The Development of Color Terms in Shipibo-Konibo Children

Abstract

Color word learning is an important case study for the relationship between language and perception. While English color word learning is well-documented, there is relatively limited evidence on the developmental trajectory for color words, especially in languages from non-Western populations. We study color words and their acquisition in the Shipibo-Konibo (SK), an indigenous group within the Peruvian Amazon. In Study 1, we measure the color vocabulary in SK adults, updating findings from the World Color Survey. We then study receptive and productive knowledge of color words in children, conducted in both SK (Study 2) and Spanish (Study 3). Children learning the SK system show a protracted developmental trajectory towards adult-like color term knowledge compared to contemporary studies of English-speaking children. Further, when SK children lack precise color term knowledge, they appeared to follow different strategies for SK and Spanish, using Spanish vocabulary in SK and overgeneralizing in Spanish. For both children and adults, bilingual vocabulary is used adaptively to facilitate task performance, broadly supporting communicative views of color vocabulary.

Keywords

• Shipibo-Konibo
• Vocabulary development
• Color
• Bilingualism