The surprising pattern behind color names around the world

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  • Опубликовано: 27 дек 2024

Комментарии • 8 тыс.

  • @lauracardoso1325
    @lauracardoso1325 4 года назад +24927

    Dividing colors between "light", "dark" and "red" seemed weird only until I realized that's exactly how I divide laundry.

    • @Living_Connectedness
      @Living_Connectedness 4 года назад +462

      Haha Woah so true!

    • @ROR5CH4CH
      @ROR5CH4CH 4 года назад +541

      Pattern found! :0

    • @malachorfives
      @malachorfives 4 года назад +100

      😲😲😲

    • @lauracardoso1325
      @lauracardoso1325 4 года назад +521

      @@van-hieuvo8208 dude, what? I'm dye-ing to know how you got to a period joke from here.

    • @greenergrass4060
      @greenergrass4060 4 года назад +160

      Oh my god. Maybe our ancestors were able to distinguish and describes colors by a similar fashion in the past

  • @mayadelaneys
    @mayadelaneys 7 лет назад +11233

    This was far more interesting than I thought it was going to be.

    • @helloitsme7553
      @helloitsme7553 7 лет назад +15

      John keppelman maybe beauty is a fact, but because we all see different we all think different things are beautiful

    • @tomfoolyaface9862
      @tomfoolyaface9862 7 лет назад +10

      HelloItsMe or what if everyone has the same favorite color we just call it different things. Idk, any type of color speculation interests me

    • @mayadelaneys
      @mayadelaneys 7 лет назад +50

      It's still interesting because regardless if it's a different red, which it isn't, we know how rods and cones work and it is illogical to think those of the same species wouldn't experience a physical effect relatively similarly, with obvious exceptions in gene mutation. We experience the emotional and pyschological effects of colors in the same way, so even if they are different colors we interpret their effects the same, like red as passion. So it doesn't matter if we might see them differently, your comment doesn't have any bearing on this. And even if we did see color differently, does that mean this is just suddenly not interesting? Honestly, wouldn't that make this idea of color patterns emerging even more interesting and an even stranger phenomenon?

    • @radnyx_games
      @radnyx_games 7 лет назад +30

      I feel like the whole "do we see the same colors question" is pretty dumb. We all have the mental capacity to distinguish separate colors, and that's all that matters. Asking what a particular color "looks like" in someone else's eyes is meaningless because their brain is receiving the same particular sensations from the same particular wavelengths of light. Our brain just needed a way to tell us red is red because it isn't blue, and it isn't yellow.
      Now obviously the theory of all our "color perceptions" being swapped randomly doesn't extend very far, as everyone is able to agree on which colors are complementary (opposite sides of the color wheel, i.e. red and green). Additionally, all of us are able to comprehend the "nearness" of certain colors, because everyone can agree that red is much "closer" to yellow than it is blue.
      Given those limitations, I suppose the only possible permutation between people's color perception would be if one saw colors inverted from another (the color wheel being flipped around an axis, replacing each color with its complement). Regardless, we all (mostly) feel the same sensations and make the same connections about each color. Of course there's some cultural essence to colors, how red is *associated* with love and that just gets imprinted in our minds over time. I don't think there's a lot of natural evolutionary connections between emotion and colors but apparently red is evolutionary linked to hostility and danger (therefore, anger).
      Anyway, point is: I think the question about whether "we see the same colors" as each other is just a sensational mind-boggler for people to ponder for a second and then move on with their lives.

    • @marshmallowbudgie
      @marshmallowbudgie 7 лет назад +1

      yeah, it's like something out of the Bell Science series

  • @job8170
    @job8170 6 лет назад +3187

    I watched a study once where someone was exploring the idea that we dont refer to the sky as blue until we're told the sky is blue. He tested this on his 2 year old. Asking her every day what colour the sky was and never telling her what colour he thought it was. She said white until about 3 1/2.

    • @XxQueenChristinaxX
      @XxQueenChristinaxX 5 лет назад +460

      Draziw Drow Yes and the Japanese flag is the prime example.

    • @채지훈-f2v
      @채지훈-f2v 5 лет назад +29

      Because of air pollution..?!

    • @ben4675
      @ben4675 5 лет назад +300

      @@채지훈-f2v No, because the sun of the Japanese flag is red so the culture of Japan has affected their perception of colour.

    • @채지훈-f2v
      @채지훈-f2v 5 лет назад +22

      @@ben4675 about the color of the sky.

    • @aziara369
      @aziara369 5 лет назад +157

      I dont know but this comment gave me anxiety. Idk, maybe because what we have been taught are all wrong??? I over think too much im sorry

  • @saulgoodmanKAZAKH
    @saulgoodmanKAZAKH 2 года назад +1490

    In Kazakh "Green" and "Blue" used to have the same word "Kök". The word only meaning "Green", which is "Jasıl" became part of the language a lot later. This is why sometimes you see Juice boxes labelled as "Blue Apple", because some people are not used to the new word yet.

    • @xaoasakura
      @xaoasakura Год назад +182

      Haha nice kok

    • @yobotbeats
      @yobotbeats Год назад +50

      Кайфово, что в русском 12 цветов. Можно просто добавить прилагательное, чтобы почти полностью описать цвет для человека

    • @ikhares
      @ikhares Год назад +59

      same in Vietnamese! our "green" and "blue" are both the word "xanh"

    • @adapienkowska2605
      @adapienkowska2605 Год назад +45

      The same way English manage to live with one word for light blue and dark blue.

    • @saulgoodmanKAZAKH
      @saulgoodmanKAZAKH Год назад +39

      @@yobotbeats в языках, где цветов меньше можно также просто описывать цвета. "Цвета неба", "цвета розы", "темнее дуба" и т.д.

  • @shakhzodyuldoshboev6348
    @shakhzodyuldoshboev6348 5 лет назад +2476

    In Uzbek language, we don't actually have any words for "grey", "orange", and "brown". If one wants to describe an object of one of these colours in Uzbek they say "colour of ash", "colour of fire", and........ "colour of liver".

    • @shakhzodyuldoshboev6348
      @shakhzodyuldoshboev6348 5 лет назад +501

      @Pudgy Pudge you mean me and 32 million of other Uzbeks speak inexistent language?

    • @vinissues4634
      @vinissues4634 5 лет назад +9

      @@shakhzodyuldoshboev6348 🤣🤣🤣🤣 calm down

    • @phixvig
      @phixvig 5 лет назад +66

      @@O01 о, русские гопники проснулись ;)

    • @bettym.1640
      @bettym.1640 5 лет назад +60

      @@O01 Джентельмены, давайте же не будем показывать русский язык не с самой лучшей стороны, прошу

    • @СергейФролов-й4о
      @СергейФролов-й4о 5 лет назад +19

      @Pudgy Pudge, В корне неверно. Это другая страна просто с большим русским меньшинством.

  • @caitzs
    @caitzs 5 лет назад +847

    At 1 year of age, my kids learned about which fruits they could eat from the garden. They had no problem distinguishing ripe red tomatoes and raspberries vs unripe yellow/green ones, but they had a very hard time accepting that there were ripe yellow varieties of tomatoes and raspberries. It took both of them until about 4-5 years of age to try a yellow tomato. They were convinced it was unripe, regardless of what I said. Being able to communicate red/purple, the color of many ripe fruits, vs yellow/green, the color of unripe fruit, is very important when a group must harvest their own food.
    Blue is all around us in sky and water, but the blueness isn't important to distinguish for daily existence. My kids really didn't care if the sky was blue or gray or white. They just cared about it being light (day) or dark (night). Also, whether water is good to drink is not dependent on its blueness. It's more about whether it's light/clear (good to drink) or dark/murky (bad to drink).

    • @TokyoTaisu
      @TokyoTaisu 2 года назад +42

      Thanks this was helpful to me, wondering why my kids are a little bit picky about green veggies. Always wondered where that came from.

    • @abstrakt8709
      @abstrakt8709 Год назад +10

      Yeah this helped me understand better too :D

    • @uvotmin
      @uvotmin Год назад +3

      Ok but gray sky indicates bad weather, wouldn't that be useful?

    • @mitchelmosier7205
      @mitchelmosier7205 Год назад +17

      @@uvotminBut it doesn’t necessarily. As someone from the Seattle area, the sky is grey very often but you can tell the difference between our normal overcast days and days where it is actually rainy/stormy by the shade (light vs. dark) of grey, therefore I still think the distinction, while being more nuanced, is still not entirely necessary

    • @peepeetrain8755
      @peepeetrain8755 Год назад +9

      @@uvotmin light and dark. light sky is clear, dark would be rain

  • @pratamadanterakhir
    @pratamadanterakhir 6 лет назад +1369

    In Bahasa Indonesia, we call the shades of a colour by age e.g. Pink it’s ‘Merah Muda’ which literally translates to ‘Young Red’ as well as the darker shades of red ‘Merah Tua’, ‘Old Red.’ It applies to blue, green and yellow too.
    In my own theory, it’s like the way fruits, vegetables and paddies age because of agricultural aspect of the earlier times of the country. Just my own opinion tho.

    • @Egregius
      @Egregius 6 лет назад +12

      You're probably right tho :)

    • @jiancarlobalcruz9249
      @jiancarlobalcruz9249 6 лет назад +12

      What about "Buah Merah? "
      I saw those drinks here in the Philippines! What does it mean? 😂😂

    • @kanduyog1182
      @kanduyog1182 6 лет назад +22

      There's a similar pattern here in the Philippines, like in the word murang kape for the color beige, which literally means young coffee

    • @FinnManusia
      @FinnManusia 6 лет назад +30

      We called pink as "Merah Jambu" because it comes from a fruit named "Jambu Air" or "Rose Apple" in English.

    • @tubester358
      @tubester358 6 лет назад +4

      i collect savage photos - "Buah Merah" sounds like "Red Fruit", not sure what drink that is. Could be a fruit cocktail or *more likely a syrup.

  • @Abusiv3Hamst3r
    @Abusiv3Hamst3r 2 года назад +339

    Fun Fact, a lot of Japanese colors are metaphorical in nature. Such as brown being 茶色 literally "tea color" the same goes for yellow 黄色(amber color), gray 灰色 (ash color), and formerly blue which shared a word with green for a while. Orange and pink more recently were brought along with English.

    • @lans8211
      @lans8211 Год назад +21

      It has to be pointed out that the Japanese language has a deep origin from Mandarin and grow out the Chinese culture itself afterwards.
      In this case, 茶色 is a term from Japanese language itself.
      But 青色, the color in the middle of blue and green, is from ancient Chinese. Mixing the two together is simply because of the dye then didn’t have pure light blue or green.

