In an old Zen story, two monks argue over whether a flag is waving or whether it’s the wind that waves. Their teacher strikes them both dumb, saying, “It is your mind that moves.” The centuries-old koan illustrates a point Zen masters — and later philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists — have all emphasized at one time or another: human experience happens in the mind, but we share reality through language and culture, and these in turn set the terms for how we perceive what we experience.
Such observations bring us to another koan-like question: if a language lacks a word for something like the color blue, can the thing be said to exist in the speaker’s mind? We can dispense with the idea that there’s a color blue “out there” in the world. Color is a collaboration between light, the eye, the optic nerve, and the visual cortex. And yet, claims Maria Michela Sassi, professor of ancient philosophy at Pisa University, “every culture has its own way of naming and categorizing colours.”
The most famous example comes from the ancient Greeks. Since the 18th century, scholars have pointed out that in the thousands of words in the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer never once describes anything — sea, sky, you name it — as blue. It wasn’t only the Greeks who didn’t see blue, or didn’t see it as we do, Sassi writes:
There is a specific Greek chromatic culture, just as there is an Egyptian one, an Indian one, a European one, and the like, each of them being reflected in a vocabulary that has its own peculiarity, and not to be measured only by the scientific meter of the Newtonian paradigm.
It was once thought cultural color differences had to do with stages of evolutionary development — that more “primitive” peoples had a less developed biological visual sense. But differences in color perception are “not due to varying anatomical structures of the human eye,” writes Sassi, “but to the fact that different ocular areas are stimulated, which triggers different emotional responses, all according to different cultural contexts.”
As the AsapSCIENCE video above explains, the evidence of ancient Greek literature and philosophy shows that since blue was not part of Homer and his readers’ shared vocabulary (yellow and green do not appear either), it may not have been part of their perceptual experience, either. The spread of blue ink across the world as a relatively recent phenomenon has to do with its availability. “If you think about it,” writes Business Insider’s Kevin Loria, “blue doesn’t appear much in nature — there aren’t blue animals, blue eyes are rare, and blue flowers are mostly human creations.”
The color blue took hold in modern times with the development of substances that could act as blue pigment, like Prussian Blue, invented in Berlin, manufactured in China and exported to Japan in the 19th century. “The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye.” Color is not only cultural, it is also technological. But first, perhaps, it could be a linguistic phenomenon.
One modern researcher, Jules Davidoff, found this to be true in experiments with a Namibian people whose language makes no distinction between blue and green (but names many finer shades of green than English does). “Davidoff says that without a word for a colour,” Loria writes, “without a way of identifying it as different, it’s much harder for us to notice what’s unique about it.” Unless we’re color blind, we all “see” the same things when we look at the world because of the basic biology of human eyes and brains. But whether certain colors appear, it seems, has to do less with what we see than with what we’re already primed to expect.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2021.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
If there was no word for blue, how did people describe the sky?
Blue does appear in nature. Birds, fish, snakes, lizards, insects all appear with blue.
Like you would know.
Like you would know.
Mo, that wasn’t me but glad to know I am NOT alone in my thoughts.
I’m sorry but this just isn’t true. I’m seeing a lot of that “no one could see the color blue until modern times because no one had a word for blue” meme on FB, again. Please stop reposting nonsense. Sorry, but this is silly and humans haven’t changed that much in 2000 years.
The Latin word for light blue is caeruleus. Sky blue was caelestis (celestial, later used to mean divine or heavenly.) The ancient Greek for dark blue was kuanos and the word for light blue was glaukos. The ancient Greek word for green was chloros (from which we get chlorophyll). The Greeks could tell green from blue just fine. So could the Romans and every other ancient culture.
Sometimes before simply repeating things because they sound cool we should stop and look at the evidence first.
