5 ms·

The best explanation I've heard is that words for colors come to exist after the invention of artificially produced pigments and dyes.

by ty_a 9y ago

baldfat 9y ago
I heard that but WE have blue sky, and yellow flowers. We can't say we didn't have yellow till we transferred the dye from a yellow flower to a fabric? We have documentation of dye millennium before Homer and Cave paintings nearly forty thousands years before them. https://zady.com/features/the-history-of-fabric-dye https://zady.com/features/the-history-of-fabric-dye
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  We still have a huge number of colors that don't have names. Blue is not a color that used to appear often on daily objects, and naming the sky's color is quite a useless act.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    I discovered that there were roughly three times as many colo[u]rs in the USA vs the UK when I moved 20 years ago. But thanks to globalization I bet they have Aqua and Taupe in Blighty now...
    - stevekemp 9y ago
      Move to Finland, there are far fewer colour-names there! (UK definitely has taupe these days, "aqua" sounds like the kind of name a paint-salesperson we use!)
  - vacri 9y ago
    > naming the sky's color is quite a useless act. The sky's colour varies greatly. Blue, blue-white, white, light grey, dark grey, yellow, red, purple, black-with-whitish-pinpoints. Probably more, but those are just the ones off the top of my head.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Though there was some blue dye before Homer, it was very rare. The Mycenaeans had some, but Homer was ~400 years after the Bronze Age collapse where the techniques to make most things were lost.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    Yes but the Greek Statues were painted. Pretty fascinating stuff. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-really-looked http://io9.gizmodo.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how... I can't tell you how much this consumed my mind after hearing this story on Radio Lab. Thanks for continuing the dialog. I find this stuff super fascinating.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      >Yes but the Greek Statues were painted. Pretty fascinating stuff Homer is from the very beginning of what is commonly considered "Ancient Greece." Writing was being reintroduced into Greek society and he wrote down the oral tales that had been kicking around. This is what the sculptures around then looked like https://web.archive.org/web/20050227170147/http://www.siu.edu/~dfll/classics/Civ2004/guides/webguides/Dark/Centaur.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050227170147/http://www.siu.ed... Statues like the ones in article were 4-5 centuries away, after solid trade lines with Asia were reestablished providing indigo dye.
      - baldfat 9y ago
        Well if you dig in a little more the question of who and when get really fuzzy regarding Homer. Also there is still the long held idea regarding Homer's blindness. I find many scholars to be academically lazy when it comes to things outside their area of expertise and don't do simple research. For example last weeks story of DNA of Canaanites from the time of Exodus is still in Lebanon. Many ran the idea that the scripture account was proven wrong when in fact if they did a 2 minute search of the word Canaanites and see they were never wiped out or destroyed. Judges 3:5-6 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 5So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 5The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; 5And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: 5But they settled among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 6They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. So I find the arguements against Homer being blind very weak in regards to what we think humans are capable of doing. One visiting Professor of much clout was talking about the impossibility of the human mind to memorize and compose without writing something as large as Homer's works. Well doing a 60 minute research on memorization and oral tradition we can see how people memorized huge quantities of materials. Also it is clear that the fall of Troy was in the 12th Century BCE and Illad was written around 8th Century BCE due to memorization clues and the use of the 8th Century Greek alphabet and hints to a oral history. http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_iliad.html http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_iliad.html I could go on for hours :( But the use of Homer and his writings makes it difficult to see how human catalog of color missed out blue. Heck we never had orange till reciently before it was red-yellow. This is why red heads are not called orange heads. > The earliest recorded use of the word in English is from the 13th century and referred to the fruit. The earliest attested use of the word in reference to the color is from the 16th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word) (to lazy myself (hypocrite) to get further references)
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  What you're getting at is the concept of qualia[1] in philosophy of mind. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
stevekemp 9y ago
One of the things that surprised me after moving to a new country is that some languages don't have words for colours, even now. Colours like "taupe", "beige", don't have distinct names in Finnish. The colours obviously exist, but they're called different things. (I'm gonna ignore the whole craziness associated with giving tins of wall-paint strange names.)
- signal11 9y ago
  I wasn't really aware that "taupe"[1] was a colour until some Windows theme used that name. Similarly "coral" until it became an HTML colour -- it just wasn't common usage. I suspect a lot of these names originated in the art/fashion world, and entered computing via desktop publishing / UI design pros. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=taupe https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=taupe

The best explanation I've heard is that words for colors come to exist after the invention of artificially produced pigments and dyes.