    • @azarishiba2559
      @azarishiba2559 Год назад +15

      Actually, orange and pink have another names that don't come from English: pink is also called 桃色 ("peach color"), and orange is 橙色 ("sour orange color"). Japanese has actually many native words for things, but tend to drop some in favor of English... Which for me, as a native Spanish speaker, it's actually sad.

    • @gywghhb
      @gywghhb Год назад +12

      @@azarishiba2559 it's done in effort for Japan to be considered "European" and more westernized since Meji revolution. Also the nature of Japanese allows it to technically borrow any words from other languages and represent them in kaja in hope to look "cool" or "modern" while representing the same concept in kanji or Chinese vocabularies is considered "old." Personally, as a Chinese, I find this trend quite funny

    • @dastanjan320
      @dastanjan320 10 месяцев назад +2

      Is it true that japanese call the green at the traffic light as "ao" which is the word for Blue?
      I also understood that jaoanese use "midori " for green, but in other contexts

    • @Abusiv3Hamst3r
      @Abusiv3Hamst3r 10 месяцев назад +1

      @@dastanjan320 They use 青 to refer to green traffic lights, apples, and several other things. The reason is that using ao can also mean a bright vibrant green.

  • @OctagonalGolbat
    @OctagonalGolbat 4 года назад +6290

    Of course the most important colours to humans are night, day, and berry.

  • @alexdiduk4611
    @alexdiduk4611 4 года назад +6906

    Imagine trying to translate this video into one of the languages with 3 colours

    • @dougthealligator
      @dougthealligator 4 года назад +371

      Alex Diduk there’d probably be a lot of “the color of x”

    • @ShadowTheAge
      @ShadowTheAge 4 года назад +131

      just use kpe

    • @tonyyyfromcroatiaa681
      @tonyyyfromcroatiaa681 4 года назад +48

      @Alexander Supertramp Comparisson with other well-known objects? As he mentiont i think..?

    • @moondust2365
      @moondust2365 4 года назад +248

      @@tonyyyfromcroatiaa681 True. For example, in my native language, Tagalog, there's only names for red (pula), orange (kahel), yellow (dilaw), green (berde/luntian), blue (asul/bughaw), white (puti), and black (itim). We use "color _" or "color of _" when referring to other colors. Specifically, we say "kulay abo" when referring to gray in general, but "kulay ng abo" for the specific color of ash. Also, we have two* "terms" for purple, "kulay ube" (deep/midium violet) and "kulay lilak" (liliac and lavender; light violet?), and for brown, "kayumanggi" (tan/brown skin tone, for skin specifically ["kulay kayumanggi" if you want to compare the color of one object to the color of skin]) and "kulay tsokolate/kape" (for foods and drinks respectively).
      *"Lila" or "Kulay Lila" is typically used as a translation for purple in general. Although I sometimes end up thinking of the Lilac color. So to separate the two, I use "Lila" for purple in general and "Lilak" for Lilac/Lavender, although that's not official. Although, we actually use the English terms "purple" and "violet" more often anyway.

    • @zongi700
      @zongi700 4 года назад +30

      @@moondust2365 that's so interesting! thanks for the insight! :)

  • @birdbonezone
    @birdbonezone 6 лет назад +3148

    in russia we don't really use purpurnyy for purple, we mostly say fioletovyy

    • @ayrat8942
      @ayrat8942 6 лет назад +179

      Хах, точно

    • @niraisatsana
      @niraisatsana 6 лет назад

      😈

    • @niraisatsana
      @niraisatsana 5 лет назад +113

      @Reid Chrysler Manares yes

    • @liljepolak8565
      @liljepolak8565 5 лет назад +198

      @Reid Chrysler Manares ya, we mostly use violet. Although we also use the word sirenevyy, which means purple

    • @sketep1117
      @sketep1117 5 лет назад +51

      @@liljepolak8565 It's grayish purple usually.

  • @dannymartial7997
    @dannymartial7997 2 года назад +596

    In Vietnamese, there’s no word for green. There’s blue, and then there’s “leaf-blue” to describe green. So my Vietnamese parents sometimes have a hard time differentiating between objects that are green vs blue because they’re the same word. I thought it was weird until I realized it’d be like me differentiating between indigo and blue/purple, which is a color I didn’t grow up learning.

    • @shadow_hunter1004
      @shadow_hunter1004 Год назад +13

      Other comments said that in vietnamese green and blue have the same name, not that green just doesn't has one. And that you differentiate between leaf-color and sea-color.

    • @user-gu9yq5sj7c
      @user-gu9yq5sj7c Год назад +5

      Language doesn't prevent me from distinguishing reality like colors. I learned about how English doesn't have some words like in other languages. English even borrow some words like deja vu. But that doesn't prevent me from understanding those realities even if a word for it doesn't exist. I still can see more shades of colors even if a word in English doesn't exist for it. Like different shades of blue.
      It's like how someone was born deaf or some animals and never heard or learned language but still understands and sees basic realities like nature.
      You said so yourself and other comments here said that there is a differentiating word for blue and green in Vietnamese and that's "leaf" and "ocean".
      Perhaps it was more your parents were struggling to understand a different language.

    • @peepeetrain8755
      @peepeetrain8755 Год назад +1

      i'm a native english and i don't know the difference between Indigo and Purple, they're both purple to me

    • @Aurbertha
      @Aurbertha Год назад +4

      I was always struggled with blue and green until I learned English. And I'm like "How convenient and easy it is". I realized that English is even easier to use in comparison with my mother language😂. Btw I wish our language just has "you" and "I" 🥲.

    • @nehiroz1960
      @nehiroz1960 Год назад

      Then what do you guys call teal/turqoise????

  • @gkgk6439
    @gkgk6439 6 лет назад +2377

    In Turkish we dont have an actual name for brown, we call it "the color of coffee" which is *kahverengi*
    kahverengi=kahve+renk+i
    *Kahve* is *coffee* , *renk* is *color* and *i* is a suffix meaning *of*

    • @ceydafikir2736
      @ceydafikir2736 5 лет назад +148

      woah as a Turkish person I've never realized that

    • @gkgk6439
      @gkgk6439 5 лет назад +7

      Shrek Wazowski jfhvhbrndjcydh

    • @nanobulut
      @nanobulut 5 лет назад +35

      In Turkish we call "Konur" for Brown.

    • @gkgk6439
      @gkgk6439 5 лет назад +68

      Yıldırım Başkurt wait... if we already have a word for brown in old Turkish, then why dont we use it in modern Turkish?

    • @sypwer
      @sypwer 5 лет назад +48

      Lol i was just thinking why doesn’t my language have anything interesting while all of those people in the comments mention something from their language
      Than i saw your comment and i was like “oh sure, there’s that”

  • @andrewvodinh-ho7315
    @andrewvodinh-ho7315 5 лет назад +9050

    5:23 "Blue, on the other hand, was fairly scarce."
    Water and Sky: Am i a joke to you?

    • @rendyshadows
      @rendyshadows 5 лет назад +358

      I think so .. But maybe they live in the forest and the sky always white ..

    • @peeenguinne3858
      @peeenguinne3858 5 лет назад +1163

      I get the joke, but tbh, blue is actually rare in nature.

    • @YbisZX
      @YbisZX 5 лет назад +846

      Water has no color - it transparent, or just reflect other objects. Color of sky useless for antient cultures, because it is just in the sky.

    • @nicolasjoannas6114
      @nicolasjoannas6114 5 лет назад +213

      The sky is not blue, and it is not "azul".
      It is C E L E S T E
      Spanish FTW
      (?

    • @mach254
      @mach254 5 лет назад +123

      Water isnt blue its clear

  • @COMALiteJ
    @COMALiteJ 2 года назад +294

    Even in English, many color names, even some “basic” ones, got their names from things. The _color_ orange is named after the _fruit_ orange, or rather, the fruit of the orange tree (what it was originally called). Until the English found out about oranges, they referred to that color as “reddish yellow.”
    Purple comes from the purpura mussels whose shells are deep purple or navy blue, and were the source for dyes of that color range (a very expensive source of dye in ancient times, which is why it was a sign of royalty or great wealth to wear purple). Those dyes range in color from what we today would call “plum” to what we today would call “navy blue,” and would include “violet.”

    • @francisdec1615
      @francisdec1615 2 года назад +28

      In Swedish we used to call the colour orange "brandgul" - "fire yellow" when I was a kid in the 1970s. Now everyone calls it orange, although the fruit is called "apelsin" - "apple from China".

    • @DogDogGodFog
      @DogDogGodFog 2 года назад +11

      Meanwhile in Poland the violet variant is way more popular than the purpura variant. Tells you geography I guess. Had more flowers than shores

    • @aw7145
      @aw7145 2 года назад +3

      I've always wondered why Purpur means purple (I've never heard it though, I've only heard Lila or Violett) in German, I always wondered how they got Purpur and English got purple

    • @nosy-cat
      @nosy-cat Год назад +9

      The fact that orange as a colour was a late addition to the English language can be seen in names like "robin redbreast", a bird with a clearly orange breast.

    • @sharondornhoff7563
      @sharondornhoff7563 8 месяцев назад +2

      @@nosy-cat Same for terms like "lavender", another recent addition.

  • @pouyashooliz9875
    @pouyashooliz9875 4 года назад +2209

    In Persian language:
    Blue = "Abi", translates to "watery"
    Brown = "Ghahvei", translates to "from coffee"
    Purple = "Banafsh", translates to "viola flower" (a purple colored flower called "banafsheh")
    Yellow = "Zard", translates to "from gold" (Zar = gold)
    Green = "Sabz", translates similar to the word "vegetable-y" (Sabzi = vegetable)
    Orange = "Naranji", translates to another citrus similar to "orange fruit" but with a more sour taste.
    Pink = "Soorati", translates to "face colored"
    Gray = "Khakestari", translates to "Ash colored"
    I just realized they are all comparison words other than the words for black, white, and red.

    • @beckerkorn1
      @beckerkorn1 4 года назад +84

      Pouya Shooliz In English, there are just orange and violet for comparison color words. We refer to vegetables as greens sometimes too, but it seems more likely that the color name existed first and started being used as a more informal term for vegetables. Here’s something interesting: first, as you may already know, English has many different sources. We can use the word soil (from Latin) and dirt (from Norse) interchangeably. In terms of colors, they all have Germanic roots except for orange (derived from your word in Persian!) and purple (derived from Greek). Purple and violet are usually seen as interchangeable in English too. So the two words that are not Germanic just happen to also be comparison words. But even some of the Germanic words are comparisons, for example white comes from weiss which also means wheat. English speakers just don’t know that it’s a representational word because white and wheat are spelled/pronounced differently. Obviously they are close, but so are green and grin and those meanings have nothing in common. So it’s not intuitive that white comes from wheat. And also, the color of wheat falls into the yellow category. According to the video, it sounds like in earlier times it would have just been grouped with the other “light” colors.

