TY - JOUR
T1 - The modern Japanese color lexicon
AU - Kuriki, Ichiro
AU - Lange, Ryan
AU - Muto, Yumiko
AU - Brown, Angela M.
AU - Fukuda, Kazuho
AU - Tokunaga, Rumi
AU - Lindsey, Delwin T.
AU - Uchikawa, Keiji
AU - Shioiri, Satoshi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Authors.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Despite numerous prior studies, important questions about the Japanese color lexicon persist, particularly about the number of Japanese basic color terms and their deployment across color space. Here, 57 native Japanese speakers provided monolexemic terms for 320 chromatic and 10 achromatic Munsell color samples. Through k-means cluster analysis we revealed 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories. These included eight chromatic basic color terms (aka/red, ki/ yellow, midori/green, ao/blue, pink, orange, cha/brown, and murasaki/purple) plus eight additional terms: mizu ("water")/light blue, hada ("skin tone")/peach, kon ("indigo")/dark blue, matcha ("green tea")/yellow-green, enji/maroon, oudo ("sand or mud")/mustard, yamabuki ("globeflower")/gold, and cream. Of these additional terms, mizu was used by 98% of informants, and emerged as a strong candidate for a 12th Japanese basic color term. Japanese and American English color-naming systems were broadly similar, except for color categories in one language (mizu, kon, teal, lavender, magenta, lime) that had no equivalent in the other. Our analysis revealed two statistically distinct Japanese motifs (or color-naming systems), which differed mainly in the extension of mizu across our color palette. Comparison of the present data with an earlier study by Uchikawa & Boynton (1987) suggests that some changes in the Japanese color lexicon have occurred over the last 30 years.
AB - Despite numerous prior studies, important questions about the Japanese color lexicon persist, particularly about the number of Japanese basic color terms and their deployment across color space. Here, 57 native Japanese speakers provided monolexemic terms for 320 chromatic and 10 achromatic Munsell color samples. Through k-means cluster analysis we revealed 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories. These included eight chromatic basic color terms (aka/red, ki/ yellow, midori/green, ao/blue, pink, orange, cha/brown, and murasaki/purple) plus eight additional terms: mizu ("water")/light blue, hada ("skin tone")/peach, kon ("indigo")/dark blue, matcha ("green tea")/yellow-green, enji/maroon, oudo ("sand or mud")/mustard, yamabuki ("globeflower")/gold, and cream. Of these additional terms, mizu was used by 98% of informants, and emerged as a strong candidate for a 12th Japanese basic color term. Japanese and American English color-naming systems were broadly similar, except for color categories in one language (mizu, kon, teal, lavender, magenta, lime) that had no equivalent in the other. Our analysis revealed two statistically distinct Japanese motifs (or color-naming systems), which differed mainly in the extension of mizu across our color palette. Comparison of the present data with an earlier study by Uchikawa & Boynton (1987) suggests that some changes in the Japanese color lexicon have occurred over the last 30 years.
KW - Color category
KW - Color name
KW - Japanese color terms
KW - Motifs
KW - k-means analysis
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U2 - 10.1167/17.3.1
DO - 10.1167/17.3.1
M3 - Article
C2 - 28249298
AN - SCOPUS:85015035399
VL - 17
JO - Journal of Vision
JF - Journal of Vision
SN - 1534-7362
IS - 3
M1 - 1
ER -