[Lingtyp] query: "blue"/"green" and dialectal variation in English

[Hartmut Haberland]

David, I have no hard data, but with my experience from German (my L1) and a long history of misunderstandings, I am not surprised at all.
Hartmut


Hartmut Haberland
Professor emeritus
[RUC]

Roskilde University
Department of Communication and Arts
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Telephone: +45 46742841


Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af David Gil
Sendt: 7. april 2019 23:29
Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Emne: [Lingtyp] query: "blue"/"green" and dialectal variation in English

Dear all,

I've recently become aware of dialectal variation within English with respect to the denotation of the colour terms "blue" and "green"; specifically, the extent to which they apply to intermediate colours such as cyan, turquoise and teal.  I'm currently running an informal survey on google forms (see link below); the results are still coming in, but I'm already observing interesting dialectal variation.  For example, in stimulus 8, showing a shade of teal, subjects are presented with a forced choice task: is it "blue" or "green"?  The percentage of subjects who chose "blue" range from 19% in Australian English (23 subjects) to 65% in USA English (97 subjects), with other countries occupying intermediate positions on the scale.

My question: has anybody described this kind of variation within English dialects before?  It's the world's most studied language, and a very popular domain of investigation, and yet a Google search didn't come up with any references to precisely this kind of variation.  Any comments related to this topic would be appreciated.


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1e5nvUB8B3OdUXo1Rat7xrwrxj4H_qgJcvpAkNcHIj8c/edit

Thanks,

David

--

David Gil



Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany



Email: gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>

Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834

Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816


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