    • @topotondo828
      @topotondo828 4 года назад +30

      @@beckerkorn1 Wheat in German is Weizen, not Weiß, but does probably derive from the color.

    • @topotondo828
      @topotondo828 4 года назад +22

      Hi! English speaker trying to learn Farsi over here. :) I found some other color names and I'm curious about them.
      I read that قرمز (crimson/red) is also the name for the Kermes insect (from which red dye is obtained), but I assume they came up with the name of the color before the name of the insect. سرخ apparently also means scarlet?
      Then there's ارغوانی which is described as "colour of the blossom of Cercis siliquastrum (Judas tree), amethyst, mauve, purple"
      Also زرشکی (wiktionary says it means "purple") comes from zereshk, a plant which in English is called barberry. So what's the difference between zereshki, arğavâni and banafsh?

    • @kimaya.3563
      @kimaya.3563 4 года назад +5

      The part about 'face colored' how is that so? What color would I be considered as a black person?

    • @pouyashooliz9875
      @pouyashooliz9875 4 года назад +12

      Nein The video is referring to how everyday objects are used to name the color itself, not how a color is used to describe objects/people.
      Persian is an ancient language that was formed 5000 to 10000 years ago where the everyday people of that society were probably light brown skin. I don’t think they came into contact with an African person until much later when they formed an empire about 2500 years ago. I don’t know how they referred to a black person but given that the concept of “race” didn’t exist back then, and that Persians themselves range in color from light brown to very dark brown, they probably would have just though of blacks as regular people of another clan or tribe. In modern Persian language however, your question has a boring answer: a black person is referred to as “black person”.

  • @dildown6424
    @dildown6424 5 лет назад +15885

    Ah yes, I am watching a video about colors while being colorblind, definitily my smartest idea

    • @radyawirawan3823
      @radyawirawan3823 5 лет назад +277

      thats sad

    • @adriangarcia5019
      @adriangarcia5019 5 лет назад +163

      me too bro hahaha

    • @ConfusedArmy
      @ConfusedArmy 5 лет назад +82

      completly color blind? is that a thing?

    • @ndpd7695
      @ndpd7695 5 лет назад +186

      Well it's not bad to have a bit more knowledge about stuff

    • @nyoom1
      @nyoom1 5 лет назад +21

      @@ndpd7695 false knowledge

  • @slothy7600
    @slothy7600 5 лет назад +15179

    ahh yes the three primary colors, light, dark, and red.

    • @UwU-fc6em
      @UwU-fc6em 5 лет назад +166

      Becus back then no one cared about any of the other primary colors

    • @xredjasperx247
      @xredjasperx247 5 лет назад +314

      Maggie Caron yeah, that’s the joke. Well done on trying to explain it though.

    • @Torchkas2
      @Torchkas2 5 лет назад +338

      well if you think about it
      yellow = light
      blue = dark
      red = red

    • @Torchkas2
      @Torchkas2 5 лет назад +230

      @Maggie Caron primary colors rely on color theory and depend on what color space you're using. in paints, red yellow and blue were historically the most readily available pigments. when talking about primary colors in relation to paint it refers to the color theory that uses these pigments.
      inking is a different craft and uses a subtractive color space that's a bit different from paint. since you can't really ink on black, it instead subtracts from white.
      where white is rgb
      magenta is rb (-g)
      yellow is rg (-b)
      cyan is gb (-r)
      so to make blue you'd mix magenta and cyan (-g and -r)
      with this blue, you wouldn't be able to make green by adding yellow, since that would mean -b. you'd end up with black.
      it's a different medium from paint with different rules.
      there are also the primary colors in light, which is an additive color space.
      in light there is rgb, and magenta yellow and cyan are secondary colors, because you start from black. adding these primaries together creates white.
      just some color theory 101. i recommend reading more about this since it's very interesting :)

    • @saranikolovska540
      @saranikolovska540 5 лет назад +9

      @@Torchkas2 That's really cool info! Thank you!

  • @true_aureolin
    @true_aureolin Год назад +116

    In Russian, "purpurnyy" can be a shade of red, purple and similar to magenta. I think the word "fioletovyy" is used more often, and it corresponds more to the shade in the video. The most accurate definitions are "sirenevyy" or "lilovyy" (lilac), which describe colors through the coloring of flowers.

    • @neilreynolds3858
      @neilreynolds3858 Год назад +7

      Lilovyy. One of our kittens is called Lilac in English but that side of the family speaks English, Dutch, and Russian. The Russian is a very pretty name.

  • @EdmfreeMlove
    @EdmfreeMlove 4 года назад +420

    In Vietnamese, we call green and blue both "xanh". When we need to distinguish, we call blue as "xanh nước biển" ("xanh" of the ocean) and green as "xanh lá" ("xanh" of the leaf)

    • @star8f1sh
      @star8f1sh Год назад +6

      Different languages are so interesting

    • @kcahdp
      @kcahdp Год назад +4

      I've heard the same about Japanese

    • @Yanaro-pi8pt
      @Yanaro-pi8pt 9 месяцев назад +1

      @@kcahdp Cuz the root is from the Chinese. It was just green, and then came "blue" but they didn't invent a word for it so it was green for both.

  • @loki2547
    @loki2547 5 лет назад +7554

    Hey, what colour is your hair?
    Kpe

    • @moseslee5721
      @moseslee5721 5 лет назад +160

      Henry Fliss what colour's your hair: Dark

    • @ttemssgraffe625
      @ttemssgraffe625 5 лет назад +182

      "Hey, what colour is your hair?"
      *are you blind, you dumb fool?*

    • @vivictinimoved
      @vivictinimoved 5 лет назад

      NO
      this could habe been a jack reference i'm sad

    • @zKampeR45
      @zKampeR45 5 лет назад +38

      Yes but, is it Kpe or Kpe

    • @loki2547
      @loki2547 5 лет назад +18

      zKampeR it’s kpe

  • @DashingSteel
    @DashingSteel 5 лет назад +8171

    Gotta love the "Wet" and "Dry" spectrum of colours
    Imagine someone being rasist in this language! "Them M O I S T people are taking all our jobs!"

    • @fan2kobaladdu79
      @fan2kobaladdu79 5 лет назад +315

      moist
      moist
      moist
      moist

    • @Viertelhund
      @Viertelhund 5 лет назад +384

      But, if you're thinkin' 'bout my baby, it don't matter if you're wet or dry.

    • @saynuka7893
      @saynuka7893 5 лет назад +45

      moist is british slang

    • @MaxWunderlich
      @MaxWunderlich 5 лет назад +168

      This comment made me spit out my coffee. Now my screen is moist, too.

    • @SlongestKongest
      @SlongestKongest 5 лет назад +38

      The green people

  • @scope40k
    @scope40k 3 года назад +234

    I have just realised that Russian and English speakers use different set of colours do describe the rainbow, though the total number of colours is still 7 for each: Russians use their unique "goluboy" (pigeon blue) color, but do not use the pink colour. Also as a Russian I never thought of pink as a separate colour, more like a lighter version of purple. It feels kinda odd because I cannot even pick the pink colour out of rainbow spectrum.

    • @Артем-ь6е9л
      @Артем-ь6е9л Год назад +45

      Что за бред. Загугли «цвета радуги» на английском и на русском. Разница совсем в другом. Мы не используем цвет «индиго» в качестве отдельного цвета в обычной речи. Только для уточнения (точно так же с пурпурным, каштановым и пр.). Для нас это тёмный “фиолетовый”, находящийся близко к «синему». В свою очередь «розовый» и “pink” это один и тот же цвет. Точно так же “violet” и «фиолетовый» это одно и то же. Розовый цвет сильно отличается в русской речи от фиолетового цвета, как в английском “violet” отличается от “pink”. В русской речи «голубой» и «синий» имеют такую же связь - один светлее другого. Автор видео явно не знает о такой штуке как «лингвистика». Заявлять что в русском языке только 12 обозначений цветов очевидно бессмысленно. Куда бирюзовый делся? Где фиолетовый? Зато пурпурный вставил.

    • @CvrtisBreach
      @CvrtisBreach Год назад +33

      ​​​​​​​​​​@@Артем-ь6е9л он говорит про 00:53. Там указан розовый, но нет голубого. У англичан и голубой, и синий - это blue. А в русском есть дополнительно голубой.
      И что-то непонятное вы про purple/violet написали. Они оба фиолетовые, просто один в тёплых оттенках, другой в холодных.
      В видео речь об ОСНОВНЫХ цветах, а не о радуге. Бирюзовый мы вполне можем назвать сине-зеленый, а как ты назовешь синий, используя названия других цветов? При этом мы выделяем отдельно дополнительно голубой и розовый, когда англичане и голубой, и синий называют одним словом.

    • @CvrtisBreach
      @CvrtisBreach Год назад +18

      А я вижу розовый. По крайней мере на спектре в видео. Огромное пространство между красным и фиолетовым 😄 Просто радуга начинается на красном и заканчивается фиолетовым - они на краях спектра - и переход чисто физически отсутствует. Но если спетр радуги зациклить в круг или сдвинуть - вы розовый прекрасно увидите.
      И здесь речь не про радугу, а про палитру цветов )

    • @dhskshdksh
      @dhskshdksh Год назад +18

      it’s really interesting because pink is just a weird color category in general. most “pink” colors are really just light red, but there is of course magenta, which is an actual point on the color spectrum, but not as commonly referred to as simply “pink”, so it makes sense why it’s difficult to pinpoint since it’s sort of an awkward label culturally.

    • @victoriaklarissa
      @victoriaklarissa Год назад +10

      @@dhskshdksh I'm a designer so watching this was quite intriguing to me, as people all around the globe categorize "basic" colors that are actually not... Colors (hues) but tones (light/dark, brightness values). I understand people that don't study this are not obligated to know this fact, but it's almost funny to see how humans are confusing in different ways just to be the same in the end (the clusters the video talked about)...

  • @ritwikreddy5670
    @ritwikreddy5670 4 года назад +675

    In my language, yellow and green are seen as two different shades of a single colour which is similar to the colour of a ripe leaf.
    We call green as leaf colour and yellow as turmeric colour.

