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I am always a bit suspicions of statistics on countries or other geographical groups of people. The data points are not really independent samples. To take an e

I am always a bit suspicions of statistics on countries or other geographical groups of people. The data points are not really independent samples. To take an extreme example, imagine you have a dataset containing Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. I'm sure you could find all kinds of interesting correlations there, but I wouldn't trust them because you really only have two data points: Scandinavia and South America. Even if your dataset has all the counties of the world many of them have a shared history and influenced each other, so correlations between variables may be accidental. To return to the topic of colors, I wonder why the light or dark versions of some colors are called something else. I can easily imagine a light blue or a dark blue and they are still clearly blue. Same with light or dark green. Dark red is fine, but light red becomes pink. Yellow always feels like a light color, and dark yellow becomes some kind of brown. Is there a physical reason, or are these arbitrary cultural distinctions?

DFHippie 5y ago
I think these are precisely the arbitrary cultural distinctions people are arguing about. I too feel that the difference between pink and red is categorical whereas that between pale and dark blue is mere nuance. Apparently Russian speakers feel about dark and pale blue as I do about red and pink. I am a linguist, so I've been aware of this debate for quite some time, though I've never followed it that closely. What I don't understand is how anyone operationalizes this notion of "basic color terms". English has hundreds of color terms at least, but the "basic" ones are supposed to be white, black, grey, red, green, blue, orange, yellow, purple, brown, and pink (I don't think I'm missing any). People agree on this list and accept it. They agree on a different list for Russian, adding one more, which is roughly cyan. They agree on different lists for Xhosa and Nahuatl and so forth. But how do they come to agree? I agree that the list given for English feels right. Is this all they do? "Does this feel right? Yes." That seems like a weak basis for such a long-term debate. On the other hand, much of the evidence argued over in linguistics is of this nature. "Does this sound odd to you, other linguist? Yes. Data!"

DFHippie 5y ago

I think these are precisely the arbitrary cultural distinctions people are arguing about. I too feel that the difference between pink and red is categorical whereas that between pale and dark blue is mere nuance. Apparently Russian speakers feel about dark and pale blue as I do about red and pink. I am a linguist, so I've been aware of this debate for quite some time, though I've never followed it that closely. What I don't understand is how anyone operationalizes this notion of "basic color terms". English has hundreds of color terms at least, but the "basic" ones are supposed to be white, black, grey, red, green, blue, orange, yellow, purple, brown, and pink (I don't think I'm missing any). People agree on this list and accept it. They agree on a different list for Russian, adding one more, which is roughly cyan. They agree on different lists for Xhosa and Nahuatl and so forth. But how do they come to agree? I agree that the list given for English feels right. Is this all they do? "Does this feel right? Yes." That seems like a weak basis for such a long-term debate. On the other hand, much of the evidence argued over in linguistics is of this nature. "Does this sound odd to you, other linguist? Yes. Data!"