Have you paid any attention to the color terms you use every day? When does something go from âgreenâ to âdark greenâ? Is it even green, or is it blue? The answers to these questions donât come down just to the specific words you choose; they also depend on where youâre from.
A personâs cultural origin plays a significant role in which words they may choose when describing a color. However, being raised with those specific words has a cyclical effect: that person may see colors entirely differently than you because of the words they were raised with! Words shape what we see, and cultural variations continue to prompt linguistic evolution in the world of color. Letâs explore the big differences this can make.
Color Categories Are Not Universal
In our previous article on the history of color names, we saw that these words arose from the pressures of culture, societal necessity, human understanding, and more. However, this process does not occur in the same way everywhere in the world.
The categories we use to describe color are social constructs, not facts. In Russian, for instance, гОНŃйОК (goluboy) describes light blues, while ŃиниК (siniy) is the term for dark blues. These are not mere nuance; they possess the same level of differentiation as something like red and yellow in English. Being raised with this terminology from birth, native Russian speakers therefore tend to develop a heightened perception of the boundary between these two colors, where speakers of other languages may not see it at all.
While this is an example of breaking contexts outward, creating more categories, not all languages follow this path. Japanese, for instance, has historically combined blue and green into the single color ăă (ao). It is only in more recent times that ăżăŠă(midori) has become more frequently used as âgreen,â leaving ăă as blue. This is an example of linguistic change in action; this transition is in its in-between phase, and whether it will fully move to differentiate green/blue or stabilize somewhere in the middle is still to be seen.
Itâs Not Just Color
Youâve got a red dot on a piece of paper. Thatâs red, right? Well, it depends on who you ask. If your observer is a member of one of the numerous African and Native American language groups that look for more than hue when choosing a word, you might get a surprising answer.
These cultural circles examine not just the shade but also the qualities or functions. Shiny, speckled, texturedâit all matters. The red of a clay soil may require a different word than the red of a painted object, even if the Pantone color is the same. As a result, you might point to an object and say, âThatâs red,â and someone else may have an entirely valid reason to say, âThat most certainly is not red.â
Modern Color Evolutions: Narrowing the Focus
Nowadays, people are rarely satisfied with basic colors like blue and green. Walk into a home improvement store, and youâll find dozens of shades of blue: sky blue, baby blue, Bahama blue, blizzard blue, periwinkle. How did this happen?
A cultural (and colorful) shift is underway, spurred by improved technology and marketing. Businesses are seeking ways to be specific about the colors they use in products and advertising, technology allows for accurate reproduction of shades that formerly would have been impossible to consistently produce (e.g., 50 different shades of blue), and naming a new color is a form of prestige or advertising. As a result, weâre seeing more âcolorsâ than ever before.
Youâve probably heard some of these hyperspecific terms: Millennial pink, oxblood, greige, and more. These terms allow people to coordinate expectations. âPinkâ might be vague, but âMillennial pinkâ is specific in tone, use, and understanding. As we explored in the language of wine culture, expert communities tend to develop precise and sometimes esoteric verbiage to describe complex ideas in as few words as possible. Whatâs easier: âa tannish gray with a little brown but not enough to make it sandyâ or âgreigeâ?
Of course, there are some problems with this approach. Hyper-specific color terms can also serve as a barrier to entry. While communication might be easier for those fluent with the terms, those who donât work in industries relying on these ideas might be even more confused than they would have been by spending a lot of words explaining the hue they mean.
The story of color words didnât end sometime in the past, leaving us with the locked-in colors we have now; it continues to evolve and shape how we communicate about what we see. The next time you talk about the hue or shade of something in front of you, think about why youâre choosing those wordsâand the many other ways that idea might be possible.