    • @143kiruba
      @143kiruba 4 года назад +25

      I guess its same for all south indian (dravidian) languages

    • @ihaveagoal4665
      @ihaveagoal4665 2 года назад +2

      @@143kiruba in hindi... it's different for both

    • @orangebeagle3068
      @orangebeagle3068 2 года назад +13

      That makes sense to me. When I was little we would play “Slug bug” in the car and our points of contention were usually about whether a car was more yellow or greenish. My sister would call “slug bug yellow” and I would call “slug bug green” and she’d say “where?” and when I’d point to it she’d say “I already called that one. Slug bug yellow”. I’d say “But it’s not yellow, it’s a yellowish green.” Fun times.

    • @cpt.flamer7184
      @cpt.flamer7184 2 года назад +3

      I mean, this video is very vague, there are so much more to it, for instance the evolution of language is important, in English green and yellow are separated, but this distinction developed pretty recently, in proto-indo european there was only one word for both colours and in different language the distinction occured in different times or sometime it didn't at all. In many cases the word for yellow and the word for green came from the same old word that was used to describe both this colours by our ancestors thousands years ago.
      It's not suprising that some tribes have less colours in their languages, with development of society the numbers of important colours and distinctions between them increase. Sometimes in different way in different places.

    • @Waterpoet1
      @Waterpoet1 2 года назад

      @@orangebeagle3068 We used to say "punch buggy"

  • @mikul9204
    @mikul9204 5 лет назад +1731

    just refer to the colors by their hex value, duh

    • @NMPshadow
      @NMPshadow 5 лет назад +319

      nah, tell them by the wavelength please

    • @firstnamelastname8903
      @firstnamelastname8903 5 лет назад +96

      Binary is much better

    • @thedoublehelix5661
      @thedoublehelix5661 5 лет назад +34

      @@NMPshadow BIG BRAIN

    • @notsogood_nsg
      @notsogood_nsg 5 лет назад +23

      or by their pigment number lol

    • @uandresbrito5685
      @uandresbrito5685 4 года назад +84

      My classmates were once discussing which color was marsala actually, then I just sent them the color in hex definition and won the discussion.
      But then I was kicked out

  • @writerudite
    @writerudite 5 лет назад +3574

    I've always wondered why I can't express our "goluboy" color in English and why I have to call it "blue" when it's not blue. And now I've finally realized...
    P.S. I’m getting dozens of responses so I’d like to clarify one point: it’s not about translation, actually. Indeed, “goluboy” may be called light blue/sky blue/cyan/turquoise/azure, etc. But the key point is that in Russian, we would never say that the sky is blue, because it’s not. It’s about the worldview or something. That’s why, when speaking English, we basically have to replace one colour with another to verbalize the idea of clear skies.

    • @yokami403
      @yokami403 5 лет назад +400

      Call it "light blue" ! In French : "bleu clair", ( it means the same)... Same process for Spanish or German etc...

    • @rosaramirezdearellano9860
      @rosaramirezdearellano9860 5 лет назад +257

      Yokami , light blue in spanish can be "celeste" or "azul claro". The first one is more appropriate, but the second is more used

    • @writerudite
      @writerudite 5 лет назад +240

      Thank you so much, it's very useful as I learn French and Spanish as well. Merci and gracias!

    • @yokami403
      @yokami403 5 лет назад +33

      @@writerudite Pas de problème !

    • @veronicasaitta9688
      @veronicasaitta9688 5 лет назад +76

      In Italian we say azzurro!

  • @true_aureolin
    @true_aureolin Год назад +67

    Also in Russian, the words "kofeynyy" (coffee), "kirpichnyy" (brick) can be used for shades of brown, for green shades -- salatovyy, travyanoy (herbal), izumrudnyy (emerald). Sometimes colors are associated with substances like honey, sand, milk.

    • @jeffkod5549
      @jeffkod5549 Год назад +10

      Yeah, I love it, you see the color and you can describe it with something that contains this color. Bolotnyy color is yellow or green? Probably somewhere in the middle

    • @taylor_green_9
      @taylor_green_9 Год назад +8

      Using comparison for shades happens a lot in Spanish too. It might be universal

    • @iloveuu
      @iloveuu 9 месяцев назад +2

      Кирпичный не используется как цвет, вообще такого никогда не слышала. А про травяной - так только нарик скажет.

    • @iloveuu
      @iloveuu 9 месяцев назад +3

      ​@@jeffkod5549The dark shade of yellowish-green

    • @Тыквус
      @Тыквус 9 месяцев назад +1

      ​@@iloveuuЯ не раз слышал кирпичный, но чаще всего его используют, как синоним к коричневому. Кирпичи имеют множество разных цветов.

  • @yahliamir1
    @yahliamir1 7 лет назад +1840

    I'm wondering if the reason red is so dominant in our mind is related to it being a sign of danger (poisonous animals usually have red or orange tones, fire is red-esque , etc)

    • @yahliamir1
      @yahliamir1 7 лет назад +210

      While blue and green, while being widely present in the environment (plants, sea, sky) are more of a background kind of color which our mind kind of ignores.

    • @khatchiganteblian550
      @khatchiganteblian550 7 лет назад +165

      The reason for that is, that red is Literally stronger than any other visible color. It has the longest wavelength in the visible spectrum and thus, catches our attention the most and the wavelength gets progressively shorter as you continue through the spectrum.That's why colors with shorter wavelengths seem softer or like background colors.

    • @yahliamir1
      @yahliamir1 7 лет назад +43

      Khachig Ainteblian I don't believe this is true, do you know it for a fact? longer wavelength mean less energetic, not more so.
      Also it's worth pointing out that our brain doesn't perceive information like that. our ears don't notice lower pitches best because they have longer wavelength, even though they are more powerful. Our brain focus on the middle range, to better notice human speech.

    • @clairec5830
      @clairec5830 7 лет назад +69

      Khachig Ainteblian Yellow-green is actually the most visible color that the human eye is sensitive to. The human eye is most sensitive to 555nm which we perceive as yellow-green (the color yellow and green is usually where peak sensitivity is at).
      Have you ever seen construction workers wearing fluorescent yellow-green vests? Highlighters?? Even tennis balls!! School busses and yellow fire hydrants are also a prime example of the color yellow being more noticeable to the human eye.

    • @yahliamir1
      @yahliamir1 7 лет назад +7

      claire chen 陳嘉蓮 That makes more sense :) I wonder why yellow? is it a physical property of our eyes or some kind of processing by our brain? perhaps it's related to the color of the sun and natural light here on earth

  • @patrick7-eleven248
    @patrick7-eleven248 4 года назад +246

    What impressed me was that the two linguists were jamming out with a piano and a gut bucket.

    • @Dayvit78
      @Dayvit78 3 года назад +4

      Richard Feynman has entered the chat.

  • @maddie-bw5ue
    @maddie-bw5ue 7 лет назад +137

    You should do a video similar to this about what other languages define as emotions

  • @honeybunch5765
    @honeybunch5765 3 года назад +21

    I once asked a Xhosa lady to teach me some words and colours were part of it. She knew only two or three colours in her language but knew the colours in English. My husband was an electrical technician in the airforce many moons ago. He once trained a Sotho guy and realised the man only knew the basic colours. They had to send him on a colour course so he could actually learn his trade. Now it makes so much sense to me.

  • @lulicastiglia1
    @lulicastiglia1 7 лет назад +808

    my mother language isn't english and I've noticed that people use the word blue to describe both a lighter or a darker shade of the same color. In my language we say the word azul (blue) and celeste (light blue). I didn't know there wasn't a different word for those colors so I used to get so mad at people, I was like aRE YOU BLIND OR WHAT

    • @lulicastiglia1
      @lulicastiglia1 7 лет назад +113

      also some people say turquoise but is a more specific shade of blue

    • @HarryBillyBobGeorge
      @HarryBillyBobGeorge 7 лет назад +142

      lour My mother had a car that was sort of a blue-green, and everyone said it was green and that made me really mad.

    • @mmaantj
      @mmaantj 7 лет назад +57

      I isually just say dark blue / light blue

    • @gitanafox9852
      @gitanafox9852 7 лет назад +36

      Azul marino (navy blue) as well. But then again, In Spanish there are usually a few different ways of saying something. In my country the color "orange" can also be "mamey" which is also a fruit ^_^

    • @Adamus984
      @Adamus984 7 лет назад +33

      in french, and france, especially in elementary school, i learned to distinctively call dark blue : bleu marine, light blue : bleu ciel, and blue (as in middle blue) : bleu, but i think as i mentioned before, it is the same in english, dark blue, light blue, cyan, blue, indigo... etc, its just shades and tones

  • @g.hmusicc
    @g.hmusicc 6 лет назад +2123

    Here’s a kinda-fun-fact of colors in Vietnam that you probably don’t care 🤷‍♂️:
    In Vietnamese, blue and green have the same name, which is “xanh”, BUT, if you add another word after it, it will be different, so, blue in Vietnamese is “xanh DƯƠNG” or “xanh BIỂN” (that word means ocean/beach) and green in Vietnamese í “xanh LÁ” or “xanh LỤC” (i’m not actually quite sure with the second word but the first word means leaf). So that’s how you call the two colors in Vietnamese :)

    • @geekman2000
      @geekman2000 6 лет назад +137

      Many other languages have the same word for "green" and "blue". Linguists describe them using the word "grue".

    • @g.hmusicc
      @g.hmusicc 6 лет назад +67

      GeekMan2000 gruesomely interesting

    • @Tyrant_8053
      @Tyrant_8053 6 лет назад +80

      Xanh, from Thanh, both of which are from 青 in Chinese/Hantu. 青 in Chinese have also originally meant to mean all shades of green, blue and black, but eventually Chinese would evolve words like 綠,藍 and 黑 to describe green, blue and black respectively, which is Luc, Lam and Hac in Vietnamese. Xanh duong is 青洋 (blue ocean), Xanh bien is 青𣷭 (blue sea). Xanh la is 青蘿 (green leaf/plant), Xanh luc is 青綠 (lit. green green).

    • @bsbx
      @bsbx 6 лет назад +37

      G . H we care about it.

    • @g.hmusicc
      @g.hmusicc 6 лет назад +11

      John Balce aw thanks

  • @sbubby8805
    @sbubby8805 7 лет назад +1448

    I actually called the first color "Pantone," and got confused when the next two showed up.

  • @economonstre3136
    @economonstre3136 Год назад +13

    I am from Cote d'Ivoire, the country mentioned at the beginning of the video and i'm very impressed how deep your research have been. You got one more subscriber!

