| In 1969, Berlin and Kay made public the innovative schema of evolutionary order of colour nomenclature, and the criteria defining basic colour terms. So far, various discussions have been held about the conditions of not only Japanese colour terms but also English ones.
The present paper reconsiders the conditions of basicness of colour terms with an assumption that some structure within the language contributes to determine the basicness of each term.
As for Japanese colour terms, taking medieval awo and midori for instance, the present paper argues that it is possible that the difference between the two is not simply hue but some other aspects of phenomena. In fact, the phonetic system divides these two, with awo denoting dynamic senses, and midori static senses.
On the other hand, in English, the colour terms acquire the same derivative forms and are integrated into a group in course of time. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that those that acquire derivative forms at an earlier stage can be judged colour terms that are more basic.
The present paper is intended to shed light on the assumption that verbalization of colour phenomena is, in a primary sense, language-bound, and basicness is within those limits.
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