Guy Deutscher argues that the reason that languages in industrialized countries have developed basic color terms is due to the rise of industrial dying and colo

Guy Deutscher argues that the reason that languages in industrialized countries have developed basic color terms is due to the rise of industrial dying and color matching technologies, and that the reason that human languages typically don't have basic smell terms is because we don't have things like painter's kits and color swatches for smell that would easily allow us to compare them. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/books/review/Bickerton-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/books/review/Bickerton-t.h... A word's meaning is a social consensus is about a semiotic relationship, and unless you have good means of comparing one thing to another, it's hard to reach social consensus about the meaning. After all, human color vision perceives a wide range, but many languages only have basic color terms for dark, light, and red. 19th-century scientific racism even turned this into an argument for the biological inferiority of non-Europeans. I love his question to his daughter: "What color is the sky?"... because the answer is actually almost never "blue". The sky may be the thing most varied in color in our day-to-day life. http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/