Browsing by Author "Hollman, Liivi"
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Item Basic color terms in Estonian Sign Language(2010-04-16T07:59:48Z) Hollman, LiiviEstonian Sign Language is described in the Ethnologue, under the Ethnologue Language Code eso. It is now a legally recognized language in Estonia. The redaction of the Language Act from 03.01.2007 states that ESL is an independent language and under the act, the state is obliged to support the usage and development of ESL. ESL is used by approximately 1,400–1,500 deaf people living in Estonia. In their theory, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay (1969) point out that the basic color terms of any language are drawn from a set of eleven universal color categories, and these universal categories become encoded in a certain order. The eleven basic color categories are: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and gray. If a language encodes fewer than eleven basic color categories, there are strict limitations on which categories it may encode. According to the color terms survey carried out among ESL users, it may be concluded that ESL has nine basic color terms: black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, gray, brown and pink/purple and therefore it may be assumed that ESL is a stage VII language according to Berlin and Kay. There are also signs for orange and purple but for both colors several different signs are used. While among the color terms encoded earlier according to Berlin and Kay native ESL signs prevail, loans from other sign languages and from local spoken language appear lower in the hierarchy.