Jingszo !

One of these studies was done with regards to the Himba tribe in Northern Namibia!

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.

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. They used different coloured tiles to put together a baseline of colour groupings according to the Himba language.

What they found was intriguing.

Western languages have eleven colour categories, ie. green, blue, yellow, red, white and so forth, but the Himbas only have five. These include:

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

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

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

Vapa – is used for some yellows and white.

Buru –is used to describe a collection of greens and blues.