Hi
On Fri, 23 Feb 2001, Michael J. Kane wrote:
> Although the question below came to me from one of my friends, not one of my
> students, it's interesting and I can't answer it. Any ideas from S&P or
> language experts?
> >I think I asked you this before, but why do we have so many names for
> >colors, but so few for smell and taste? It could be argued that smell and
> >taste are at least as important to humans as sight, at least in an
> >evolutionary sense, right? And there are at least as many different kinds of
> >receptors for smell and taste as there are for vision, right?
> >
> >Yet, you don't hear people say, "That shirt is colored like a tree." But you
> >do hear, "That smells like citrus." Or the ever-popular, "That tastes like
> >chicken." If I asked you what color my carpet was, you could give me a one
> >word answer, and it would be an adjective. But if I said, what does an old
> >book smell like, what do you say? Or, how does the flavor of grouper differ
> >from the flavor of an apple?
You might want to point out to the student that languages vary
quite a bit in how large the colour vocabulary is. Some
languages have only two colour terms (loosely, dark and
light). I wonder what the cross-culture literature says about
taste and smell terms in different languages? I don't know for
certain, but it wouldn't surprise me if many contemporary colour
terms actually do have roots in analogical or metaphorical
terms.
Here are a few places to start. To find lots more, go to
www.google.com and type in terms like "taste" "smell" "culture"
"psychology" and various combinations.
http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell_culture.html
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~senses/research_project.htm
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ti/human_body/nose.html
Also, perhaps remind the student that there are certain
specialized domains where taste and smell terms would be very
highly developed (e.g., wine tasting), although it is not obvious
that survival value had a great deal to do with the development
of these rich vocabularies. Perhaps aesthetic more than survival
considerations are involved with the development of sensory
terms. For example, do we have a rich colour vocabulary to
describe paintings clothing, and the like, rather than or as well
as to identify biologically meaningful entities?
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L05D
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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