  • @shepatown
    @shepatown 5 лет назад +864

    An infant sees black, white and red initially. Red stands out because of the color of blood - danger. As the cones in the retina of the eyes and the brain synapses develop and process better, then distinct differences in color become apparent when colors of food (fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, nuts, etc.) and associated experiences with those colors are learned. That's why a baby - remembering a sweet purple grape flavored lollipop - may inadvertently place a purple piece of cloth in its mouth. The cones of the retina can distinguish certain frequencies of color. Experience with those frequencies of colors that we process helps us to distinguish between those colors. I remember a study that said seeing the color Pepto-Bismol Pink will help reduce an emotional person's rage (ie: road rage). The reason: Pink is a healthy skin tone color - no red there - so the brains' association of pink goes with calm (no danger). FYI: This info is all conjecture on my part. Just wanted to share what I thought.

    • @conorly4747
      @conorly4747 5 лет назад +4

      This needs more likes :)

    • @nabagaca
      @nabagaca 5 лет назад +23

      I like this theory, but i doesnt explain why the AI's also picked those colours in that order

    • @emmylou-ks1md
      @emmylou-ks1md 5 лет назад +6

      That's true, in fact there are prisons where the walls are painted pink because it's believed to be a way to keep inmates calm and avoid fights

    • @tomatenbomber8830
      @tomatenbomber8830 5 лет назад +2

      Think red warm light is also what you see in the womb

    • @user-tx5vr2lu6e
      @user-tx5vr2lu6e 5 лет назад +9

      @@nabagaca I think it would be better the other way around - the AI showing that red is more distinctive is a theory as to why we could see it first. After all, babies aren't naming colours

  • @brandon-wn8by
    @brandon-wn8by 6 лет назад +2739

    we all know the elements
    dark
    light
    and mostly
    red

  • @permin9533
    @permin9533 5 лет назад +1745

    This is so weird that we, Russians, have a separate word for light blue, making it a basic colour in our language

    • @kwaece857
      @kwaece857 5 лет назад +277

      ouhhhh its like pink

    • @sebastianalejandro481
      @sebastianalejandro481 5 лет назад +194

      Spanish speaking people have a separated word for "light blue" too, and used as a basic color

    • @moraantonparcet4546
      @moraantonparcet4546 5 лет назад +91

      @@sebastianalejandro481 CELESTE

    • @ΌλγαΡούσσου-ρ6ο
      @ΌλγαΡούσσου-ρ6ο 5 лет назад +159

      We, Greeks, too! The color of the Ocean is different from the color of the sky!

    • @annachiara1707
      @annachiara1707 5 лет назад +69

      In Italian it's called azzurro or celeste

  • @BakrAli10
    @BakrAli10 3 года назад +23

    0:18 Basic color categories
    1:40 Color “hierarchy”
    3:46 Color-object comparison
    4:02 Hanuno’o color spectrum
    4:28 Berlin and Kay universal map of color

  • @svgaryaev
    @svgaryaev 4 года назад +683

    In russian purple is not for "purpurnyy", it's for "fioletovyy"

    • @гей_порно
      @гей_порно 4 года назад +47

      Fioletovyy is violet

    • @svgaryaev
      @svgaryaev 4 года назад +197

      @@гей_порно yes it is but first translation for fioletovyy is purple, in russian purpurnyy word is used very rarely

    • @TheQNigma
      @TheQNigma 4 года назад +165

      @@гей_порно Purpurnyy is closer to red on a spectrum. Fioletovyy is in the middle between blue and red. I think, in this video, fioletovyy is more accurate. Or it could be sirenevi.

    • @artemmentiy7107
      @artemmentiy7107 4 года назад +15

      Не, ну тебе надо было докопаться? Лично мне кажется, что сиреневый, пурпурный и фиолетовый - оттенки purple. Purple это нечто среднее

    • @svgaryaev
      @svgaryaev 4 года назад +102

      @@artemmentiy7107 пурпурный и фиолетовый - официальные переводы слова purple, вот только среди основных цветов спектра есть фиолетовый, но нет пурпурного, спроси у радуги

  • @willg3376
    @willg3376 7 лет назад +1199

    Yay I love being color blind watching a video about colors

    • @oli.4409
      @oli.4409 6 лет назад +15

      William Genitempo I have a question, you know how some stuff people say they taste "green" (idk how to formulate my question so I hope you get where I am trying to go)

    • @bigboy6191
      @bigboy6191 6 лет назад +18

      They have a new glass you can use to see colours

    • @Ggdivhjkjl
      @Ggdivhjkjl 6 лет назад +19

      @William, same here mate!
      @green alien, those glasses are more a way of tricking the eyes and brain. They can't actually rectify the internal problem which is due to the shape of the cones in one's eyes.

    • @FireflyJuu
      @FireflyJuu 6 лет назад +9

      Livie It's called synesthesia

    • @NovaStorm93
      @NovaStorm93 6 лет назад +44

      Person: Tells someone they are colorblind
      95% of people: *points to an object * *what color is this???*
      5% Oh cool

  • @johnnysimpson135
    @johnnysimpson135 5 лет назад +1726

    blue was scarce before the industrial revolution *ignores the sky*

    • @macaroon_nuggets8008
      @macaroon_nuggets8008 5 лет назад +26

      No they said before manufacturing

    • @logandaugherty492
      @logandaugherty492 5 лет назад +93

      But it wasn’t important to name the sky really

    • @Oceaan25
      @Oceaan25 5 лет назад +197

      Yeah, if almost nothing was blue except for the sky you dont have to give that color a name since it's tied to the sky (which everyone would know) and anything with the same color would probably be 'skycolor' or you point up and say "this color".

    • @Jukajobs
      @Jukajobs 5 лет назад +62

      yeah, but when you only have the sky as a blue thing, you just have your word for "sky" and that's what you use. you don't need a color-word for it. and if you had the ocean or a river that was often blue, it was still only two things, so it made more sense to name those specific things than the color they are. you only need more words for colors when you need to describe things to others, and you wouldn't really have to describe the sky to anyone. and if you wanted to describe a body of water, then you'd focus more on its shape and possibly content (fish, mud, stones, plants, whatever else) than on what water looks like, because most people would already know what water looks like. so one specific word for that color would just seem unnecessary.

    • @psiphyre
      @psiphyre 5 лет назад +48

      The sky is always changing colour (depending on the time of day/night & weather, amongst other things) & as such is useless as an archetype for any colour...

  • @IRosamelia
    @IRosamelia 4 года назад +29

    I did my graduation paper about the history of the Kuna natives in the border between Panamá and Colombia and thought it was intriguing they didn't have a name for "green" or "blue" in their language. To them, the color of leaves and the sky was just a background dark or light color by default 🌳🌬🌿

  • @microcosmonauta
    @microcosmonauta 7 лет назад +351

    “To the natives, Greenblue is a pure color, primordial almost, undifferentiated by a nature that refuses to divide them. The Aztecs referred to the sea as ‘Celestial Water’ because they pondered that the ‘Green Sea’ melted with the ‘Blue Sky’ across a channel in the horizon.” (Eulalio Ferrer Rodríguez, 2000)

    • @Manas-co8wl
      @Manas-co8wl 7 лет назад +2

      In other words it wasn't a color, more like a universal holiness like brightness of light or darkness of night.

  • @denpadolt9242
    @denpadolt9242 7 лет назад +294

    The fascinating thing about this is that even before humans, you can find signs of colour hierarchy. For instance, the bacteria in the "The sun is a deadly lazer" times of Earth could detect different "colours" with primitive light-sensitive chemicals. The bacteria also knew only two colours: Light, which meant danger, and dark, which meant safety.

    • @thegivingtree887
      @thegivingtree887 7 лет назад +49

      Waddle Derp THE SUN IS A DEADLY LASER

    • @lucaswhitfield718
      @lucaswhitfield718 7 лет назад +56

      Can we go on land? NO. why not? THE SUN IS A DEADLY LASER.

    • @lucifer4263
      @lucifer4263 6 лет назад +32

      Lucas Whitfield Not anymore, there‘s a blanket.

    • @Mernom
      @Mernom 6 лет назад +5

      That's not really color sensitivity, but general light sensitivity.

    • @stan_dinghere
      @stan_dinghere 6 лет назад +1

      thast so wild how do the scientists know this?? did they go back n ask??

  • @Vyrkhan
    @Vyrkhan 7 лет назад +1337

    I'm color blind but I'm still watching a video about color names for the same color!! :)

    • @Vyrkhan
      @Vyrkhan 7 лет назад +44

      Hilarious!

    • @simonjohnson4969
      @simonjohnson4969 7 лет назад +13

      Vyrkhan SAME!

    • @typhoonzebra
      @typhoonzebra 7 лет назад +6

      pro, deutro or tri?

    • @seabb
      @seabb 7 лет назад +3

      Vyrkhan Can you distinguish colors from eachother?

    • @hichambekkali8781
      @hichambekkali8781 7 лет назад +8

      Same here ! I was sure I was not the only one. Ahah

  • @peachykeen3744
    @peachykeen3744 2 года назад +30

    I remember learning in my linguistic class in college that some Native American/Alaskan tribes had multiple words for blue to explain the ocean, ice, rivers, ponds, etc. It's been so long ago I can't remember

    • @Pollicina_db
      @Pollicina_db Год назад +5

      I also heard te inuit people have many words for white to distinguish thin and bulky ice

  • @xalxvx
    @xalxvx 4 года назад +821

    Vox : “Red is the most distinct color”
    red-green colorblind people : 👁👄👁

  • @nedisahonkey
    @nedisahonkey 7 лет назад +2624

    This is false. In soviet Russia we have only two colors. Red and Grey. All other colors are bourgeois propaganda.

    • @muralikumar6290
      @muralikumar6290 7 лет назад +50

      Ned Gold Lol...😂😂😂 pure gold

    • @alexolas1246
      @alexolas1246 7 лет назад +46

      On another topic, if the amount of dedicated color words a language has is an indicator of how "civilized" that culture is, wouldn't that mean Russians are objectively superior to us Angloes?

    • @MrCrashDavi
      @MrCrashDavi 7 лет назад +1

      +

    • @nedisahonkey
      @nedisahonkey 7 лет назад +23

      la .alEksolas. Russians are greatest nation, we can first into space AND kill nazis.

    • @alexolas1246
      @alexolas1246 7 лет назад +8

      Btw, since Russians think of what I'll call "cyan" (which 0:26 says you guys call "siniy", but someone else in these comments said that siniy and goluboy are actually reversed in that chart) as being an independent color rather than a special kind of blue, then what colors are the sky and water in Russian?

