The Curious Case of the Colour Blue

What colour is the sky? And the ocean? Are you sure? How do you know?

What if you were told that everything you believe to be true is based on nothing but a metaphysical concept manufactured by people’s attempt to create an organised society, relative to your geographical location?

Language has the power to do exactly that _ to shape your reality. According to linguistic determinism, language controls what we “conceive as real”. Anthropological linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf believed, “…language plays such an essential role in perception that cultures that use different language can be said to inhabit quite different worlds,”. This means, limitations in our language extend to real lives.

This seems to be the case with the colour blue, as it appears that the shade didn’t exist until modern times. If you go back a few years in history, say around the 8th - 12th century, you’ll find that in Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’, he describes the ocean as “dark” and various other hues, but never blue. This was puzzling to scholar and statesman William Gladstone, who discovered the strange description. When counting the number of times colours were mentioned, Gladstone (unsurprisingly) found over hundreds of mentions of black and white (Homer’s texts are infamously void of colour), but also over 10 mentions of red, green, and yellow _ not one of blue.

Many others have noticed this ‘blue-less’ trend in numerous historical texts, the colour, for example, is missing in  Icelandic sagas, as well as in ancient Chinese stories. German philologist Lazarus Geiger commented, “These hymns, of more than ten-thousand lines, are brimming with descriptions of the heavens. Scarcely any subject is evoked more frequently. The sun and reddening dawn’s play of colour, day and night, cloud and lightning, the air and ether, all these are unfolded before us, again and again ... but there is one thing no one would ever learn from these ancient songs ... and that is that the sky is blue.”

A podcast from an episodic series called ‘Radiolab’ included an interview of linguist Guy Deutscher alluding to the time he pointed upwards to a clear sky, and asked his granddaughter Alma: “What colour is that?” Perplexed, young Alma could not come up with an answer, even though she was well-informed on all the most fundamental colours in the English language.

To anyone else, the obvious answer might’ve been ‘blue’. However, Alma did not see the sky as an ‘it’. To her, “...it was void, not an object with properties like colour. It was nothing.” After many attempts, Alma decided that the sky was white. Then changed her mind and stated it was blue. Then she kept changing her mind until finally deciding on blue.

This story is an example of how language forms the lens through which we perceive life. Without the established framework of language to guide us, we ‘see’ differently. Alma’s disability to see the sky as blue shows us that our own belief in the sky’s hue is a concept we established ourselves, not one that is objectively true for all humans.

Awareness – it’s what determines everything we know, and what we don’t. Awareness forms the barriers within which human comprehension resides. We can’t know something without a way to acknowledge it. Language can control how this recognition may occur, as we use words and names as tools of identification. It allows us to focus on certain aspects of life, but can also enable us to ignore others. Consequently, limitations in our language allow for limitations in our perception _ perception of smell, touch, sight, etc.

It shapes the world we see, and controls how we experience life. Thus, without having a way to describe something, we may not even notice its existence.

The writer is a grade-12 student of American International School Dhaka.

The Curious Case of the Colour Blue

What colour is the sky? And the ocean? Are you sure? How do you know? What if you were told that everything you believe to be true is based on nothing but a metaphysical concept manufactured by peoples attempt to create an organised society, relative to your geographical location? Language has the power to do exactly that _ to shape your reality. According to linguistic determinism, language controls what we conceive as real. Anthropological linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf believed, language plays such an essential role in perception that cultures that use different language can be said to inhabit quite different worlds,. This means, limitations in our language extend to real lives. This seems to be the case with the colour blue, as it appears that the shade didnt exist until modern times. If you go back a few years in history, say around the 8th - 12th century, youll find that in Homers The Odyssey, he describes the ocean as dark and various other hues, but never blue. This was puzzling to scholar and statesman William Gladstone, who discovered the strange description. When counting the number of times colours were mentioned, Gladstone (unsurprisingly) found over hundreds of mentions of black and white (Homers texts are infamously void of colour), but also over 10 mentions of red, green, and yellow _ not one of blue. Many others have noticed this blue-less trend in numerous historical texts, the colour, for example, is missing in Icelandic sagas, as well as in ancient Chinese stories. German philologist Lazarus Geiger commented, These hymns, of more than ten-thousand lines, are brimming with descriptions of the heavens. Scarcely any subject is evoked more frequently. The sun and reddening dawns play of colour, day and night, cloud and lightning, the air and ether, all these are unfolded before us, again and again ... but there is one thing no one would ever learn from these ancient songs ... and that is that the sky is blue. A podcast from an episodic series called Radiolab included an interview of linguist Guy Deutscher alluding to the time he pointed upwards to a clear sky, and asked his granddaughter Alma: What colour is that? Perplexed, young Alma could not come up with an answer, even though she was well-informed on all the most fundamental colours in the English language. To anyone else, the obvious answer mightve been blue. However, Alma did not see the sky as an it. To her, ...it was void, not an object with properties like colour. It was nothing. After many attempts, Alma decided that the sky was white. Then changed her mind and stated it was blue. Then she kept changing her mind until finally deciding on blue. This story is an example of how language forms the lens through which we perceive life. Without the established framework of language to guide us, we see differently. Almas disability to see the sky as blue shows us that our own belief in the skys hue is a concept we established ourselves, not one that is objectively true for all humans. Awareness its what determines everything we know, and what we dont. Awareness forms the barriers within which human comprehension resides. We cant know something without a way to acknowledge it. Language can control how this recognition may occur, as we use words and names as tools of identification. It allows us to focus on certain aspects of life, but can also enable us to ignore others. Consequently, limitations in our language allow for limitations in our perception _ perception of smell, touch, sight, etc. It shapes the world we see, and controls how we experience life. Thus, without having a way to describe something, we may not even notice its existence. The writer is a grade-12 student of American International School Dhaka.