The Scarcity Of Universal Colour Names

There is a trend in Computer Vision to use over twenty colour names for image annotation, retrieval and to train deep learning networks to name unknown colours for human use. This paper will show that there is little consistency of colour naming between languages and even between individuals speaking the same language. Experiments will be cited that show that your mother tongue influences how your brain processes colour. It will also be pointed out that the eleven so called basic colours in English are not universal and cannot be applied to other languages. The conclusion is that only the six Hering primary colours, possibly with simple qualifications, are the only ones you should use if you aim for universal usage of your systems. That is: black, white, red, green, blue, and yellow.