Languages vary in their number of color terms. A widely accepted theory proposes that languages evolve, acquiring color terms in a stereotyped sequence. This theory, by Berlin and Kay (BK), is supported by analyzing best exemplars ("focal colors") of basic color terms in the World Color Survey (WCS) of 110 languages. But the instructions of the WCS were complex and the color chips confounded hue and saturation, which likely impacted focal-color selection. In addition, it is now known that even so-called early-stage languages nonetheless have a complete representation of color distributed across the population. These facts undermine the BK theory. Here we revisit the evolution of color terms using original color-naming data obtained with simple instructions in Tsimane', an Amazonian culture that has limited contact with industrialized society. We also collected data in Bolivian-Spanish speakers and English speakers. We discovered that information theory analysis of color-naming data was not influenced by color-chip saturation, which motivated a new analysis of the WCS data. Embedded within a universal pattern in which warm colors (reds, oranges) are always communicated more efficiently than cool colors (blues, greens), as languages increase in overall communicative efficiency about color, some colors undergo greater increases in communication efficiency compared to others. Communication efficiency increases first for yellow, then brown, then purple. The present analyses and results provide a new framework for understanding the evolution of color terms: what varies among cultures is not whether colors are seen differently, but the extent to which color is useful.

中文翻译：

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跨语言的颜色命名的通信效率为颜色术语的发展提供了新的框架。

语言的颜色术语数量有所不同。广泛接受的理论提出，语言会进化，以定型的顺序获取颜色术语。柏林和凯（BK）提出的这一理论通过对110种语言的世界颜色调查（WCS）中基本颜色术语的最佳示例（“焦点颜色”）进行支持。但是WCS的指令很复杂，色卡混淆了色相和饱和度，可能影响了焦点色的选择。另外，现在已知，即使是所谓的早期语言也能完整地代表整个人群中的颜色分布。这些事实破坏了BK理论。在这里，我们使用通过Tsimane'中的简单指令获得的原始颜色命名数据来重新审视颜色术语的演变，一种与工业化社会联系有限的亚马逊文化。我们还收集了讲玻利维亚语和西班牙语的人和说英语的人的数据。我们发现色彩命名数据的信息论分析不受色片饱和度的影响，这激发了对WCS数据的新分析。嵌入在通用模式中，在这种模式中，暖色（红色，橙色）始终比冷色（蓝色，绿色）更有效地进行交流，因为语言对颜色的整体交流效率提高了，因此某些颜色的交流效率要比其他颜色更高。黄色先提高通信效率，然后褐色提高通信效率，然后紫色提高。当前的分析和结果为理解颜色术语的演变提供了一个新的框架：