Colour terms and bilingualism: An experimental study of Russian and Tatar

Abstract Research has shown that bilingual speakers of languages that differ in categorisation concepts experience mediation between the two languages. This phenomenon extends to colour categorisation. Previous research has focused on studying bilingual speakers from a migratory background. This study takes an alternative approach and looks at speakers who live in a bilingual community, namely Tatar–Russian bilingual speakers in Tatarstan, and employs an experimental methodology using the salience criterion. The data show that Tatar has 6 basic colour terms (in contrast to 12 basic colour terms in Russian). The results further reveal that whilst Tatar–Russian speakers are able to maintain a distinction between the colour categorisation systems of each language, they nevertheless experience interference in their categorisation of colour terms in Russian when compared to monolingual Russian speakers.