TITLE:
Further Evidence for Arabic Basic Colour Categories
AUTHORS:
Abdulrahman S. Al-rasheed
KEYWORDS:
Basic Colour Terms, Colour Categorisation, Universal Categories, Berlin and Kay’s Theory, Arabic Language
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.15,
October
20,
2014
ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to describe the basic colour terms (BCTs) of
Arabic and, in particular, clarify the relationship among the three Arabic
terms for blue: azrock, samawee, and khuhlie that suggested a BCTs in
Arabic language in Al-rasheed et al. (2013). Data were collected
from adult native Arabic speakers (30 male and 27 female) age between 18 and 34
years old, with a mean age of 21.67 years (SD = 2.98). All were under and
postgraduate students at King Saud University. Participants task was to group
the 320 colours by similarity. Based on this result, Arabic probably has eleven
basic colour terms and these correspond with Berlin and Kay’s eleven universal
categories. The terms are that ahmar “red”, akhdar “green”, asfer,
“yellow”, azrock “blue”, asswed “black”, abiyadh “white”, banafsagee “purple”, boartoogaalee “orange”, bonee “brown”, wardee “pink”
and rassasee. In
addition, the terms of particular interest—samawee (“light blue”) had
the next highest claim to being basic and may deserve further investigating.