Colour terms in Tibeto-Burman languages

In their handling of colour, Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayan region show multiple lexical similarities to one another as well as apparent influences from more dominant languages such as Hindi, Nepali, Tibetan, and Chinese. As an understudied family, Tibeto-Burman languages also serve as an important site to explore modern colour theory and conceptualisation. Outlier languages in the Tibeto-Burman family that do not appear to follow either traditional or revised versions of Brent Berlin & Paul Kay’s theories are of particular significance. This survey provides a systematic review of the existing literature and a baseline of comparative colour terminology for these generally vulnerable and often endangered languages.