Senses & Society VOLUME 6, ISSUE 1 REPRINTS AVAILABLE PHOTOCOPYING © BERG 2011 PP 48–56 DIRECTLY FROM THE PERMITTED BY PRINTED IN THE UK PUBLISHERS LICENSE ONLY Talking about Color and Taste on the Trobriand Islands: A Diachronic Study Gunter Senft ABSTRACT How stable is the lexicon for Gunter Senft is a Senior Research Fellow at the perceptual experiences? This article presents Max Planck Institute results on how the Trobriand Islanders of for Psycholinguistics, Papua New Guinea talk about color and The Netherlands, and Extraordinary Professor taste and whether this has changed over of General Linguistics the years. Comparing the results of research at the University of on color terms conducted in 1983 with data Cologne, Germany. collected in 2008 revealed that many English
[email protected] color terms have been integrated into the Kilivila lexicon. Members of the younger generation with school education have DOI: 10.2752/174589311X12893982233713 been the agents of this language change. However, today not all English color terms are produced correctly according to English lexical semantics. The traditional Kilivila color terms bwabwau ‘black,’ pupwakau Senses & Society ‘white,’ and bweyani ‘red’ are not affected by this change, probably because of the cultural importance of the art of coloring 48 Talking about Color and Taste on the Trobriand Islands canoes, big yams houses, and bodies. Comparing the 1983 data on taste vocabulary with the results of my 2008 research revealed no substantial change. The conservatism of the Trobriand Islanders’ taste vocabulary may be related to the conservatism of their palate. Moreover, they are more interested in displaying and exchanging food than in savoring it.