Basic BLUE in East Slavonic

Bibliographic Data

ID3989803
AuthorsAndrew Hippisley (corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume39
Issue1
Publication date2001-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.2001.003
OpenAlexW2097099549
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited14

Russian’s second BLUE term goluboj ‘light blue’ constitutes a well-known exception to the Berlin and Kay basic color-term typology. If other Slavonic languages do not have a second BLUE term, then the special position of Russian requires explanation; if there is evidence pointing to two basic terms for BLUE, we have a second set of data for investigating the evolution of this unusual color system. The languages genetically closest to Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, are examined. Findings of the list task, a simple and elegant test for psychological salience of color terms, provide strong evidence that Ukrainian and Belarusian have also evolved a second BLUE. What is interesting is that the term is not the general East Slavonic term that Russian uses, but a Polish borrowing: blakytnyj ‘light blue’ (Ukrainian), blakitny ‘light blue’ (Belarusian). This opens up the possibility that a category, in this case the second BLUE, may be borrowed separately from the basic term that denotes it. Since the category has been borrowed separately from its term, we have evidence of a different kind that the Russian color system includes a second BLUE: the category is salient enough to be borrowed separately from the term that denotes it

Linguistics · Slavic languages · Categorization, perception, and language · History · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy

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