Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Basic Blue In East Slavonic, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

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 …