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Referencing an old RadioLab podcast "Why isn't the Sky Blue." http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-

Referencing an old RadioLab podcast "Why isn't the Sky Blue." http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/ That podcast states that Homer never used the color blue. As somewhat of a dead language linguist that still sits in the back of my head all the time. I am not 100% sold nor 50% sold on the idea that colors are seen only when they are defined BUT.... This article states - > In that regard, blue—one of the four traditional colors originally established in the Japanese language along with red, black and white—historically encompassed items that other cultures would describe as green—creating the concept of “grue,” the portmanteau of blue and green first coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955. Indeed, a distinct word for green is a relatively recent development in Japanese, only coming into existence in the late Heian Period (794-1185)

jccalhoun 9y ago
As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. A similar example might be cars. I have a 2009 Honda Fit (Jazz in some parts of the world). To most people, a Fit is a Fit but because I have one, I can tell the difference between the first second and third generation just by glancing at them. If I point out the differences, someone will see them but they don't seem them instantly like I do.
- baldfat 9y ago
  > don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them Just a difference in linguistics? You can't see what you can't define.
  - jccalhoun 9y ago
    it isn't that they don't see it but they don't distinguish it. There is the tired cliche of someone going to a paint store and looking at 20 shades of "white" that all have different names and saying "they all look white to me." Of course the person can tell they are different shades of white but they don't break them down into different names.
  - Sangermaine 9y ago
    This is silly. They're not alien creatures. They have the same eyes any human does, and those eyes receive the same electromagnetic waves that comprise what we call colors as you do. They can certainly see everything you see, they just describe it differently.
- stan_rogers 9y ago
  If you look at the experiments that have been done, it boils down to categorizing. It's not that people (with normal colour vision) are any less able to see the differences between colours, just that they're less likely to sort them apart unless a finer sort is needed. Test native English speakers the same way, and you'll find that they've got this "red" word that covers both scarlet and crimson (and used to cover orange as well), and a totally inadequate "yellow" that goes from something very nearly orange to something verging on green. Both of those words are more finely divided in other languages (including some "grue" languages), and the speakers of those languages will initially categorize things accordingly, where an English speaker can easily do it on a second pass when it wouldn't occur to them to make the distinction on the first.
- Sangermaine 9y ago
  >As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. No, this is also wrong and implies some kind of superiority. It's not that other cultures that describe colors differently haven't learned to distinguish between them, it's that they categorize them in different ways. Our terms for colors are not fixed features of the universe, and different peoples will categorize the visible light spectrum differently. No one way is more sensible or right than the other. The historical Japanese word "ao" described a spectrum of colors that covers that part of the visible light spectrum that we in English divide into two categories (blue and green). This isn't an inability to distinguish, it's a different way of thinking. It's not about seeing or not seeing, it's that they're not organizing what they see in the same way you or I do.
  - jccalhoun 9y ago
    I think I am trying to say the same thing.
  - fenomas 9y ago
    Keep in mind, just because historical Japanese (or anybody) didn't have a name for a given color doesn't mean they couldn't talk about it. There's no reason they couldn't have talked about specific things as being the color of leaves, the sky, oceans, and so forth. All that's being talked about here is how societies decide to group up or split apart general categories of colors, not whether their language allows them to talk about specific things of various colors.
    - Sangermaine 9y ago
      You've just restated what I wrote.
      - fenomas 9y ago
        I disagree. Note that it wasn't a counter-argument, just added comment. Incidentally if you're interested, the historical "ao" didn't really refer to a specific band of the the visible light spectrum as you suggest, it could mean any pale or ill-defined color, with "red" being used for any strong vivid color. Per wikipedia, anyway.
frogpelt 9y ago
"I am not 100% sold nor 50% sold on the idea that colors are seen only when they are defined" That's because it's not logical. We can tell the difference between shades of colors whether we know the names or not. In fact, I see two walls in my house, that are painted the same color, as two different colors based on the lighting. But the color of the wall is defined.

jccalhoun 9y ago

As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. A similar example might be cars. I have a 2009 Honda Fit (Jazz in some parts of the world). To most people, a Fit is a Fit but because I have one, I can tell the difference between the first second and third generation just by glancing at them. If I point out the differences, someone will see them but they don't seem them instantly like I do.

baldfat 9y ago
> don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them Just a difference in linguistics? You can't see what you can't define.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  it isn't that they don't see it but they don't distinguish it. There is the tired cliche of someone going to a paint store and looking at 20 shades of "white" that all have different names and saying "they all look white to me." Of course the person can tell they are different shades of white but they don't break them down into different names.
- Sangermaine 9y ago
  This is silly. They're not alien creatures. They have the same eyes any human does, and those eyes receive the same electromagnetic waves that comprise what we call colors as you do. They can certainly see everything you see, they just describe it differently.
stan_rogers 9y ago
If you look at the experiments that have been done, it boils down to categorizing. It's not that people (with normal colour vision) are any less able to see the differences between colours, just that they're less likely to sort them apart unless a finer sort is needed. Test native English speakers the same way, and you'll find that they've got this "red" word that covers both scarlet and crimson (and used to cover orange as well), and a totally inadequate "yellow" that goes from something very nearly orange to something verging on green. Both of those words are more finely divided in other languages (including some "grue" languages), and the speakers of those languages will initially categorize things accordingly, where an English speaker can easily do it on a second pass when it wouldn't occur to them to make the distinction on the first.
Sangermaine 9y ago
>As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. No, this is also wrong and implies some kind of superiority. It's not that other cultures that describe colors differently haven't learned to distinguish between them, it's that they categorize them in different ways. Our terms for colors are not fixed features of the universe, and different peoples will categorize the visible light spectrum differently. No one way is more sensible or right than the other. The historical Japanese word "ao" described a spectrum of colors that covers that part of the visible light spectrum that we in English divide into two categories (blue and green). This isn't an inability to distinguish, it's a different way of thinking. It's not about seeing or not seeing, it's that they're not organizing what they see in the same way you or I do.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  I think I am trying to say the same thing.
- fenomas 9y ago
  Keep in mind, just because historical Japanese (or anybody) didn't have a name for a given color doesn't mean they couldn't talk about it. There's no reason they couldn't have talked about specific things as being the color of leaves, the sky, oceans, and so forth. All that's being talked about here is how societies decide to group up or split apart general categories of colors, not whether their language allows them to talk about specific things of various colors.
  - Sangermaine 9y ago
    You've just restated what I wrote.
    - fenomas 9y ago
      I disagree. Note that it wasn't a counter-argument, just added comment. Incidentally if you're interested, the historical "ao" didn't really refer to a specific band of the the visible light spectrum as you suggest, it could mean any pale or ill-defined color, with "red" being used for any strong vivid color. Per wikipedia, anyway.

frogpelt 9y ago

"I am not 100% sold nor 50% sold on the idea that colors are seen only when they are defined" That's because it's not logical. We can tell the difference between shades of colors whether we know the names or not. In fact, I see two walls in my house, that are painted the same color, as two different colors based on the lighting. But the color of the wall is defined.