A team of scientists have discovered that bilingual speakers from the Tsimane’ society in the Bolivian Amazon, who learned Spanish as a second language, began to differentiate colors more precisely, using distinct words for colors like blue and green, which monolingual speakers typically do not do. This study, published in Psychological Science, sheds light on how learning a second language can reshape our understanding of the world around us.
The Tsimane’ people, living in remote areas of the Bolivian Amazon rainforest, provide a unique opportunity to understand the impact of language on human cognition. They typically live in small, scattered villages along the banks of the Maniqui River and have remained relatively isolated from the wider world, preserving a way of life that is deeply intertwined with their natural environment. This isolation has led to the preservation of a unique linguistic and cultural identity.
However, the gradual encroachment of modernity and the increasing interaction with Spanish-speaking populations have begun to influence the Tsimane’ society. This has led to changes in various aspects of their life, including language use.
The Tsimane’ language is known for its limited color vocabulary compared to languages spoken in industrialized countries. This distinction piqued the interest of researchers, leading them to explore how bilingualism, specifically the learning of Spanish, could influence the Tsimane’ people’s perception and categorization of colors.
“I’m generally interested in bilingualism and multilingualism: the majority of the world consists of speakers of more than one language yet a lot of research has focused on monolingual speakers of a handful of languages,” explained study author Saima Malik-Moraleda, a PhD student in the Harvard/MIT Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology.
“What’s fascinating about people who speak multiple languages is that each language carves the world in different ways, which is more noticeable in speakers from very distinct cultures. What happens when languages from two very different cultures, that carve the world in different ways, come in contact?”
“I started working with Ted Gibson at MIT, who had already done research with the Tsimane’ and had found that they don’t speak about color much and use very few color words consistently across the population. Naturally, then, I was interested in finding out how the Tsimane’ who ended up learning Spanish might (or might not) change the way they spoke about colors.”
The study’s participants comprised three distinct groups, totaling 152 individuals. There were 71 Tsimane’ monolinguals, who spoke only their native language, 30 Spanish monolinguals, and 30 bilingual individuals fluent in both Tsimane’ and Spanish. The bilingual group was particularly crucial, as they provided insights into how knowledge of a second language might alter color perception and categorization as originally framed in their first language.
The methodology involved two key tasks, both centered around color perception and naming. The first task presented participants with 84 colored chips, sourced from the standard Munsell array of colors. These chips covered a wide spectrum of colors and were shown to the subjects one at a time. The participants were asked to name each chip in their native language or, for bilinguals, in both Tsimane’ and Spanish.
The second task was a color grouping exercise. Here, participants were shown the entire set of 84 Munsell color chips simultaneously. They were then instructed to group the chips based on the color terms of their native language. This task aimed to understand how participants categorize colors into broader groups or categories, based on their linguistic and cultural background.
For bilingual participants, both tasks were conducted twice – once in each language they spoke. This dual approach was critical to discerning whether and how their color naming and categorization differed between their first and second languages.
The researchers observed increased precision in color naming by bilingual speakers when performing tasks in their native Tsimané. This was evident in their more specific use of terms for colors like yellow and red, which monolingual speakers tended to apply to a broader range of shades. For instance, where a monolingual Tsimane’ speaker might use a single term to describe various shades of red or yellow, a bilingual speaker, influenced by their knowledge of Spanish, would more precisely categorize and label these shades, aligning more closely with the color distinctions common in Spanish.
One of the most striking findings was the change in how bilingual Tsimane’-Spanish speakers began to differentiate colors that their native language traditionally did not distinguish.
“Learning a second language enables you to understand these concepts that you didn’t have in your first language,” said Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study. “What’s also interesting is they used their own Tsimane’ terms to start dividing up the color space more like Spanish does.”
Specifically, the study found that bilingual individuals started using separate Tsimane’ words for the colors blue and green. In contrast, monolingual Tsimane’ speakers typically used the terms “shandyes” and “yushñus” interchangeably for these hues. After learning Spanish, bilingual speakers began to use “yushñus” exclusively for blue and “shandyes” for green, showing a clear distinction between the two colors that was not present in the Tsimane’ monolingual vocabulary.
“Learning a new language can change how you talk about things in your native language,” Malik-Moraleda told PsyPost. “In the case of Tsimane’, they speak about colors differently after they learn Spanish: they become more precise in how they use color terms, the most visible effect occurs in how they end up with two color words for green-ish and blue-ish colors, as opposed to one word for both.”
The study highlights a remarkable level of cognitive flexibility and integration of linguistic concepts. Bilingual Tsimane’ speakers did not merely borrow Spanish words for colors; instead, they adapted and refined their native Tsimane’ color terms based on their exposure to the color categorization in Spanish. This finding indicates a two-way linguistic influence, where learning a second language doesn’t just add to a speaker’s vocabulary but can also fundamentally alter the conceptual framework in their first language.
“The effect was consistent across all color hues tested, not just for green and blue: Tsimane’ speakers who learnt Spanish started using color words more consistently across the board,” Malik-Moraleda explained. “That they alter the way they speak in Tsimane’ about colors at all was pretty surprising to me.”
Despite these compelling findings, the study is not without its limitations. One key limitation is the specific socio-cultural context of the Tsimane’ people. Their limited exposure to the wide range of colors prevalent in industrialized societies might influence their perception and categorization of colors. Furthermore, the study predominantly focuses on color perception, leaving open the question of whether similar effects of bilingualism would be observed in other cognitive domains.
Looking ahead, the researchers aim to explore whether the effects observed in the Tsimane’ society can be replicated in other remote populations with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. One such group under consideration is the Gujjar community in the Himalayan mountains. The team is also interested in investigating if other cognitive domains, such as the perception of time, are similarly influenced by bilingualism.
“It’s important to note that here we only addressed how learning a new language can alter how you speak about some concepts in your native language, not how you perceive things in the world,” Malik-Moraleda noted. “While there’s a popular claim that how you talk about the world affects also how you perceive it, we have not tested that directly in our study.”
The study, “Concepts Are Restructured During Language Contact: The Birth of Blue and Other Color Concepts in Tsimane’-Spanish Bilinguals“, was authored by Saima Malik-Moraleda, Kyle Mahowald, Bevil R. Conway, and Edward Gibson.