DAMN RIGHT, REGARDING ANCIENT GREECE! OBVIOUSLY WE KNEW HOW TO EXPRESS OURSELVES IN WHAT HAS TO DO WITH COLOURS! WHAT THEY SAY HERE ARE INACCURATE AND STUPID! IN FACT, SOME OF THESE WORDS, ARE STILL IN USE TO DATE! WE STILL USE “CHLOROS” TODAY, AS WELL AS “KYANOS” (…In ancient Greece though, it was pronounced as “KYANUN”)! DON’T LISTEN TO THESE MORONS! THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!
In reply to Dennis Roberts: the Greek words you cited, as with many words, have multiple meanings and are not specific to color. The words are more closely associated with luminosity, brightness or darkness. The word “kuanos” might be blue-black but has other closer associations with enamel and metal. The word “chloros” might be descriptive of yellow-green but also of freshness and vitality, and, paradoxically, dread, as in pale green with fear (chloron deos). The word “glaucos” is not just blue-grey but also luminous or gleaming and was even used to describe olives. The word might have associations more prominent than color. In that context, chloros does not just mean “green”, kuanos is not just “dark blue” and glaucos is not just “ight blue”. In that respect, the words are not colors.The context in which the words were used is more relevant than the mere definition of color.
This same post was on your site a while back and was roundly debunked. Not sure why you chose to run it again.
Unbelievable we readers have to fact check easily-debunked nonsense. I guess this is what happens when editors are done away with.
You need words and culture to see colors. There are no blue jays or blue whales. They aren’t even animals. You all just dont get it. Things that cant talk see only black and white outlines of the world.
Did these people not know about Lapis, azure, cyan? Just a quick Google search can tell you that this is just not correct. Ancient people all over the world had words for blue. If it existed in ancient times there is certainly a proper and recognized way to communicate what it is.
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
Blue first came about as a feeling.
The fact you talk about blue ink in modern times, but leave out the rich history of use of lapis lazuli in ancient civilizations, is dubious at best.
But you could say the same about English.“I’m feeling blue”, “He’s in a black mood”, “You’re too yellow to stand up for yourself”, “Your record needs to be whiter than white”, “When i first came here, i was pretty green”, “I’m not sure, it’s a pretty grey area, as far as i’m concerned”. I could go on.
This article is in no way true. Look across Britain and you see the Romans using blue in their tile from the 1st — 4th centuries. If the Romans knew blue so did Homer, unless he was color blind.
Interesting how an entire article on “blue” written without a reference to the expensive Lapiz Lazuli, based on which countless paintings were drawn for millenia, and also Indigo. The only reference is of the Prussian Blue which, which is a relatively recent addition to the list of available blue pigments. Indian subcontinent languages, such as Sanskrit and Tamil, have had the words for blue even in her ancient scriptures.
To Chris Jones who says of Homer “unless he was color blind.” In point of fact, Homer was blind, completely blind. So he saw no blue and no other color. I don’t know what to make of most of the arguments here on either side, but mostly they are all “unthinking.” If someone, for example, used blue in a painting or tile, it doesn’t prove they would recognize it as blue, it only means that among the media available, that one was pleasing. And what I’ve just said doesn’t indicate (or prove) the artisan didn’t recognize blue as blue either. Any study of the use of words is a study of language, not biology, and the absence of a word is just absence with no specific meaning.
Among the first written, first scribed, first repeated Sumerian to Assyrian Epic of Gilgamesh tablets in clay and that was most valued as chisled out in cuniform in blue lapis lazuli stone. Blue was valued.
Others are doing a good job of debunking this article, but I thought I’d go even further back. The first 5 books of the Old Testament are about 4000 years old. The Hebrew words “t’chelet” and “tekhelet” which mean blue are used many times in the context of color describing God’s pavement in heaven (Exodus 24:10), the color of the tassels the Hebrews were to wear on the edge of the garments (Numbers 15:38–39), color of stones on the priests ephod and the covering over it (Exodus 39:10–13, 39:22), and the tabernacle curtains were made using blue, purple and scarlet thread and then held together with blue yarn (Exodus 37:8–12). I could go on… but you get the point. The Hebrews knew blue long before “the modern times.” Obviously you failed to actually do research in coming up with this article.
