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When we make sets of things–a trilogy of books, or a collection of movies, or fun board game pieces–contrast is important. You may have noticed that some colors are more present in our entertainment goods than others–like red, or green, or blue, or white. It’s not impossible to have a game where everything is orange and purple–but why the discrepancy?
Objects appear to be certain colors because they reflect light of the corresponding wavelength into our eyes. But wavelength is just part of the story of how our brains interpret colors. Languages we speak and words we use can condition us to be quicker at differentiating colors.
The English language has one overarching word “blue” that encapsulates a large section of the visible spectrum. A color like cyan lies between green and blue. But to a brain that grew up with the rainbow of “red orange yellow green blue purple,” (give or take an indigo) “cyan” is often flattened as a concept into another shade of light blue.
Native speakers of several other European languages have more common words for very blue-blues and the lighter shades. Studies have shown that people who primarily speak Russian or Greek, for example, are faster at identifying similar shades of cyans than people who primarily speak languages like English and Spanish.
This advantage can be tenuous and disappear in people who move to countries where they flatten the blue concepts. In addition, anyone can train themselves to pick out minute details in color. An artist using paints every day, no matter the language they speak at home, will naturally be more practiced with picking out shades of all kinds. We have many words for colors–but your speed in identifying them comes partially from how commonly you use those words.
Linguists have identified a natural hierarchy of color words that arise in most languages. The first words that develop are those for black and white, the highest contrast; red follows that, then yellow, green, and blue. Languages further diverge from there, with different colors being added, emphasized, or lumped together.
This is why, in contexts where contrast is important, we instinctively fall towards those more linguistically basic colors. The more universal the building block of color concepts, the more likely it will work cross-culturally. If you were playing a game where all your pieces were different shades of teal and cyan and blue and you spoke English, you would have to work harder to differentiate all those blue hues. But with pieces that are blue and yellow and white, for example, that friction is much less likely.
All this to say, I will continue working on my cerulean/aquamarine/sapphire board game that I’m sure everyone in my life will love to play with me. Wait, no! Come back, everyone! It’s fun, and helps you develop your concepts of non-basic color ideas!
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