著者

山口 さずか

雑誌

東京女子大学言語文化研究 (ISSN:09187766)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.56-69, 2010-03-01

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This article focuses on traditional Japanese color terms and is an inquiry into the color`purple' and related color terms as used in Japan. Although purple is an intermediate color, it has held an important meaning in Japan since ancient times, and traditionally unique names were assigned to each variation of the color purple. In this thesis, 35 traditional colors classified as variations of purple were selected, and research was done to determine how present day Japanese people would describe these colors.The results of this research have revealed that the traditional Japanese categorization of these colors differs from the way in which present day Japanese categorize these colors. Even colors which at one time were clearly identified and classified together are now described in a variety of differing terms by modern Japanese people and are no longer recognized as unique colors in their own right. Additionally, color tones which were considered bright in ancient times tend to be described as darker colors by present-day people.