Red and Yellow
Vocabulary · one world map for each value
WALS codes 120 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Red and yellow”, covers 98 of them (82%); the least frequent, “Red and yellow-or-green”, is recorded for a single language.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (100% of the 24 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (38% of 16).
All 10 Indo-European languages coded have “Red and yellow”.
Niger-Congo is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 8 of 12.
Red and yellow98 languages · 82%
Red-or-yellow15 languages · 12%
Red and yellow-or-green-or-blue3 languages · 2%
Red and yellow-or-green1 language · 1%
Red and yellow not both encoded in any basic color term3 languages · 2%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red and yellow | 6 | 15 | 24 | 3 | 26 | 24 |
| Red-or-yellow | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Red and yellow-or-green-or-blue | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Red and yellow-or-green | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Red and yellow not both encoded in any basic color term | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| All values | 16 | 15 | 24 | 5 | 28 | 32 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 12 | Red-or-yellow | 67% |
| Indo-European | 10 | Red and yellow | 100% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 8 | Red and yellow | 100% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Red and yellow: English, French, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese
- Red-or-yellow: Pirahã, Campa (Axininca)
- Red and yellow-or-green-or-blue: Lele
- Red and yellow not both encoded in any basic color term: Waorani, Kuku-Yalanji, Murrinh-Patha