Study Of Chinese Traditional Colour Names

Abstract

During thousand years in Chinese history, lots of colors were named and used in people’s life. And now, some traditional color names are still alive in the modern language, and the others are not used at all. For collecting and saving the name, cultural content and connotation of Chinese traditional colors, questionnaire with 386 colors were made for investigation among 1824 individuals of different ages and education backgrounds in China. 166 color names commonly used are chosen to representative of traditional Chinese color names, and the appearance information of the colors is collected, which include: traditional color names, habitual color names, colorimetric values and grades in Chinese color system.