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They definitely did see the blue color, just like we do. Imagine all the named CSS colors: most people can clearly see the difference between them, even if they

They definitely did see the blue color, just like we do. Imagine all the named CSS colors: most people can clearly see the difference between them, even if they don't know the correct color name. Also, the argument that 'they didn't have the name for this color' is flimsy: maybe they had the name, we just don't know it.

heliodor 5y ago
I find it hard to believe they didn't have a name for the color of the sky and of the sea.
- jjk166 5y ago
  They did have words for those colors. Ancient greek glaukós meant a light blue, khlōrós meant bright green, and kuanós meant a dark blue or green. Of course these words covered a range of potential color values - glaukós could be anything from a blue-grey to a turquoise, khlōrós could cover shades of "green" all the way to an acid yellow. This isn't something special about ancient greek. Even in several modern languages like Japanese, the word for blue also applies to colors that in english would be described as shades of green. The color spectrum is continuous, and where a culture decides to delineate one color from another is arbitrary. For example I would call rgb 60,220,240 a sky blue, while 60,240,220 would be a mint green, but these colors are way closer to one another than either is to rgb 0,255,0 or 0,0,255, which I could just as easily call dark mint or dusk sky. And it's not like english is even the most extreme example. In english, cyan is a shade of blue, for example russian has 7 primary colors, with what we'd call blue split up into a light azure (goluboy) and an ultramarine (siniy). It would be absurd to say that english speakers can't see these colors simply because we refer to both of them as blue.
snet0 5y ago
"Humans didn't see #4F3368 until it was used on this one web page in the 00s"
lend000 5y ago
Does anyone read the whole article before commenting? They did an experiment with a tribe that does not have a word for blue, and they were significantly better at discerning subtle (to a western observer) shades of green than green versus blue.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Actually I didn't bother to read this particular article, because I've read about this hypothesis maby years ago. It was as silly then as it is now.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- stubish 5y ago
  Given some of the other comments here, I suspect it is a genetic difference that alters color perception.
  - labawi 5y ago
    I find it unlikely. They probably just don't care.

heliodor 5y ago

I find it hard to believe they didn't have a name for the color of the sky and of the sea.

jjk166 5y ago
They did have words for those colors. Ancient greek glaukós meant a light blue, khlōrós meant bright green, and kuanós meant a dark blue or green. Of course these words covered a range of potential color values - glaukós could be anything from a blue-grey to a turquoise, khlōrós could cover shades of "green" all the way to an acid yellow. This isn't something special about ancient greek. Even in several modern languages like Japanese, the word for blue also applies to colors that in english would be described as shades of green. The color spectrum is continuous, and where a culture decides to delineate one color from another is arbitrary. For example I would call rgb 60,220,240 a sky blue, while 60,240,220 would be a mint green, but these colors are way closer to one another than either is to rgb 0,255,0 or 0,0,255, which I could just as easily call dark mint or dusk sky. And it's not like english is even the most extreme example. In english, cyan is a shade of blue, for example russian has 7 primary colors, with what we'd call blue split up into a light azure (goluboy) and an ultramarine (siniy). It would be absurd to say that english speakers can't see these colors simply because we refer to both of them as blue.

snet0 5y ago

"Humans didn't see #4F3368 until it was used on this one web page in the 00s"

lend000 5y ago

Does anyone read the whole article before commenting? They did an experiment with a tribe that does not have a word for blue, and they were significantly better at discerning subtle (to a western observer) shades of green than green versus blue.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Actually I didn't bother to read this particular article, because I've read about this hypothesis maby years ago. It was as silly then as it is now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
stubish 5y ago
Given some of the other comments here, I suspect it is a genetic difference that alters color perception.
- labawi 5y ago
  I find it unlikely. They probably just don't care.