Why just turquoise? Remarks on the evolution of color terms

SummaryThe location of the foci of green and blue in the perceptual color solid indicates that there is space for a derived color term between these two hues. Diachronic and synchronic linguistic studies on color term lexica explain that a term for turquoise is likely to develop into a derived basic color term (in the Kay and McDaniel definition), at present in languages of industrialized countries. In addition to the hypothesis of Zimmer (1982) that ‘türkis’ (in German) is the result of universal production system for color terms, cultural, social, and psychological factors influence the evolution of new basic color terms.

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