Practice question · Numerical answer
English has eleven basic colour terms in Berlin and Kay's account. Their study tested 20 languages directly and drew on published descriptions of 78 more. How many languages does that make in total?
Hints
- Add the two figures.
- Twenty tested plus seventy-eight from the literature.
Show the answer
98
Why
98. The split matters more than the total: only twenty were tested with the authors' own procedure, and the rest came from descriptions written for other purposes. That is why the universalist conclusion has been argued about for fifty years, and why the honest summary is that the study is about naming rather than seeing.
Practise The Symbolic, Psychological and Social Life of Colour
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