You know how some people can tell you the exact shade of two colors that you consider identical? Turns out that giving colors distinct names in our mind makes us way better at seeing the difference and that is how we chop up the color spectrum from an infinite number of colors to seven. You think blue is completely different because you went to school and being able to tell the difference between blue and green was a requirement for you. If the school told you that the sky is a light shade of green and the forest is a dark shade of green you would adjust your brain accordingly.

I guess my point is that all colors are made up by the state and we indoctrinate our children into the government sanctioned system at an early age.

They were simply considered shades of the same colour, that’s all. The light spectrum is continuous our breakdown of the continuity into discrete colours is purely arbitrary.

The colour we call sky-blue is considered a separate colour altogether in Japan (Misu)

Pink is named after the flowers Pinks and is called Rose in some languages but we use Rose for a different colour which is more magenta.

Notice how we don’t have words for some colours so use adjectives (bluey -green) There are some languages that don’t use or have any words for colours but alsways describe them. For example “bright fire like”

There’s a great Radiolab about this, highly recommend a listen.

MAY 21, 2012

Why Isn’t the Sky Blue?

What is the color of honey, and “faces pale with fear”? If you’re Homer–one of the most influential poets in human history–that color is green. And the sea is “wine-dark,” just like oxen…though sheep are violet. Which all sounds…well, really off. Producer Tim Howard introduces us to linguist Guy Deutscher, and the story of William Gladstone (a British Prime Minister back in the 1800s, and a huge Homer-ophile). Gladstone conducted an exhaustive study of every color reference in The Odyssey and The Iliad. And he found something startling: No blue! Tim pays a visit to the New York Public Library, where a book of German philosophy from the late 19th Century helps reveal a pattern: across all cultures, words for colors appear in stages. And blue always comes last. Jules Davidoff, professor of neuropsychology at the University of London, helps us make sense of the way different people see different colors in the same place. Then Guy Deutscher tells us how he experimented on his daughter Alma when she was just starting to learn the colors of the world around, and above, her.

Bonus: The Colors episode

You can actually see it in modern times. The Himba tribe in Africa doesn’t have a concept of the colour blue. There’s not even a word for it, as far as they’re concerned blue is just a shade of green. To us it seems obvious, the sky is blue and the plants are green but to them it’s all different shades of green. It’s not a genetic thing, they’re seeing the exact same colours as anybody else, their culture just doesn’t distinguish between the two colours.