Berlin and Kay also found that, in languages with fewer than the maximum eleven color categories, the colors found in these languages followed a specific evolutionary pattern. This pattern is as follows:
- All languages contain terms for black and white.
- If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red.
- If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both).
- If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.
- If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue.
- If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown.
- If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, and/or gray.
In addition to following this evolutionary pattern absolutely, each of the languages studied also selected virtually identical focal hues for each color category present. For example, the term for "red" in each of the languages corresponded to roughly the same shade in the Munsell color system. Consequently, they posited that the cognition, or perception, of each color category is also universal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate