Diachronic Trends in Latin ’ s Basic Color Vocabulary

The Latin language contains a number of synonymous terms in its basic color categories. The goal of this essay is to trace the diachronic trends of such terms; to discover which term, if any, is the favored term for a color category; and to determine whether it became established as such in sequence with the Universal Evolution (UE) model. I examine the frequencies of all potentially-basic color terms in the extant texts of five authors chosen to represent a span of about six hundred years: Plautus, Cato the Elder, Cicero, Seneca, and Saint Jerome. My initial hypothesis was that niger was displacing ater as the basic Black term; a similar shift was occurring as candidus displaced albus as the default White term; and other shifts between Red and Yellow terms are uncertain. The hypothesis that niger was displacing ater proved to be accurate; niger increased from occurring only incidentally in Plautus (third century BCE) to being the dominant Black term in Seneca (first century CE), although it did not completely displace ater until late antiquity. In Plautus, candidus and albus formed an equal percentage of total color vocabulary, and displayed only slightly divergent trends, which may reflect the use of albus for “matte white” and candidus for “shiny white.” Ruber was the favored Red term, but it was not displacing other Red terms, nor were the other Red terms displacing each other. The frequency of the intersective term purpureus “purple” suggests that it became established around the same time that Latin’s Red words became established. There was not enough data from the authors in this study to determine trends for Latin’s Yellow terms. Viridis was well-represented as a Green term throughout the time period surveyed. Caeruleus appeared very infrequently compared to viridis, implying that Latin was transitioning between evolutionary stages IVG/Bu and IV in the five-stage UE model presented in the World Color Survey.