Acquisition of Color Vocabulary

[lpetrich]

It's also interesting that the Japanese language only recently acquired a word for green, where they used the word for blue for both blue and green before.

That's a function of technology, I'm sure. An increased quantity of generic color words is a result of advancing technology, it seems, with that technology making possible the production of objects with many different colors. Japan was pretty much in the Middle Ages until the 1868 Meiji Restoration, when a clique of modernizers started a big catch-up effort. So being behind in generic color words is not surprising.

 

[untermensche]

The question is: Does only having one label for blue and green mean the person experiences both as the same thing?

Does this research answer that?

 

[Angry Floof]

It's also interesting that the Japanese language only recently acquired a word for green, where they used the word for blue for both blue and green before.

That's a function of technology, I'm sure. An increased quantity of generic color words is a result of advancing technology, it seems, with that technology making possible the production of objects with many different colors. Japan was pretty much in the Middle Ages until the 1868 Meiji Restoration, when a clique of modernizers started a big catch-up effort. So being behind in generic color words is not surprising.

Would exposure to other cultures be a factor? I mean, Japan is pretty much surrounded by cultures that have words for green as distinct from blue, and technology does speed up and amplify exposure to other cultures.

 

[lpetrich]

The question is: Does only having one label for blue and green mean the person experiences both as the same thing?

Not at all. It would be like "blue" and "green" covering different shades of those colors.


Color-Blindness Simulators including Color-Blindness Simulator for Webpages -- load a page into it to see what it looks like. The site uses iframes, and some sites balk at sending pages into iframes. It also uses a Firefox SVG-filter extension, and other browsers may not support it.

 

[untermensche]

The question is: Does only having one label for blue and green mean the person experiences both as the same thing?

Not at all. It would be like "blue" and "green" covering different shades of those colors.


Color-Blindness Simulators including Color-Blindness Simulator for Webpages -- load a page into it to see what it looks like. The site uses iframes, and some sites balk at sending pages into iframes. It also uses a Firefox SVG-filter extension, and other browsers may not support it.

I wonder.

I think labels of things experienced can lead to greater distinctions.

Like the wine taster who has labels for the many flavors that exist but the average person cannot distinguish.

 

[Sarpedon]

Would exposure to other cultures be a factor? I mean, Japan is pretty much surrounded by cultures that have words for green as distinct from blue, and technology does speed up and amplify exposure to other cultures.

Actually, China also only had one word for blue and green. They later got a separate one for blue. Since the Japanese adopted the Chinese writing system (but not language), they might have also inherited the lack of a word. I'm not sure when the Chinese got the word for 'blue.'

It is also interesting to see that green 'won' the original word in both cases, with blue getting the new word.

 

[Angry Floof]

It is also interesting to see that green 'won' the original word in both cases, with blue getting the new word.

That's not the case with Japan. They got a new word for green, not blue.

https://www.nihongomaster.com/blog/learn-traditional-japanese-colors/
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-using-the-same-word-for-blue-and-green-in-Japanese

Now I'm really curious about how people with synesthesia think in these other languages.

For me, growing up in U.S. culture and English, blue and green are as distinct from each other as qualitative descriptors as the numerals 4 and 5 are from each other, or even as distinct as two separate people.

 

[Sarpedon]

I wonder if it could be as prosaic as having to do with dyes. The Chinese word for blue is the same as the word for the indigo plant, which produces it. Could there have been, prior to the introduction of indigo, only one available dye, that was blue-green in color? Similarly, the Chinese word for gray is the same as 'ash,' and even though they have their own word for brown it has been partially replaced with the borrowed word 'kafei' for coffee colored.

Of course, the sky is blue, so there's no real excuse to say you don't have any blue around.

 

[Tharmas]

For me, growing up in U.S. culture and English, blue and green are as distinct from each other as qualitative descriptors as the numerals 4 and 5 are from each other, or even as distinct as two separate people.

I agree with this except...my wife and I will occasionally disagree on whether a particular shade is green or blue. Each of us sees the color as completely distinct and "obviously" the color we claim it is. Then we accuse each other of being blue-green color blind.

 

[Sarpedon]

I once had my boss ask me to bring her blue bag down to her car. I couldn't find her blue bag, only her green bag.

 

[Angry Floof]

The OP distinguishes between generic color words and those that are named for specific environmental objects.

 

[lpetrich]

I wonder if it could be as prosaic as having to do with dyes. The Chinese word for blue is the same as the word for the indigo plant, which produces it. Could there have been, prior to the introduction of indigo, only one available dye, that was blue-green in color? Similarly, the Chinese word for gray is the same as 'ash,' and even though they have their own word for brown it has been partially replaced with the borrowed word 'kafei' for coffee colored.

I doubt it.  Blue–green distinction in language notes languages with separate words and languages without. I find particularly interesting this:

The Yoruba word for green is àwö ewéko, which translates to "color of leaves", and blue is àwö sánmà, which translates to "color of sky".

That's a common way of creating color words: <something>-colored. One can see that with those Chinese examples, and English also has them. Words like "indigo", "violet", "purple", "pink", and "orange". English "pink" is from a certain flower, but many languages use "rose" for that color, also from a flower.