but when you ask a non-specialist[1] "what color is this", pointing to a scarlet object, they'll say "red". They will also take longer to tell the difference be

but when you ask a non-specialist[1] "what color is this", pointing to a scarlet object, they'll say "red". They will also take longer to tell the difference between turquoise and blue than between proper green and blue, where (I think it was) Thai-speakers wouldn't[2] (who have a primary-colour word for turquoise). [1] specialist = (color-theorist, decorator) [2] http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.full http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.full actually, this article seems to talk about Russian, I'm getting the Thai thing from a discussion I remember (a video by the authors at the Long Now foundation[3].) [3] http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/oct/26/how-language-shapes-thought/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/oct/26/how-language-shapes...