A Contrastive Study of Color-terms in Persian and English Proverbs Based on Berlin and Kay Theory

Proverbs are rooted in the culture of any language and as a result, they can be considered as one of the criteria for measuring the main elements of language. The present study also seeks to investigate the usage of color words in Persian and English proverbs based on the theory of Berlin and Kay (1969) so that the results are a criterion for measuring the taxonomic studies in relation to the main color words of these two languages. The theory of Berlin and Kay (1969) states that there is a hierarchy of 11 universal color words as the most obvious Universalist approach to color words. The results of this research showed that despite the existence of slight differences in the hierarchies of the main global color words, the hierarchies of the main Persian color words and the hierarchies of the main English color words with the hierarchies used in the present study, significant similarities can be observed both in their number and order. As a result, it is clear that the color words that have been introduced as the main color words of these two languages based on the theory of Berlin and Kay have been widely used in the culture of these two languages for a long time and have been in a way unknown, and entered the structure of proverbs. The comparative analysis also showed that although out of the total of 11 universal color words, 8 color words are used in Persian proverbs and 10 color words are used in English proverbs, the hierarchy of colors terms in Berlin and Kay (1969) are similar.