The above information is wrong.
Ancient greeks did not have a word for blue.
"That's when scholar William Gladstone - who later went on to be the Prime Minister of Great Britain - noticed that, in the Odyssey, Homer describes the ocean as "wine-dark" and other strange hues, but he never uses the word 'blue'. A few years later, a philologist (someone who studies language and words) called Lazarus Geiger decided to follow up on this observation, and analysed ancient Icelandic, Hindu, Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew texts to see if they used the colour. He found no mention of the word blue. When you think about it, it's not that crazy. Other than the sky, there isn't really much in nature that is inherently a vibrant blue. In fact, the first society to have a word for the colour blue was the Egyptians, the only culture that could produce blue dyes. From then, it seems that awareness of the colour spread throughout the modern world."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/humans-didn-t-see-the-colour-blue-until-modern-times-evidence-science/amp
@DaringSprinter omg. I LOVE this information. I have to say I do have feelings about the color beige because of its name. I wonder what the science behind feeling disgust towards colors is. **I'll look it up later
All this talk about blue and about birds, reminded me about an interesting piece of trivia. There no birds that are capable of producing blue pigment. The well known Blue Jay isn't really blue. Rather than blue pigment,he has tiny air pockets and melanin pigment crystals in each feather scatter blue light and absorb the other wavelengths.
Ancient Greeks didn't have a word for the color blue. Russians and Koreans still don't. Doesn't mean they would look at a shade of blue—in the sky or sea or someone's eyes, say—and have no word for it.
[source] [source]
Голубой + синий = "blue" ...but blue itself is not a word that exists in Russian.
They can literally see the shades we English speakers call "blue." They just conceptualize them differently: they don't see them (metaphorically speaking) as all being part of the same broader color: blue.
Unless an individual is red-green colorblind (or happened to be born ~45 million years ago), yeah, they're going to be capable of seeing the shades we lump together under the heading "blue." It's not like there's a physical difference there, just a social one.
I seriously recommend reading Peter Gainsford's article on the subject of ancient Greek color words. It's well written and referenced.
...Relatedly, did you know English has no word for 青? For plenty of the shades within it, yes—but no word for 青 itself!
I'm not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but this one always fascinated me. There are the same number of stitches on a baseball as there are beads in a Catholic rosary - 108.
Maybe that's why I worship at the shrine of baseball.
I believe the person posting above about color can't see past their incorrectly held ideas.
As it's said, the enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, it's "wrong-knowing".
Distinction between colors is a learned concept.
The ancient greeks didn't see blue in the sense that they couldn't distinguish it from shades of green. Meaning if you gave them a color wheel with greens and one blue they wouldn't be able to pick the odd one out.
"But just because there was no word for blue, does that mean our ancestors couldn't see it? There have been various studies conducted to try to work this out, but one of the most compelling was published in 2006 by Jules Davidoff, a psychologist from Goldsmiths University of London. Davidoff and his team worked with the Himba tribe from Namibia. In their language, there is no word for blue and no real distinction between green and blue. To test whether that meant they couldn't actually see blue, he showed members of the tribe a circle with 11 green squares and one obviously blue square. Well, obvious to us, at least, as you can see below
"But the Himba tribe struggled to tell Davidoff which of the squares was a different colour to the others. Those who did hazard a guess at which square was different took a long time to get the right answer, and there were a lot of mistakes."
The working theory is that as our consciousness emerged, we started with broad distinctions such as "black and white" and slowly started noticing differences.
@MCcuddles2 I don't believe that "Distinction between colors is a learned concept." Do you have any evidence for that? Here's my evidence:
Butterflies are generally brightly colored, and will only mate with others that have the correct color pattern. It can't be learned because females only do it once in a lifetime, and males don't do it much more. Birds too, will only mate with others of the right color pattern. I was once wearing black and yellow gloves while cleaning my gutters. A male American Goldfinch landed next to my hand, and then hopped on. My hand looks nothing like a female Goldfinch, but it's the right color.