  • @bahbcat
    @bahbcat 7 лет назад +699

    Red is Nature's warning color. Survival makes it most important.

    • @bahbcat
      @bahbcat 7 лет назад +7

      I'm intending to show insects and plants tell you, and snakes and frogs too, don't eat me color is red.

    • @Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh
      @Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh 7 лет назад +2

      nature evolved to have red as a warning BECAUSE it is so widely perceived by animals and humans, not the other way around!

    • @bahbcat
      @bahbcat 7 лет назад +15

      Works both ways. Evolution is not a "because" thing. You cannot prove a direction because there isn't any. It IS widely perceived because animals that used it as warning and those who perceived the warning "agreed" that it works. The ability to create red is what made it a useable pigment. 3 perceivable colors (cones on retina). Green would not work, becasuse of chlorophyl. Blue would not work because of light scattering in atmospshere, and reflecting in water (etc). Red got used because the others would not work.

    • @antiawarenessawarenessclub
      @antiawarenessawarenessclub 7 лет назад

      Ok but what about the computers?

    • @Ggdivhjkjl
      @Ggdivhjkjl 6 лет назад +3

      As a colourblind man, I see your two 'red' berries and eat the brown one ;)

  • @adityasshukla
    @adityasshukla 6 месяцев назад +3

    Fundamental words to describe colours in Hindi, my native language.
    1. Kaala/Shyam - Black
    2. Safed/Shwet - White
    3. Laal - Red
    4. Hara - Green
    5. Peela - Yellow
    6. Neela - Blue
    7. Bhoora - Brown
    8. Bhagva - Ochre
    Colours derived from other objects (but are colours of significance in India).
    8. Gulabi - Pink (trans. like rose)
    9. Narangi - Orange (trans. like orange fruit)
    10. Baingani - Purple (trans. like eggplant)
    11. Dhusar/Saleti - Grey (trans. like dust/slate)
    12. Jaamuni - Violet (trans. like Indian blackberry)
    13. Firoza - Turquoise (trans. like turquoise stone)
    14. Khaki - Light tan (trans. like soil)
    15. Katthai - Maroonish brown (trans. like Indian acacia)

  • @joseantonioortizsanchezpri1931
    @joseantonioortizsanchezpri1931 4 года назад +172

    1:40 Color "Hierarchy"
    3:46 Color-object comparison
    4:02 Hanuno'o color spectrum
    4:28 Berlin and Kay universal map of color

    • @lindseyrhone1407
      @lindseyrhone1407 3 года назад

      😇💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓👨‍🎓😋

    • @lindseyrhone1407
      @lindseyrhone1407 3 года назад

      567890ffbgggggbhh b gggyfr5 f Dr tddrr

    • @lindseyrhone1407
      @lindseyrhone1407 3 года назад

      Andrlk

  • @belgiffle2260
    @belgiffle2260 5 лет назад +328

    So i just dyed my brown hair purple and blue, *it's called kpe*

  • @00droo00
    @00droo00 7 лет назад +184

    青 means both “blue” and “green” in Japanese. In the olden days it was used interchangeably, but nowadays 青 tends to mean blue and 緑 green. However they still describe stop lights today as 青 rather than 緑

    • @MrMoOomoOo91
      @MrMoOomoOo91 6 лет назад +3

      Seriously dude? Did you thought for a moment that we can understand these things?

    • @UnmereMortal
      @UnmereMortal 6 лет назад +4

      Because ao or blue has less syllables then midori or green. So it’s kind of a short cut. You ask any person what color is this with a picture of green they will say midori and never ever say ao. If you show them blue and ask what color it is they will always say ao. It’s a shortcut.

    • @stevejohnston3194
      @stevejohnston3194 6 лет назад +9

      NHK TV in Japan in the :Choko-san in Shikareta" program broadcast last week explained WHY 青 means both “blue” and “green” in Japanese in traffic lights. This comes from a single newspaper article describing the first stop light in Japan, located in Hibiya, central Tokyo. The newspaper article stated that the color was 青 (blue). In those days the photos were all black-white, so nobody knew the difference, and the general public repeated what they were told, that traffic lights included the color blue. Somehow this has continued to this day, even though everyone knows that the color is green. You see similar cultural attributes for the color of the sun, which some cultures describe as "red" (Japan and Russia, for example), some describe as "yellow" (US and England, for example), and many describe as "white". Human eyes are adapted for sunlight, so the light of the sun a noon naturally is seen as "white", but the official color changes according to culture.

    • @OP-lk4tw
      @OP-lk4tw 6 лет назад +1

      I don't get it, what's the point of naming two different colors the same? Confusing people or what? The sky and the grass doesn't have the same color, therefore the sky and the grass shouldn't be named as 青 when referring to the color.

    • @OP-lk4tw
      @OP-lk4tw 6 лет назад

      Oh I read your comment now, so it all comes from a missunderstanding..

  • @deborahchasteen3206
    @deborahchasteen3206 17 дней назад

    It's lovely that the photo of Brent Berlin is of his playing piano. I worked in the University of Georgia's anthropology department, and each year he gave us a recording of his playing. He was wonderful.

  • @ari2644
    @ari2644 5 лет назад +496

    humans : create names for colors
    also humans : y did we create these names for these colors

    • @uprktk
      @uprktk 4 года назад +1

      We just forgot it while we've been doing it

  • @yuzutapo
    @yuzutapo 7 лет назад +51

    @vox could also include some notes on the neuroscience of perception. The way eyes/brains digest colour may rely on the following (in order of simplicity):
    1. Contrast (thus, black/white)
    2. Color processing pathways: the color-perceiving cone cells are attuned to light/dark, red/green, blue/yellow; perhaps why these contrasts develop in language first.
    3. Hue/Luminosity/Saturation interactions (due to the structure of the light spectrum and our visuo-neural pathways, 'red' appears bright, very saturated and NOT washed out. Green/yellow are bright but are so close to white that they can appear less saturated and therefore seem to have less contrast. Blue/purple are the darkest colors, and closest to black.)
    4. Salience (red is blood/dirt - red is also poison/food/fire: all things dangerous or important for survival and, importantly, typically rare! Green/yellow are found plentifully in the environment and often don't connote danger, thus don't command attention as much. Blue/purple are rare naturally except in the sky - and a blue sky rarely signifies much regarding immediate danger/reward. Purples are extremely rare anywhere.)
    5. Cultural Amplification of the Above

  • @Kiwikick238
    @Kiwikick238 5 лет назад +161

    I love topics like these that connects how human minds work as a whole even across the world.

  • @AashishKumar-ff4sh
    @AashishKumar-ff4sh Месяц назад +1

    In Telugu, the word "paccha rangu" is used to describe both yellow and green. However, to specify the color green, the term "aaku paccha" is used, where "aaku" translates to "leaf," highlighting the leaf-green shade associated with the color.

  • @Ghostofthegallow
    @Ghostofthegallow 5 лет назад +205

    Me: 'art student who has spent years learning colours and colour theory" *WELP* "throws out paint"

    • @gorillaglued
      @gorillaglued 4 года назад +3

      black is a nice colour huh?

    • @Delgen1951
      @Delgen1951 3 года назад

      @@gorillaglued Black and white goes with most things.

  • @hod-avb
    @hod-avb 5 лет назад +522

    In Turkish the color “brown” is said “the color of coffee”

    • @mimikal7548
      @mimikal7548 5 лет назад +3

      Maybe the people who did the survey were from those locations?

    • @djarmy1994
      @djarmy1994 5 лет назад +6

      In Mexico too.

    • @logandaugherty492
      @logandaugherty492 5 лет назад +12

      I wonder which came first for orange in English: the fruit or the color?

    • @jennyarachovity5404
      @jennyarachovity5404 5 лет назад +5

      in greek too

    • @bngbng4068
      @bngbng4068 5 лет назад +13

      I'm Bulgarian and in our language It works in the same way - ''kafyavo'' (lit. ''coffee-like''). Albanian seems to do It too. It's the Balkan sprachbund in action.

  • @sivad1025
    @sivad1025 6 лет назад +537

    I love how the "Blue wasn't common before manufacturing" line has incited many comments. But all of them reference the sky and sea (which is ironically colorless). I think this unintentionally proves his point seeing we can only come up with two things.

    • @IsomerMashups
      @IsomerMashups 6 лет назад +41

      But those two things are everywhere.

    • @leonardodavinci4259
      @leonardodavinci4259 6 лет назад +71

      @@IsomerMashups Yes, and things that are everywhere, like oxygen, fade into the background. For a color to be deserving of a name, it needs to manifest itself in as many *distinct* objects it can.

    • @girlgamer4444
      @girlgamer4444 6 лет назад +23

      @@leonardodavinci4259 what? Except when you look up you can see the blue of what we call sky and you can't see oxygen. Oxygen doesn't fade into the background because it's everywhere, it fades into the background because you can't detect it with your eyes.

    • @leonardodavinci4259
      @leonardodavinci4259 6 лет назад +19

      @@girlgamer4444 Fair point. My analogue was perhaps lacking.
      Thought I believe my point still stands.

    • @girlgamer4444
      @girlgamer4444 6 лет назад +9

      @@leonardodavinci4259 yea your point was fair but adding a stupid example can make the whole argument seem stupid.

  • @iceman10129
    @iceman10129 2 года назад +1

    Sharing this with my animation team tomorrow as we have artists from all over the world. So cool!

  • @hidazip
    @hidazip 6 лет назад +349

    Here are some colors in Japanese.
    yellow kiiro(or yellow)
    blue ao(or blue)
    indigo-blue aiiro
    purple murasaki(or purple)
    pink pinku(or momoiro)
    red aka(or reddo)
    orange orange(or daidai)
    brown brown(or brown)
    black kuro(or blacku)
    gray haiiro(or grey)
    white shiro(or white)
    The vocabularies in our language are becoming more and more English.
    More and more languages are imported and vocabularies are replaced in Japanese.
    What we used to call "Keitai-denwa" are now "Smartphone(スマートフォン)".
    We don't have a original Japanese word for "card" So we just say card(カード) .
    We don't say "zubon" anymore. We say "pants".
    There are even words that were changed like paso-com(short for personal computer)and it's on the dictionary.
    "I bought pants at the department store with my credit card" will be like
    "デパートメントストアでパンツをクレジットカードで買った"
    "department store de pants wo credit card de katta" in english this will be like
    "department store at pants the credit card with bought" (yes everything is backwards)
    Pronunciations are different from that of in english, but I feel like we are abandoning our language.
    Maybe it's our nature to do so. We have 2 alphabets (and a bunch of Chinese characters) and one of it, which is called Katakana, is used to make a foreign word into Japanese.
    For example: Eng:pants→JP:パンツ(pronounsed pantsu)
    Why did I even write this here. Maybe I'm just tired. So longaybowser!

