The Linguistic Analysis of Color Terms in Kermanian Carpet; Relativism or Universal?

In sociolinguistics, Color terms are considered as one of the main factors of the language and culture relationship. This research based on the ‘Berlin and Kay (1969) and McNeill (1972) theory’. The main goal is to investigate the influence of natural resources on the Kermanian color terms and to study color terms used in Kerman carpet. The language community consists of two groups of 15 individuals from over 55 aged people of Kerman and Ravar areas. The first group has the experience and skill in carpet waving and the second group doesn't have. The results of the first part show that Kermanian color terms is relatively similar to universals and also to Persian main color terms . However, the presence of special color term, ‘pestei’ among the frequent used color terms shows that according to McNeill (1972) hypothesis, the natural resources of this region are also effective in abstracting the natural resources for making color term. The results of the second part of the study also showed that although some of color terms in Kerman carpets are common in the popular speech, this influence is not so great that Button spoke with determination from the perspective of relativism.