going to be very interesting to find out.