we have 8 colors in the English rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) because Newton insisted there must be eight for mystical reasons, who

we have 8 colors in the English rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) because Newton insisted there must be eight for mystical reasons, who really uses indigo? Really most English speakers see six You mean 7, right? If your quip regarding Newton is true, I would have assumed he was influenced by Latin. However, there's no evidence that Romans saw 7 rainbow colors either [1,2]. My next best theory is that the 7 rainbow colors are analogous to the 7 notes on the major scale. For what it's worth, to a Russian speaker, the 7 colors are quite distinct. English blue maps to light blue (голубой) and indigo to blue (синий). [1] https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/2116/colors-of-the-rainbow https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/2116/colors-of-the... [2] https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/275/what-colours-did-different-colour-words-mean-exactly https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/275/what-colours-d...