Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories
Vocabulary · one world map for each value
WALS codes 119 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “5 categories”, covers 56 of them (47%); the least frequent, “Between 4 and 5 categories”, is recorded for a single language.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (62% of the 24 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (12% of 16).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Indo-European is the most uniform: 6 of 10 have “6 categories”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 5 of 12.
3 categories10 languages · 8%
Between 3 and 4 categories3 languages · 3%
4 categories9 languages · 8%
Between 4 and 5 categories1 language · 1%
5 categories56 languages · 47%
Between 5 and 6 categories11 languages · 9%
6 categories29 languages · 24%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 categories | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Between 3 and 4 categories | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 categories | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Between 4 and 5 categories | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 categories | 2 | 5 | 15 | 2 | 15 | 17 |
| Between 5 and 6 categories | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| 6 categories | 1 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 3 |
| All values | 16 | 15 | 24 | 5 | 27 | 32 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 12 | 3 categories | 42% |
| Indo-European | 10 | 6 categories | 60% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 8 | 5 categories | 50% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- 3 categories: Campa (Axininca), Kuku-Yalanji, Murrinh-Patha
- 4 categories: Pirahã, Waorani, Lele
- 5 categories: Shipibo-Konibo, Chinantec (Lealao), Murle, O'odham, Huastec, Tlapanec
- Between 5 and 6 categories: Teribe
- 6 categories: English, French, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese