Color naming universals: Too many exceptions to the rule(s)?

Abstract

The domain of color terms has been a privileged terrain for the debate on linguistic relativism. In this long-standing issue significant new evidence has recently emerged from fields such as anthropology, neurocognitive studies, and neurcomputational modeling, here reviewed. The new picture that has emerged,
shows the color naming universals hypothesis currently beset with a rising number of important counter examples, which we also review. This growing list of exceptions, leads us to reflect on whether color naming universals are really so “universal” after all. The conclusion we lean towards, is that human color perception is fundamentally guided by a common neurophysiological endowment that is possibly marginally modified by the environment, but mainly modulated by the way particular spoken languages partition the color continuum through the use of color words.