"...why the Himba have only five basic color terms but many words for the various hide patterns of their livestock"
Good article, but isn't the answer to this question obvious? We have words for things we need to talk about. If you don't have a lot of cases where two objects are the same category, except for color (because you have a lot of dyes and pigments available), then you don't need a word for those colors.
We don't, in English, usually have a great vocabulary for smells. We have to say "it smells like...", as if we said that red things "had a color like apple", and yellow things "had a color like banana", instead of having the words "red" and "yellow".
But, I could imagine you might need to have a word for the various hide patterns of your livestock. "I'll give you that pattern-A cow for your packet of salt. No, I won't part with the pattern-B cow, it's my favorite." I would have to say "the one with the pattern with big splotches" or "the one that looks kind of streaky", because I don't often need words for those patterns. But I need words for colors all the time. "The light is about to turn red."
Sort of related- as a newish parent, I was surprised at the variety of "colors of the rainbow" included in different foreign sourced toys, both in print and audio. Even translated to (decent sounding) English, many talking toys/books only seem to list 5 colors, and they're not always the same 5. But Red is always one of them.
In case it needs to be stated, I was taught in the US that ROYGBIV is a fundamental constant of the universe.
Good article, but isn't the answer to this question obvious? We have words for things we need to talk about. If you don't have a lot of cases where two objects are the same category, except for color (because you have a lot of dyes and pigments available), then you don't need a word for those colors.
We don't, in English, usually have a great vocabulary for smells. We have to say "it smells like...", as if we said that red things "had a color like apple", and yellow things "had a color like banana", instead of having the words "red" and "yellow".
But, I could imagine you might need to have a word for the various hide patterns of your livestock. "I'll give you that pattern-A cow for your packet of salt. No, I won't part with the pattern-B cow, it's my favorite." I would have to say "the one with the pattern with big splotches" or "the one that looks kind of streaky", because I don't often need words for those patterns. But I need words for colors all the time. "The light is about to turn red."
Still interesting article, though.