    • @DylanBeaupeurt
      @DylanBeaupeurt 6 лет назад +5

      It's a bit strange. I once saw a sign that said "リーズナブル・プライス".

    • @StarlitLilies
      @StarlitLilies 5 лет назад +21

      This increased integration of English words into the Japanese lexicon has actually made it harder on me, as someone learning Japanese, because I actually sometimes find it more difficult to read English words in Katakana (and determine where one word begins and ends) than to just read the actual Japanese word for it. Idk, that's just a weird quirk of mine.

    • @munjunchan
      @munjunchan 5 лет назад +9

      I'm a Chinese, and I think it is a shame that Japanese are stop using Kanji or Japanese words making new words (for example, 携帯電話), they just adopt English pronounciation(Katakana)

    • @emanando138
      @emanando138 5 лет назад +7

      isn’t hiragana, katakana and kanji? i’ve tried learning japanese but with the “old family” speaking the 1980’s dialect and my parents/younger family knowing the 1990’s alterations, is HARD!! my dad knows kanji and i’ve given up on trying that, even tho i want to learn it because is so beautiful! katakana is like my crutch and even then, i know 0.001% )-:
      thanks for this whole big comment!

    • @ikaramelya
      @ikaramelya 5 лет назад +10

      It's also weird because
      Chairo (brown) means color of tea
      Barairo (pink) means color of flower
      Hairo (grey) color of ashes

  • @harshmnr
    @harshmnr 7 лет назад +532

    Some thoughts (warning: this is long, but personally I think it's worth it to read it):
    1. Most people separate their laundry into darks, lights, and reds. And I know that's mainly so the colors don't bleed too much but hey who's to say we couldn't separate our laundry into blue-ish colors, yellow-ish colors, and reddish colors? But we still do darks, lights, and reds. So I wonder if the black, white, red thing mentioned in the video has developed in other societies in ways like that.
    2. I've heard of some tribal language in Africa where they don't have specific words for numbers. They only have words for a lot, a little, more than, less than, and so on. So that kinda reminded me of this, and I wonder if there's any sort of language pattern for numbers and stuff like that across world languages.
    3. When it was talking about the language that only had a few specific color words but had other words that coresponded to common objects that had that color, it reminded me of color words in Japanese; basically way way back in the day, the Japanese didn't have words for gray, pink, or orange. (The majority of the lastly-developed colors in societies as mentioned in the video.) If they wanted to describe something that was gray, they said ねずみ色 (pronounced nezumi iro, which translates to "mouse color") and if they wanted to describe something pink they would say 桃色 (pronounced momo iro and translating to "peach color"). Also correct me if you know more about this but for orange (I knew the ones for gray and pink already but I had to look up the old word for orange so correct me if I'm wrong) they said 橙色 (daidai iro) which actually translates somewhat to "orange color". However, nowadays, they usually say グレイ、ピンク、and オレンジ or オレンジ色, which are pronounced "gurei", "pinku", and "orenji" or "orenji iro", which are all pronounced like the English words for those colors, so I guess they developed more as their language was influenced by other cultures.
    4. Lastly, I am grapheme synesthetic, meaning I relate things like numbers and letters to colors. Synesthesia is very rare but I was wondering if people who live in a region or speak a language where less focus is put on varying types of colors have less of a chance of having color-linked synesthesia of any sort, or if there is any link like that. I mean as far as I know, if you have synesthesia, you're just born with it, but maybe people who have the grapheme form and speak languages where there are fewer color groupings don't realize that they have it, because they don't think about separating colors into such specific groups and applying them to such big groups like letters or numbers. (By the way I'm not trying to say that would make them stupid or anything; it's just a random neuroscience-y question.)
    If you survived this far through my nerd freak-out session, congratulations, you get a gold star. Thank you and good day. And please reply with any other thoughts!!
    ~:~

    • @nihilistictrash3034
      @nihilistictrash3034 7 лет назад +22

      what i find really funny is that we are shook that they call blue sky cause that's its color but fail to notice that orange is called orange because that's the color of the fruit,,,,,

    • @harshmnr
      @harshmnr 7 лет назад +28

      nihilistic trash Ha ha yeah, but maybe that begs the question of "Which came first, orange the color or orange the fruit?" I mean I don't know, most likely they would have said something along the lines of, "This fruit is called an orange and we don't have any other word for the color of this fruit so we're just gonna call that color orange," but hey maybe they were like, "Okay this is the color orange and we don't have a name for this fruit but it's the same color as the color we call orange so why don't we call it an orange?" I mean who's idea was it to call a fly a fly? These are the questions, people...
      Anyway I'm just overanalyzing stuff for fun. Thanks for your comment. :)
      ~:~

    • @jeremiahsmith4581
      @jeremiahsmith4581 7 лет назад +21

      That was an interesting read, and after this video it really does make you realize how much of the categories we've made and accustomed ourselves to really is just a big spectrum. And circumstance just has it that we divided it in certain ways depending on our environment and biology etc. Like number systems being based on the number of fingers we have, to how we divide colors. It can be so hard to break out of these categories that we've made, it seems absurd and just not normal to not have a word for blue or having a 12 based number system because that's what we're used to. But then that black and white, then red, yellow etc. really does make sense when you think about it and how that might've came to be.

    • @harshmnr
      @harshmnr 7 лет назад +5

      Jeremiah Smith Thank you! :) And yeah that's a good point about how we think that way largely just because of how we're made, and who knows, there's probably even more things like this that different cultures have developed in different ways that we don't even notice.
      ~:~

    • @latinmonsieur
      @latinmonsieur 7 лет назад +9

      Regarding your second point, the language without numbers isn’t in Africa, it’s a tribal language in south america in the amazon called Piraha

  • @toddles9
    @toddles9 7 лет назад +246

    Similarly, in the Middle Ages, we didn't have individual names for all colours like we do today. Colours tended to be named after their shades. So purple, would have been called blue, orange would have been called red etc.
    This is the reason we call people with orange hair redheads.

    • @StephanFitzgeraldTay
      @StephanFitzgeraldTay 7 лет назад +23

      Until the naranga tree (orange tree) came from Asia, the general term for orange was "yellow-red" in many languages.

    • @Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh
      @Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh 7 лет назад +8

      pyropulse, interestingly, I think for the Romans and Babylonians the word "purple" was a word that referred to the dye or animal, not to the color exclusively, which would make it not pass the movie's definition. just guessing

    • @laurenbi
      @laurenbi 7 лет назад +11

      pyropulse Chill. The whole point of the video is this is that as a language/culture grows and evolves it gains more color terms. The Romans were ahead of that English base language, whatever it’s called

    • @matthieuchristian500
      @matthieuchristian500 7 лет назад +1

      wrong. please read Pastoureau :)

    • @MineRoyale.
      @MineRoyale. 6 лет назад +6

      Just because a term exists, doesn't mean it's going to be commonly used in the vernacular.
      I mean, you don't USUALLY call things maroon, or cinnabar, do you?

  • @Snow-ej5fm
    @Snow-ej5fm 3 года назад +6

    i did not even know that about the colours in the philippines! but now that i’m breaking it down,, it makes sense.
    we have our own words for red (pula) and black (itim, also meaning dark) but our words for blue (asul) and pink (rosas) come from spanish words.

  • @quentinle4892
    @quentinle4892 7 лет назад +4080

    In my native language, Vietnamese, we consider blue and green to be shades of the same color. To distinguish between the two, you have to qualify it by saying "sea color" or "plant color".
    On a random note, we have two words with crabs. It's interesting to see where a language and people's priorities lie.

    • @alsoandanswer
      @alsoandanswer 7 лет назад +189

      well, if you were on a fishing boat for 75% of your life, you would probably need to distinguish species of fish more often than colors

    • @manhphuc4335
      @manhphuc4335 7 лет назад +39

      Sonoma Calling! We also have plenty weird ways to describe yellow so yeah, and the word father in some of out dialects is the word bug in others so yeah language is weird.

    • @AiurMedia
      @AiurMedia 7 лет назад +8

      so jungle just blend in the sky ... interesting

    • @mkd2839
      @mkd2839 7 лет назад +72

      Yang It doesn't work like that. To us those are 2 different colors, we just use the same word for it. So to distinguish we add objects in front, like plant, sea, sky, etc

    • @mkd2839
      @mkd2839 7 лет назад +44

      Yang It's the same as English, where until recently orange is a shade of red

  • @paddyquinlan3329
    @paddyquinlan3329 7 лет назад +36

    Interesting, I recall Jack White of the white stripes telling an interviewer that he chose the red, white and black colour scheme for the band because they are the most powerful and impactful colours.

  • @лісрук
    @лісрук 4 года назад +76

    I've just realized that russian "rozovyy" comes from "rose", so it's quite comparative. However, we don't use it as "the color of rose", it's just a fun-fact from etymology.

    • @Ssscherbak
      @Ssscherbak 4 года назад +8

      In German language there is also the word "rosa" for the 🌹 as for the colour

    • @johnvarley4561
      @johnvarley4561 4 года назад +10

      Similar to 'orange' in English. Orange is the fruit which the colour probably derived it's name from
      Also violet, like the flower.

    • @jeffkod5549
      @jeffkod5549 Год назад +1

      У нас если читать последние 2 буквы это ЫЙ или ИЙ в английском проще YY, КРАСНЫЙ - KRASNYY, почему не IY, а YY интересно

    • @iloveuu
      @iloveuu 9 месяцев назад +1

      Хочешь прикол в том же духе? Разбери слово наслаждаться.
      На-*СЛАЖ*-даться
      От слова сладкий.

    • @palomaroggeri8680
      @palomaroggeri8680 7 месяцев назад +4

      Its actually the same thing in Portuguese! The word for pink is “the color of rose”, how interesting

  • @graham6525
    @graham6525 5 лет назад +122

    This is why I love language so much! Learning another language gives you a different insight into life elsewhere!

    • @Paloloeq
      @Paloloeq 2 года назад

      i think that's absolutely true

  • @jdngo
    @jdngo 4 года назад +6

    Did you know that in Vietnam, "màu xanh" both means blue and green. They are diffrenciated by adding "dương" for blue and "lá cây"/"lá" (which means leaf) for green. So: màu xanh dương is blue and màu xanh lá is green

  • @ileanek4565
    @ileanek4565 7 лет назад +739

    Guys, you mixed up Siniy and Goluboy on Russian scheme. They should switch places. Source: am from Russia
    Edit: Vox fixed it up!