by ty_a 9y ago

The best explanation I've heard is that words for colors come to exist after the invention of artificially produced pigments and dyes.

baldfat 9y ago

I heard that but WE have blue sky, and yellow flowers. We can't say we didn't have yellow till we transferred the dye from a yellow flower to a fabric? We have documentation of dye millennium before Homer and Cave paintings nearly forty thousands years before them. https://zady.com/features/the-history-of-fabric-dye https://zady.com/features/the-history-of-fabric-dye

marcosdumay 9y ago
We still have a huge number of colors that don't have names. Blue is not a color that used to appear often on daily objects, and naming the sky's color is quite a useless act.
- dboreham 9y ago
  I discovered that there were roughly three times as many colo[u]rs in the USA vs the UK when I moved 20 years ago. But thanks to globalization I bet they have Aqua and Taupe in Blighty now...
  - stevekemp 9y ago
    Move to Finland, there are far fewer colour-names there! (UK definitely has taupe these days, "aqua" sounds like the kind of name a paint-salesperson we use!)
- vacri 9y ago
  > naming the sky's color is quite a useless act. The sky's colour varies greatly. Blue, blue-white, white, light grey, dark grey, yellow, red, purple, black-with-whitish-pinpoints. Probably more, but those are just the ones off the top of my head.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
Though there was some blue dye before Homer, it was very rare. The Mycenaeans had some, but Homer was ~400 years after the Bronze Age collapse where the techniques to make most things were lost.
- baldfat 9y ago
  Yes but the Greek Statues were painted. Pretty fascinating stuff. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-really-looked http://io9.gizmodo.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how... I can't tell you how much this consumed my mind after hearing this story on Radio Lab. Thanks for continuing the dialog. I find this stuff super fascinating.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    >Yes but the Greek Statues were painted. Pretty fascinating stuff Homer is from the very beginning of what is commonly considered "Ancient Greece." Writing was being reintroduced into Greek society and he wrote down the oral tales that had been kicking around. This is what the sculptures around then looked like https://web.archive.org/web/20050227170147/http://www.siu.edu/~dfll/classics/Civ2004/guides/webguides/Dark/Centaur.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050227170147/http://www.siu.ed... Statues like the ones in article were 4-5 centuries away, after solid trade lines with Asia were reestablished providing indigo dye.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      Well if you dig in a little more the question of who and when get really fuzzy regarding Homer. Also there is still the long held idea regarding Homer's blindness. I find many scholars to be academically lazy when it comes to things outside their area of expertise and don't do simple research. For example last weeks story of DNA of Canaanites from the time of Exodus is still in Lebanon. Many ran the idea that the scripture account was proven wrong when in fact if they did a 2 minute search of the word Canaanites and see they were never wiped out or destroyed. Judges 3:5-6 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 5So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 5The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; 5And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: 5But they settled among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 6They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. So I find the arguements against Homer being blind very weak in regards to what we think humans are capable of doing. One visiting Professor of much clout was talking about the impossibility of the human mind to memorize and compose without writing something as large as Homer's works. Well doing a 60 minute research on memorization and oral tradition we can see how people memorized huge quantities of materials. Also it is clear that the fall of Troy was in the 12th Century BCE and Illad was written around 8th Century BCE due to memorization clues and the use of the 8th Century Greek alphabet and hints to a oral history. http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_iliad.html http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_iliad.html I could go on for hours :( But the use of Homer and his writings makes it difficult to see how human catalog of color missed out blue. Heck we never had orange till reciently before it was red-yellow. This is why red heads are not called orange heads. > The earliest recorded use of the word in English is from the 13th century and referred to the fruit. The earliest attested use of the word in reference to the color is from the 16th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(word) (to lazy myself (hypocrite) to get further references)
ShabbosGoy 9y ago
What you're getting at is the concept of qualia[1] in philosophy of mind. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/

stevekemp 9y ago

One of the things that surprised me after moving to a new country is that some languages don't have words for colours, even now. Colours like "taupe", "beige", don't have distinct names in Finnish. The colours obviously exist, but they're called different things. (I'm gonna ignore the whole craziness associated with giving tins of wall-paint strange names.)

signal11 9y ago
I wasn't really aware that "taupe"[1] was a colour until some Windows theme used that name. Similarly "coral" until it became an HTML colour -- it just wasn't common usage. I suspect a lot of these names originated in the art/fashion world, and entered computing via desktop publishing / UI design pros. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=taupe https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=taupe