Basic color terms in Thai

Abstract

AbstractThis psycholinguistic study explored whether the inventory of color names and, in particular, basic color terms (BCTs) in the Thai language has changed since the seminal study of Berlin and Kay (1969), who reported 10 BCTs in Thai. We collected color‐naming data from 161 Thai native speakers from across Thailand. The speakers were requested to name each of the 330 Munsell color chips, similar to those employed in the World Color Survey, using monolexemic color terms. Mean number of color terms offered per speaker was 19.2 ± 5.2. We found that 12 color terms were offered by ≥80% of the speakers. The BCT inventory exceeded the BCTs reported by Berlin and Kay, by nam‐ngoen “dark blue”, fa “sky/light blue”, and thao “gray”; furthermore, som “orange” appears to have supplanted saet “orange trumpet”. We also found that three non‐BCTs, with Thai‐specific referents, were offered frequently: khi‐ma “horse feces” (75%), lueat‐mu “pig blood” (68%), and ban‐yen “four o'clock flower/magenta” (50%). Further scrutiny of color term object referents prompts that most Thai non‐BCTs refer to flora (31.72%) and inanimate nature (17.54%).