Many cephalopods flash specific colors and color patterns, as a crude means of communication. The highly toxic frogs in South America are all very bright colors, to warn off predators. No predator ever learned by tasting one. Any who did taste one didn't survive long enough to learn anything.
@GreatHornedOwl no, u
If you're standing at the South Pole, technically any direction you travel from there is North.
@Emerald20772 if you like men with higher singing registers, you might appreciate 'The Spine' (aka David Michael Bennett) from the band Steam Powered Giraffe. I love how he switches from two completely different registers so seamlessly.
@stormydaycuddle if only I lived in Denver. I’d book a session to see your penguin
I have two that I am incredibly embarrassed that I didn’t know. Oh and one I am super proud of.
Men and Women have the same number of ribs. (As a kid I thought men had one less rib because, well, you know.)
The Earth makes one full revolution per day. (I have no idea why, but I thought the Earth was spinning so fast that it makes multiple revolutions per second. Let’s just pretend I only believed that when I was a kid.)
The velociraptors in Jurassic Park were much smaller in real life. The dinosaurs depicted in the movies were actually Deinonychus but supposedly they went with naming them Velociraptor because it sounded cooler. (I discovered this in elementary school from a book I had on dinosaurs and I told everyone I could that they were called Deinonychus and that the movie was wrong.)
@Charlie_Bear You were in elementary school when Jurassic Park came out? Man, you are so young
@achetocuddle haha yeah I was 10 when it came out. So I would have just been finishing 5th grade 😅
@CuddleKhat72 Yes, that's true but only until you take the first step.
The enemy of knowledge is definitely wrong-knowing! For instance, this image— —purports to be from this study (link) by Jules Davidoff et al.
But if you read the study, you'll find the BBC documentary that aired the image was evidently making things up for views. (See a more detailed analysis here.)
Anyhow, the idea that certain people groups have less evolved eyesight is both racist and silly.
Edit: Good morning, everybody! I'm awake again.
Lmao, if one actually reads the supposed "detailed analysis" the author first is frustrated because his analysis is showing that the study is correct and then actually gives up because he admits he may not have the search tools to find the study.
The study is here, btw: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43627151_Colour_categories_and_category_acquisition_in_Himba_and_English
Also, what's worse than ignorance is doubling down on it. The supposed "detailed analysis" uses some advanced linear algebra (before giving up, that is). I doubt that the member who is posting the analysis actually understands the math (I do because I have strong background in advanced math, including linear algebra). So it's kind of silly to cite things as evidence that one does not have the knowledge to comprehend.
anyway, I'm growing tired of the ignorance. I'm gonna call it quits here.
This color analysis is very interesting. And so different from the color analysis that I had done where someone tells you what colors are most flattering for you
I thought a color being primary meant that no other colors could be combined to make that color.
@DaringSprinter I know you have read so much. Wondering if you have ever read that the Pacific island of Pingelap has a significant amount of people with total color blindness cause they have a common and fairly recent ancestor they inherited it from. Just curious cause if this book is not correct you might know:) Or be able to otherwise elaborate.
I recall asking my mom in the last few years why she called the color teal green or blue (can't remember which one she said). She said because she did not know the word teal until fairly recently (this is in middle Tennessee) and people in this area did not really use any words to specify or distinguish blue-green or greenish-blue back in the day.
@achetocuddle: No, I never have run up against that claim! It sounds believable enough, though I'd have to do some research to be sure.
...And if I couldn't find any evidence to support the claim I'd be certain to note, as all scientific-minded people do, that just because I can't find any evidence for a thing doesn't mean it isn't out there somewhere. Like Bigfoot!
Gee, if this isn't Davidoff et al's 2006 paper on color in the Himba tribe, I wonder what is? It sure seems like this is the only one he wrote on the subject. Maybe some kind-hearted person will turn up the study that doesn't seem to exist.
There's a 2005 study that seems promising—but given that it specifically notes the people tested had normal color vision... well.
And, ha, the only thing worse than ignorance is doubling down on it by posting a link to the same study the person you're disagreeing with has linked to twice, which you obviously haven't read. Oh, dear. Does anyone sell cream for that harsh a self-burn?
