Symbolic meanings of colors and color terms The word symbol comes from the Greek word sýmbolon – a sign or a combination of a few signs. Symbol is something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance [Merriam-Webster online dictionary]; real or conditional code designating or resembling any notion; image embodying any idea. A symbol may be broader or narrower than the meaning of the phenomena it represents. Through this approach, a symbol can be interpreted polysemantically, and sometimes ambiguously (Telicyn 2005: 494). Symbol is one of the main concepts of philosophy, aesthetics, philology. It is impossible to build any language theory or theory of cognition without it. …show more content…
The research concluded that the process of emergence and development of color terms in different languages is a kind of language universal. The study was described in the book Basic Color Terms (Berlin, Kay 1969). After processing extensive linguistic material, Berlin and Kay arrived at the following conclusions: There are universal laws of arrangement of basic color terms in the languages of the world. Universal inventory of basic color terms consists of 11 basic names - white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, gray (Berlin and Kay 1969: 22). The fuller the system of basic color terms in a particular language (composed of more basic color terms), the higher the stage of the development of the language. According to the Berlin and Kay hypothesis, all languages have terms for white and black colors. Thus, the minimum number of color terms in language is two. The authors present data on the modern language, which differentiates only between black and white: the Jale language, distributed in Irian Jaya (Indonesia) (Berlin and Kay 1969: