Ancient Greeks Couldn't See Blue DEBUNKED Once and For All

[Your Old Comrade]

The ancient Greeks and all ancient people couldn't see blue. Were they all colour blind? Let's debunk this myth once and for all.

[LaSentinelle]

This topic is not worth an almost 7 minute long video, it can be summarised in one sentence lmao.

[Your Old Comrade]

Is honey green or yellow? ...Yes.

Is a rainbow purple? ... Yes.

This list of 10 colours includes two blues because yes, the Ancient Greeks could both see and describe what we call blue. In fact there are more words for blue than these two. I limited it to only two for succinctness. There are also more words for red and things like golden and silvery that I left out.

The myth that the Greeks couldn't see blue is a kind of scholarly meme from a 19th century scholar William Gladstone who was specifically looking at the colour words used in the Homeric dialect, the earliest dialect of Ancient Greek for which we have literature preserved. He found a kernel of truth which is that Homer doesn't describe typically 'blue' objects with very 'blue' words. But Ancient Greek spans thousands of years of history and encompasses a greater variety of thought and vocabulary than just the Homeric texts. In addition, a lot of the Greek colour words don't just describe the hue (the RGB value at maximum saturation) but also other visual aspects: dark, light, splendrous, shiny, or dull. It is a vast oversimplification to say that "The Ancient Greeks" couldn't see or describe blue.

I use the Lucian pronunciation, which is a historical reconstruction of Ancient Greek phonology from the time of the Roman Empire that preserves pitch accent and syllable quantity. For more information about Lucian Koine pronunciation and its historicity, click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9z5Gvp3MM

I do not write the smooth breathing mark in my orthography of Ancient Greek. This is to give it greater contrast against the almost-identical looking rough breathing mark. Removing the smooth breathing enables the rough breathing mark to become more discernible to all sighted humans - with varying degrees of vision impairments - and at lower screen resolutions and smaller font sizes, in all lighting conditions.