It’s similar to the fact that people didn’t have a word for pink until relatively recently (17th century). Before we started using a word for it, it was just considered a shade of red, just like light blue doesn’t have a special name, it’s just a shade of blue. So until we had a name for it, we didn’t really see it, or at least didn’t see it as a colour in its own right. Pink was named for carnations which have a ragged or pinked (zigzag) edging.
We can perceive colours like blue and green, but there are many shades that are indeterminate and difficult to categorize as one or the other. It is not at all strange to think that at one time colours in this range were perceived as one extended colour group.
I’m afraid this is tosh. In fact, Japan used blue as a word more than green. You will still get elderly Japanese say “Aoi desu!” (It’s blue!) In the context od the light is blue, why aren’t we moving? Even though the traffic light is in fact green. Also, you can identify colours better if you know the word for that colour.
Complete myth. Lapis lazuli was significantly prized in the ancient world. Egyptians worshipped the blue lotus.
Go back to school kid
Complete myth. Lapis lazuli was significantly prized in the ancient world. Egyptians worshipped the blue lotus.
Go back to school kid
So when people went to pre-Greece Bronze Age Babylon, they could only marvel at the Ishtar Gate, but not describe its colour?
Although my favourite bit was ““blue doesn’t appear much in nature — there aren’t blue animals, blue eyes are rare, and blue flowers are mostly human creations.””
Apparently these people couldn’t see the sky or sea…
Lack of mention in Homer is probably down to the scansion of the poem and/or the use of repetitive phrases to make it easier to remember. “Wine-dark sea” stands out and sounds better much more than“blue sea”.
Dear Mr.Dennis Roberts
God’s short hand 👏👌 is the obvious… therefore, it is not necessary too state the obvious of everyday things.
Unfortunately, God Almighty has suffered the consequences of Mankind’s tomfoolery. Saying the sky or water 🌊💦 is blue in ancient times, is really not necessary… Unnecessary words.The
Planet 🌍🌎 is ten billion years old, the holy Bible says if we don’t know what colour the water and sky should be by now, is there any hope for US.
Bullshit. Indigo was invented and used as dye from à plant from ancient time.
“If you think about it,” writes Business Insider’s Kevin Loria, “blue doesn’t appear much in nature — there aren’t blue animals, blue eyes are rare, and blue flowers are mostly human creations.”
“In fact,” continues Loria, “humans didn’t learn to look up until the late 18th century. This was around the same time that humans invented blue birds, berries, and butterflies. And water.”
The trolls abound. Even here. So I will join in with some pontification.
The color blue may have existed in early civilizations. Egyptian blue was a distinct color around 2000 BCE. Lapis lazuli has been traded for tens of thousands of years and probably have trading origins in prehistory.There has been some confusion about what color it was as it was also known as sapphire, which can be just about any color (rubies are sapphires). For the most part, only royalty and wealthy merchants had access to either sapphire or lapis lazuli so it might be possible that a huge portion of the ancient populace never saw it and wouldn’t know what that color was.
The point is that reds and browns and yellows abound because the colors are so easily reproduced from clay, other earths and plants and there are lots of words to describe them. Blue was never common and was, with purple, a royal display and not associated with the hoi polloi. The hoi polloi wouldn’t even know what that blue was. The sky is sometimes blue so they would know that.
Just this last week a study was published that announced a new color, olo, that is a hue of blue that only five people in the world have experienced. How could that be described to people who haven’t seen it? And what about women who have 4 cones in their eyes and can see thousands of more colors than those with 3 or like 10 million more than those with 2 cones. How would you describe blue to a person with 2 cone color blindness (tritanopia) who can’t see blue?
The point of the article, I think, was that perception varies according to cultural and physical influences and blue just ain’t a common thing.