Berlin & Kay 1969

Mapping your color words

You are about to see a chart of 330 color chips, modeled on the chart that Berlin and Kay presented to speakers of twenty different languages and that the World Color Survey later gave to speakers of 110 more languages.

But first, you will be asked to list the basic color terms of the language(s) you speak. Then, for each of the basic color terms you listed, mark every chip you could call by that term, and then pick its single best example. Once you have completed your chart, we will compare your responses with other people doing the experiment, so we can see whether the colors picked as best examples cluster together, even across different languages.

Your responses are recorded anonymously — no name, no login. What is recorded is the language you name, your color words, and which chips you marked. It takes about ten minutes. Afterwards you will see what Berlin and Kay claimed, and who disputed it.