Colour Naming and Whorf’s Hypothesis

Abstract

In 1950, on the basis of anthropological fieldwork in the American South-West, Benjamin Lee Whorf claimed that

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic system in our minds. (1956, p. 213)