My son knew his basic colors by 12 months. I even have a video of him cruising about the living room at 9 months, seeing a stuffed animal,and saying yeyow tiger. So he knew at least one color then. By 2 he knew black, white, pink, etc. And by 3 all sorts of stuff like cafe au lait and chartreuse. He learned shapes before 1 as well and started counting shortly after. Clearly my son was an early talker. He started talking at 5 months and had hundreds of words by 18 months, we never thought much about him learning colors early, we were more impressed by his overall verbal skills and memory. He knew letters by 18 months and the sounds by 22 months and was able to spell and read short words by 2. He did not start really reading until 4. He's 5 now and we suspect he is gifted, but we are still waiting to find out.
As far as when it's normal to learn colors, the other kids we know seem to master it between shortly before 2 up into their 4s. I remember people being amazed my son knew his colors well into 2, even early in 3 sometimes, but my son is small for his age. I'm guessing 3 is when most kids master it.
