Could our ancestors see blue? Ancient civilisations didn't perceive the colour because they didn't

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Could our ancestors see blue? Ancient people didn't perceive the colour because they didn't have a word for it, say scientists
Studies say language shapes what we see by making us focus on objects
Blue doesn't appear at all in Greek stories and other ancient written texts
As a result, scientists believe ancient civilisations didn't notice the colour
Egyptians - who were the only culture that could produce blue dyes - were the first civilisation to have a word for the colour blue in 2500 BC
The Himba people in Namibia do not have a word for blue and tests have shown they have difficulty distinguishing between green and blue
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 18:00 EST, 2 March 2015 | UPDATED: 21:01 EST, 2 March 2015

The blue and black (or gold and white) dress that sweeped the internet last week revealed just how differently two people can see the world.

But it's not just about lighting conditions or optical illusions - evidence is mounting that until we have a way to describe something, we may not see its there.

Ancient languages, for instance, didn't have a word for blue and scientists believe as a result our ancestors didn't notice the colour even existed.
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Evidence is mounting that until we have a way to describe something, we may not see its there. Ancient languages, for instance, didn't have a word for blue and scientists believe as a result our ancestors didn't notice the colour even existed

According to Business Insider's Kevin Loria, in 'The Odyssey,' Greek poet Homer famously describes the 'wine-dark sea.'

In 1858 William Gladstone, who later became the British prime minister, counted the colour references in the Homer's Odyssey and found blue wasn't mentioned at all.

Black is mentioned nearly 200 times and white about 100. Red, meanwhile, is mentioned fewer than 15 times, and yellow and green fewer than 10.

It wasn't just the Greeks. Blue also doesn't appear in the Koran, ancient Chinese stories, and an ancient Hebrew version of the Bible, according to a German philologist named Lazarus Geiger.

Egyptians, who were the only culture that could produce blue dyes, were the first ancient civilisation to have a word for the colour blue.

Once this product spread, other civilisations picked up on the colour, which doesn't readily appear in nature.
Today, there remain tribes who don't have a colour for blue, such as the Himba people in Namibia.

Several years ago, researchers showed some of the Himba tribe a circle with 11 green squares and one blue.
The study found they could not pick out which one was different from the others, or took much longer to make sense of it.

However, the same tribe has many different words for green. When they were shown squares with one green a different shade, they could pick it out immediately.
Another study focused on how Russian speakers have separate words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy).

MIT recruited 50 people from the Boston area in Massachusetts, half of whom were native Russian speakers.
They found they were 10 per cent faster at distinguishing between light (goluboy) blues and dark (siniy) blues than at discriminating between blues within the same shade category.

A separate study last year seemed to confirm that while colours may be the same around the world, the language in which they are described has an impact on how they are perceived.

In English, the most popular base colours are blue, pink and green, while in China red, blue and green are more prominent.

A data scientist wanted to put this theory to the test and, in doing so, created a graphic that reveals how few ways there are in certain Eastern cultures to talk about colours, compared to the West.

Muyueh Lee from Taipei designed the infographic to show the range of names for colours and hues on Wikipedia, in English and then in Chinese.

His method is biased as there are more Wikipedia users that are English speakers, but it does reveal the importance of certain colours in both languages.

In Chinese, most popular base colours are 紅 (red), 藍 (blue) and 綠 (green). Colours can also relate to objects like salmon, stone and pine tree.

This may be telling as red in Chinese cultures symbolises good fortune and joy. It remains a popular colour in the country and is affiliated with the current government.

By comparison, popular English colours are blue, green and pink, with some colours based on objects.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz3TPGCMKgQ

[Also]

I wouldn't trust dailymail much.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Most use of ancient "color" is talking about brightness, not hue. That is why some people make some dumb interpretations of greek texts. For example if you say something is like a bronze shield you are talking about the glow. There's really not much reason to talk about hue before the age of dyes and indo-european languages did not really do so.

It's actually pretty simple, and shows even among scholars there's some really retarded thinking.

[Nurzat]

I wouldn't trust dailymail much.

me neither but when reading about some Siberian languages some years ago I was surprised by exactly this thing: one single word for both blue and green. I said wtf

[igo112]

...

[Trogdor]

The heading for this article reminds me of when I was a little kid and I used to see old pics in black and white and thought that was really how the world used to look.

[Also]

The heading for this article reminds me of when I was a little kid and I used to see old pics in black and white and thought that was really how the world used to look.

[igo112]

Apparently it was possible to mix cyan/00FFFF and magenta/FF00FF to have approximated indigo colour http://www.netlibrary.net/article/WH...olor_indigo.29 ...which is mimicked by modern electronics, that can use non-RGB components but will yield similar composite spectrum.

[Fear Fiain]

me neither but when reading about some Siberian languages some years ago I was surprised by exactly this thing: one single word for both blue and green. I said wtf

in Old Norse and in old Irish this exists for blue and black.