BBC|你所說的語言決定你看到的顏色和世界

雅各

使用不同的語言甚至方言會使我們對顏色乃至世界產生不同的認知。

Colour perception is less about seeing what is actually out there and more about how our brain interprets colours to create something meaningful. The perception of colour mainly occurs inside our heads and so is subjective.

我們對顏色的感知不僅僅是看到外界的色彩，更多的是大腦如何將顏色"翻譯"成有意義的東西。顏色感知主要發生在我們的大腦中，因此它是主觀的感受。

Different languages and cultural groups also carve up the colour spectrum differently. Some languages like Dani, spoken in Papua New Guinea, and Bassa, spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone, only have two terms, dark and light. Dark roughly translates as cool in those languages, and light as warm. So colours like black, blue, and green are glossed as cool colours, while lighter colours like white, red, orange and yellow are glossed as warm colours.

不同的語言和文化群體對顏色色譜的劃分方式也不同。有些語言 - 如在巴布亞新幾內亞使用的丹尼語和在利比里亞和塞拉利昂使用的巴薩語 - 表示顏色的只有"黑暗"和"明亮"兩個詞。在這些語言中"黑暗"大致表示冷色，光明則表示暖色。因此，像黑色、藍色和綠色這樣的顏色被歸類為冷色，而像白色、紅色、橙色和黃色這樣的淺色被歸類為暖色。

Remarkably, most of the worlds languages have five basic colour terms. Cultures as diverse as the Himba in the Namibian plains and the Berinmo in the lush rainforests of Papua New Guinea employ such five term systems. As well as dark, light, and red, these languages typically have a term for yellow, and a term that denotes both blue and green. That is, these languages do not have separate terms for "green" and "blue" but use one term to describe both colours, a sort of "grue".

值得一提的是，世界上大多數語言都能表示五種基本的顏色。一些頗具多樣性的文化 - 例如納米比亞平原上的Himba文化和巴布亞新幾內亞鬱鬱蔥蔥的熱帶雨林中的Berinmo文化 - 都有這五種顏色的表達方法。除了深色、淺色和紅色之外，這些語言中還有表達黃色以及藍綠色的詞。也就是說，這些語言中沒有單獨的詞來表示"綠色"和"藍色"，而是用同一個詞同時描述兩種顏色 - 一個類似於"grue"的詞（譯者注："grue"為"green"和"blue"兩詞的合成詞）。

Russian, Greek, Turkish and many other languages also have two separate terms for blue one referring exclusively to darker shades, and one referring to lighter shades.

俄語、希臘語、土耳其語以及許多其他語言都有兩個專門表示藍色的詞一個專指深色，另一個專指淺色。

The way we perceive colours can also change during our lifetime. Greek speakers, who have two fundamental colour terms to describe light and dark blue ("ghalazio" and "ble"), are more prone to see these two colours as more similar after living for long periods of time in the UK. There, these two colours are described in English by the same fundamental colour term: blue.

我們對顏色的感知會隨著生活的變化而變化。說希臘語的人會用兩個不同的詞來描述淺藍色和深藍色("ghalazio"和"ble")。但在英國生活了很長一段時間後，他們相比以前會覺得兩種顏色更為相似 - 因為這兩種顏色在英語中只用一個詞表示：Blue。

This is because after long term everyday exposure to an English-speaking environment, the brain of native Greek speakers starts interpreting the colours "ghalazio" and "ble" as part of the same colour category.

这是因为长期沉浸在英语环境中后，希腊母语者的大脑开始慢慢认为"ghalazio"和"ble"是同一种颜色。

But this isnt just something that happens with colour. In fact different languages can influence our perceptions in all areas of life. In our lab at Lancaster University we are investigating how the use of and exposure to different languages changes the way we perceive everyday objects. Ultimately, this happens because learning a new language is like giving our brain the ability to interpret the world differently including the way we see and process colours.

不光是顏色，事實上不同的語言可以影響我們對生活認知的方方面面。目前蘭卡斯特大學的實騐室正在研究不同語言的使用和學習將如何改變我們對日常事物的認知。歸根結底，學習一門新的語言就相當於賦予我們的大腦一種以不同的方式去看待世界的能力，包括我們看待和處理顏色的方式。

编辑：Miranda

改譯：James

2018/0706

有啲時候我哋講唔懂，好似雞同鴨講嘢，唔係同聲同氣，原來呢啲係科學嚟架。所以呢，講嘢之前，諗下，餵，你哋講咩語言啊[偷笑]