Blue: the color that didn't exist until someone invented a word for it

Keywords

Homer; Berlin and Kay; Jules Davidoff; Himba; Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (linguistic relativity); pigment synthesis; lapis lazuli; Russian; goluboy, siniy; time; space; emotions; William Gladstone; κύανος > κυανός > cyan

"Got the blues"?

 

Selected readings

• "Was Homer (color)blind?" (5/3/26)
• "Sacré bleu! — the synesthesia of Walmart cyan" (10/8/22)
• "Color vocabulary and pre-attentive color perception" (2/23/09) — P. Kay
• "It's not easy seeing green" (3/2/15)
• "Grue and bleen: the blue-green distinction and its implications" (10/4/19)
• "The colors of the seas and the directions" (4/28/21)
• "Synesthesia and Chinese characters" (3/9/17)
• "Sapir-Whorf redux" (5/15/25)
• "Linguistic relativity: snow and horses" (4/15/25)