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OP - June 17, 2015, 01:22 PM

http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2?r=US

Quote
Until relatively recently in human history, "blue" didn't exist, not in the way we think of it.

As the delightful Radiolab episode "Colors" describes, ancient languages didn't have a word for blue — not Greek, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Hebrew. And without a word for the color, there is evidence that they may not have seen it at all.

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2?r=US#ixzz3dKEZVQAI

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Reply #1 - June 17, 2015, 01:53 PM

Well, that's news to me.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #2 - June 17, 2015, 02:04 PM

http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/efts/dicos/woodhouse_test.pl?keyword=^Blue, adj.

^This dictionary of ancient Greek has two entries for blue:

κυανεος - It says that Plato used this word for blue. It is also used today in modern Greek, though less common than μπλε.

γλαυκος - a word that we actually have in English (glaucous), which means a "dull grayish-green or blue color".
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Reply #3 - June 17, 2015, 02:15 PM

How could the Greeks not have had a word to describe the beautiful blue shades of the seas around Greece?
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Reply #4 - June 17, 2015, 07:57 PM

They probably thought it was empty air...
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Reply #5 - June 17, 2015, 11:13 PM

Like the colour of Tomas's eyes.
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Reply #6 - June 17, 2015, 11:28 PM

OK so you can see a really good explanation for how you can only differentiate colors you have a word for here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1y4ffq_e01-do-you-see-what-i-see_tv

(in case it gets removed, because the BBC is cracking down on this particular one right now, it's a BBC Horizon episode titled "Do you see what I see".)

Babies can see a much broader range of colors than adults, because once we learn words for the colors, those are the categories we can see. So the color words you teach a child effect what colors they will recognize as distinct.

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Reply #7 - June 17, 2015, 11:37 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 17, 2015, 02:15 PM
How could the Greeks not have had a word to describe the beautiful blue shades of the seas around Greece?

(Clicky for piccy!)

I thought similar to that.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #8 - June 18, 2015, 12:35 PM

In nature blue is often cast as a shadow so maybe people didn't consider it a solid colour and saw it as shadow or an off white, but then again, the sky is not a shadow, nor a blueberry or a blue butterfly, i'm not making any sense lol
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Reply #9 - June 18, 2015, 09:05 PM

This is intriguing, so I did some quick research. The article says:

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The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye.

By looking at Fescoes from all periods of Greek civilization we can see blue dye:

Blue Dolphins from Minoan era (2,000 BC):

Blue background in Mycenean era (1,500 BC):

Blue Jug from the Geometric Period (750 BC):

Blue clothing in Classical Era (500 BC):

Blue cloak from hellenistic era (300 BC):
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Reply #10 - June 19, 2015, 04:35 AM

They could see the color we identify as blue, in terms of they were able to physically see it, but they didn't identify it as blue, because they had different color words than we do now.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #11 - June 20, 2015, 04:29 PM

Considering they were Greek, they wouldn't use ANY of the words we use for colours now.
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