Vapa – is used for some yellows and white.

Zuzu – is used to described most dark colours, black, dark red, dark purple, dark blue, etc.

Dambu – includes a variety of greens, reds, beige and yellows, and is also the term used for a Caucasian person.

Serandu – is used to describe reds, browns, oranges and some yellows.

green, blue, yellow, red, white and so forth, but the Himbas only have five. Western languages have eleven colour categories, ie. They used different coloured tiles to put together a baseline of colour groupings according to the Himba language.

The tests they performed were done with individuals that could not speak any other languages, and the researchers used translators to communicate with the Himbas. So what the group attempted to research was whether or not the Himba community sees things differently to other cultures, by looking at the way their language has affected their perceptions of colour.

The Himba tribe is a branch of the Herero tribe that has been isolated from most modern societies, with this I mean that they have chosen to maintain their traditional lifestyle rather than adopting traditions from western cultures.This has allowed the community to develop their linguistic abilities within the use of their own language only, and no external influences. Shapirowho, all academics– was done with regards to the Himba tribe in Northern Namibia! A variety of tests and research has been conducted using various cultural groups as subjects, which has led to fascinating results! One of these studies – conducted by Debi Roberson, Jules Davidoff, Ian R.

Most of us have remained unaware of this interesting topic, but there is a question that has plagued the world of psychology for some time now, “What came first, thought or language?” Now obviously it shouldn’t come as a shock that there is no concrete answer to this question, but rather opinionated arguments backed by research.Ī question that has popped up as well is whether the language you speak influences the way you perceive colour…the thought sounds a bit crazy right? How could a specific language have an effect on something that should look the same to most human beings? The thing is it can.

Different words for orange the color