@DaringSprinter Appropriately enough, that book is called The island of the colorblind, published 1997. Fascinating reading even if it is not true. I like my nonficton to at least sound believable
I would be so excited if the existence of Bigfoot could be proven, short of killing or hurting it (or capturing it).
@achetocuddle: Studies were done! Apparently not all of them are colorblind, but there is a higher incidence of achromatopsia than you'd find elsewhere.
For more than 30 years, vision researchers have been attracted to a tiny island in the Western Pacific. The appeal isn't sun and surf, but a small population of islanders who suffer from a rare type of total colorblindness. The colorblindness is a legacy of a violent storm that in 1775 killed all but 20 of the islanders on Pingelap atoll. According to calculations by population geneticists based on family trees, one of these survivors carried a recessive gene for achromatopsia, which also causes severe sensitivity to light and poor vision. Today, about 5% of the 3000 Pingelapese suffer from the disorder. (read more at Science.org)
Interesting. Thank you!
@DaringSprinter Thanks. Now will you go get concrete evidence of Bigfoot? Lol.
@achetocuddle when you talk about mixing colors you need to clarify if you are talking about subtractive mixing, such as mixing paint, or additive mixing, such as on a computer monitor.
I started to write an explanation, but it rapidly began to get entirely too complicated. I went and found one instead. https://science.howstuffworks.com/primary-colors.htm
@achetocuddle: If only! The closest I've come is Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. (Excellent horror fiction.)
Color mixing is a fascinating subject. Did you know that, on a computer screen, you can combine red and green to get yellow? [source]
Seriously, read @GreatHornedOwl's link. He found a good one to explain—simply!—how primary colors are different in pigments vs. in light.
...Well, relatively simply.
Most packets of wildflower seeds you might see around in supermarkets and such aren't going to necessarily have seeds for flowers that'd be found in your area, so if you're wanting to plant them to increase biodiversity and help things like bees, butterflies, etc then it'd be better to get packets of seeds that fit the local wildlife rather than just generic wildflower seeds.
Also the name "Cerberus" or "Kerberos" AKA the three headed dog from Greek mythology is sometimes claimed to have its origin in a word meaning spotted as in spot as in a classic dog name, but unfortunately as nice as that is it doesn't apparently actually seem to be the case.
Thanks @GreatHornedOwl and @DaringSprinter I realize that I could look some of this up for myself, but not sure I could have found this good explanation. It's so much easier just to flip thru the Rolodex in your brains. Lol. I know, the young people here are saying, "What's a Rolodex"? Lol.
@achetocuddle Just tell them that the Rolodex was that thing that sat next to the dial telephone on people's desks.
I actually started to write an explanation of color mixing for you, but without being able to embed graphics into the text, I realized that it was not going to be very understandable. Then, I read no less four of those things on the internet, with none of them being very good. Finally, I found the one that I posted the link to.
I became knowledgeable about the field in a rather round about way. Have you ever had one of those little pulse oximeters clipped onto a finger, and then were told the percent oxygen saturation of the blood in your arteries? I used to design them. They function by shining two different colors of light through your finger, and measuring how much of each color is absorbed at ens systole and end diastole. I used to design them.
Later, I was part of a small team that developed and patented a system that could measure the amount of any analyte, in the presence of other analytes. It involved using four or more colors of light. Neither of the other two team members could write, so I got stuck writing the patent application, which required a whole lot more reading.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7830519
My 55 years of interest in photography, photo processing and editing, and accurate photo printing also led to a lot of reading.
@GreatHornedOwl Good grief, don't ever go to that much trouble for me. Thanks for designing pulse oximeters. Sadly, I am way too acquainted with them. Lol. At least my good old-fashioned doc used a pulse oximeter to diagnose my adult-onset asthma instead of sending me to the hospital for a test. He was alright! He is happily retired now.
I am impressed that you wrote a patent app. It can be a drag to be the most skilled person in a group, no matter what you are doing.