
Why Red Means Red in Almost Every Language (2015) - amaccuish
http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/why-red-means-red-in-almost-every-language-rp
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rossdavidh
"...why the Himba have only five basic color terms but many words for the
various hide patterns of their livestock"

Good article, but isn't the answer to this question obvious? We have words for
things we need to talk about. If you don't have a lot of cases where two
objects are the same category, except for color (because you have a lot of
dyes and pigments available), then you don't need a word for those colors.

We don't, in English, usually have a great vocabulary for smells. We have to
say "it smells like...", as if we said that red things "had a color like
apple", and yellow things "had a color like banana", instead of having the
words "red" and "yellow".

But, I could imagine you might need to have a word for the various hide
patterns of your livestock. "I'll give you that pattern-A cow for your packet
of salt. No, I won't part with the pattern-B cow, it's my favorite." I would
have to say "the one with the pattern with big splotches" or "the one that
looks kind of streaky", because I don't often need words for those patterns.
But I need words for colors all the time. "The light is about to turn red."

Still interesting article, though.

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beerandt
Sort of related- as a newish parent, I was surprised at the variety of "colors
of the rainbow" included in different foreign sourced toys, both in print and
audio. Even translated to (decent sounding) English, many talking toys/books
only seem to list 5 colors, and they're not always the same 5. But Red is
always one of them.

In case it needs to be stated, I was taught in the US that ROYGBIV is a
fundamental constant of the universe.

