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Color and language: Worldwide distribution of Daltonism and distinct words for “blue”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2005

ANGELA M. BROWN  and
DELWIN T. LINDSEY
ANGELA M. BROWN
Affiliation:
College of Optometry, The Ohio State University, Columbus
DELWIN T. LINDSEY
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Mansfield
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Abstract

A geographical review of the published literature confirmed that red–green color-vision deficiency (Daltonism) is rare near the equator and more prevalent at higher latitudes, as others have reported. A survey of dictionaries of the languages spoken by the populations for which Daltonism data are available confirmed that distinct words for “blue” are also rare near the equator, and more common at higher latitudes. These results were compared to show an even stronger relation between the proportion of languages with a word for “blue” and the prevalence of Daltonism. We believe that the strong correlation between “blue” and Daltonism suggests that an evolutionary, physiological cause for both phenomena.

Keywords

Color-vision deficiencyRed–greenDaltonismBluePhototoxicityGeography
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 2004 , pp. 409 - 412
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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