    • @nedisahonkey
      @nedisahonkey 7 лет назад +41

      Cheeki breeki?

    • @kiky.mp4
      @kiky.mp4 7 лет назад +51

      cyka blyat?

    • @ileanek4565
      @ileanek4565 7 лет назад +33

      Ned Gold i v damki?

    • @nedisahonkey
      @nedisahonkey 7 лет назад +1

      Ileane Against The Wall Marry me? You'd fit in perfectly in my town that is like over half Russian or Ukrainian.

    • @saamohod
      @saamohod 7 лет назад +4

      Ты из Бурятии?

  • @soundlyawake
    @soundlyawake 5 лет назад +505

    I’m an idiot. It took me 5 minutes into the video to realize this wasn’t about people’s names like Scarlet, Jade, Violet, etc. 😶

    • @cloudedthought5
      @cloudedthought5 4 года назад +17

      yeah, same! Straight up thought that

    • @IndellableHatesHandles
      @IndellableHatesHandles 4 года назад +10

      Huh?

    • @jillfanning749
      @jillfanning749 4 года назад +1

      Yeah, I thought that that was what this was about too

    • @privaterizk4936
      @privaterizk4936 4 года назад +1

      @@IndellableHatesHandles
      Read this comment again, then read the title of this video.

    • @Kromiball
      @Kromiball 4 года назад +11

      I don't understand how you would mess that up.

  • @voldystrobo2468
    @voldystrobo2468 4 года назад +139

    -"Blue was rare before industrial revolution"
    -Sky: "Am i a joke to you?"
    -Violets: "You guys got colors?"

    • @syweb2
      @syweb2 3 года назад +5

      Where else would it be outside of the sky? Certainly nothing especially tangible and common.

    • @80sabrosa
      @80sabrosa 3 года назад +2

      The sky isn't blue all the time.

    • @Delgen1951
      @Delgen1951 3 года назад

      hay Violet's they used you before blue.

  • @ericchengtv3506
    @ericchengtv3506 2 года назад +2

    3:52 - If colors that’re named after objects aren’t considered basic color words, why is “orange” a basic color word in English? Orange the color is named after the fruit.

  • @nightrous3026
    @nightrous3026 6 лет назад +264

    Blue is the rarest pigment in nature. (Even when you look at the sky(thats not a pigment)) There is only one butterfly that has a blue pigment. The other "blue" butterflys have microscopic structures on their scales that actually refract light in a way so that only blue light comes back out. Blue can be harvested from only two places i know of. Yes there are blue flowers but ive never seen them wild before. Myssels, and some plant native to california. Green is the most abundant color in nature (plants). With red being the second most abundant(blood). Brown after that because of tree trunks, dirt, "waste".
    Hope youve learned something interesting from this. Have a good day whoever reads this!

    • @Merecir
      @Merecir 6 лет назад +14

      And yet, humans have blue eyes.

    • @VaasMontenegro12
      @VaasMontenegro12 6 лет назад +21

      Isaac Westawski I don't think blood is more common than dirt...

    • @miyacao2015
      @miyacao2015 6 лет назад +3

      Isaac Westawski what about blue minerals?

    • @NinaNooneknows
      @NinaNooneknows 6 лет назад +24

      There are definitely a lot of different blue flowers! Forget-me-nots are objectively blue, and there are some anemones (of the flower kind) that are blue or indigo (which I would call dark blue or violet depending on hue honestly, but I admit to realising you may think differently). At least one more that I can see in our backyard as a wild flower comes to mind that's indigo-ish, but I don't know what it's called. And that's just the natural ones that are common right where I live!

    • @Guizambaldi
      @Guizambaldi 6 лет назад +16

      If the sky during day is blue, it is abundant. Who cares if it is a pigment or not? So a random person looking at the horizon during the day would see blue, green and brown. How can you say something is not abundant if it accounts for half of the horizon of a person? And at night he would see mostly black.
      The only explanation I can come of is that ancients called blue "light", and black "dark". For whatever reason green and red was not considered light, but a color of its own.

  • @jivanjovan
    @jivanjovan 7 лет назад +941

    5:25 "Blue is fairly scarce"
    *sees sky and ocean

    • @brandonvistan7444
      @brandonvistan7444 7 лет назад +143

      Conspiracy Theory: There wasn't an ocean or sky before Mark Zuckerberg and his lizardman army.

    • @Tina06019
      @Tina06019 7 лет назад +112

      Maybe the blue of the sky is just seen as a neutral background, therefore needing no description.
      Living, as I do, in New England, I see the ocean as “dark.”

    • @supremeleader6867
      @supremeleader6867 6 лет назад +17

      The sky is black it's just that the sun reflects on the sky giving it a blue color when it's night it shows its real color sin e the sun isn't there

    • @FlameRat_YehLon
      @FlameRat_YehLon 6 лет назад +21

      In ancient Chinese, those are described to be either white (苍, azure) or green (青, teal/cyan).
      In fact, anything from almost yellow-ish green (newborn grass), to pure blue (navy blue I guess, also the color of a plant-based blue dye) is considered "green". Maybe there just isn't a need to separate them apart.

    • @hirokokueh3541
      @hirokokueh3541 6 лет назад +3

      nope, 青 in ancient Chinese means blue here, in Japanese and Chinese, green and blue were the same (青), till modern days Chinese use a new word for green, and Japanese use another word for blue.

  • @TheRisky9
    @TheRisky9 4 года назад +765

    Me: How do you go through life with just three words for all the colors?
    Inuits: How do you go through life with just one word for snow?

    • @DasAntiNaziBroetchen
      @DasAntiNaziBroetchen 4 года назад +88

      The Inuit thing is actually not true. They combine words similar to German and ppl use that to make the claim they have a ton of words for snow.

    • @yitzakIr
      @yitzakIr 4 года назад +8

      Sleet

    • @ringofasho7721
      @ringofasho7721 4 года назад +15

      Many plains indian tribes had hundreds of words for horses. A tall, old, skinny, bay horse may have a name of its own. While a 2 year old, grey, stallion with a black tail and white mane could have its own name. Inuits:snow::Native plains tribes:horses.

    • @FlushGorgon
      @FlushGorgon 4 года назад +7

      @@ringofasho7721 Smells fishy to me. They didn't even have horses before the Iberian palefaces rode them in.

    • @ringofasho7721
      @ringofasho7721 4 года назад +3

      @@FlushGorgon just look it up if you dont believe it. And I didn't say they've had hundreds of horse words for thousands of years, I'm well aware that Europeans brought the horses. I remember trying to learn Caddo and thinking they have entirely too many names for horses. Btw, horses were in America before people ever crossed the land bridge and hunted them out. Same thing with camels (which had their origins in America, and migrated out to Asia)

  • @BellamyCatherine
    @BellamyCatherine 4 года назад +1

    One of the most special documentaries I've ever seen. Thank you for the topic. 🙏🏻

  • @tatemartinis1262
    @tatemartinis1262 7 лет назад +528

    When your colorblind and you have no idea what they're talking about.

    • @robiniekiller45
      @robiniekiller45 7 лет назад +4

      Hehe

    • @fex144
      @fex144 7 лет назад +48

      Tate; First came dark gray, then light gray. Then gray blood, gray dirt and, then gray wheat, until at the end we come to the frilly gray of princess dresses. Easy.

    • @Poilko666
      @Poilko666 7 лет назад +15

      fex144 Im pretty sure that color blind people still see some colors and not only gray

    • @ulilulable
      @ulilulable 7 лет назад +6

      When your cant spell and need to use their grammar. :p

    • @88marome
      @88marome 7 лет назад +6

      There are many different types and degrees of colour blindness.
      People with monochromatic vision can only see shades of gray.

  • @ellie_bells4988
    @ellie_bells4988 5 лет назад +148

    Me-i think all primary colors now are
    Red
    White
    Black
    There you go kids your primary colors

    • @MrDonut-ch8dr
      @MrDonut-ch8dr 5 лет назад

      No

    • @spiderduckpig
      @spiderduckpig 4 года назад

      Red, White, and Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms

    • @velnz5475
      @velnz5475 4 года назад

      they were for the ancient egyptains, more specifically... red and black. Referring to the silt type, black silt being near the nile delta creating the best farmland and red being the desert that protects them from both sides.

  • @PossibleBat
    @PossibleBat 5 лет назад +134

    Well, blue is the rarest color in nature, due to its unique structure, most things are "not blue”. They reflect the blue part of light, blue as a pigment is even more rare, I find it fascinating, what about an insight on blue for another video?

    • @drieshuybens4594
      @drieshuybens4594 5 лет назад +9

      Sky?

    • @crismorgan6756
      @crismorgan6756 5 лет назад +9

      Sky? Blue Ocean? Maybe as pigment Is rare but It Is not rare at all in nature.

    • @dyetaa
      @dyetaa 5 лет назад +18

      @@crismorgan6756 Once you learn color theory and observational skills,you ll actually see that the sky is a very desaturated blue,so it is rare,it isn t blue ,just a gray with a tint of blue.

    • @kazuo398
      @kazuo398 5 лет назад

      What about birds and some insects?

    • @dyetaa
      @dyetaa 5 лет назад +1

      @@kazuo398 Well,those birds with amazing colors including blue are quite rare.Idk about insects

  • @EAGLEBLACKInquisido
    @EAGLEBLACKInquisido 2 года назад

    I really loved this video and learned a lot from it.
    Just a little bit of correction there: "Rosado" isn't the name of the color pink per se, that would be "Rosa"; as "Rosado" is rather an adjective pointing out that something has the color characteristics of Rosa/Pink.
    Kinda hard to exemplify in English since those distinctions aren't common, but it would be like saying "Gold" vs "Golden" or "Aurum" or "Blue" vs "Blue-colored" or saying "Silver" vs "Argentum".

  • @jamiemackay9517
    @jamiemackay9517 7 лет назад +457

    Yo, vox. Kenya ain't Tanzania.

    • @mad3ko
      @mad3ko 7 лет назад +4

      Jamie Mackay noticed that too (3:40)

    • @Luigi-hb5td
      @Luigi-hb5td 7 лет назад

      Jamie Mackay those fools got confused on my country

    • @infinitystudyabroadisa1763
      @infinitystudyabroadisa1763 7 лет назад +3

      Jamie Mackay, thank you for noticing that + they highlighted the Tanzanian map too, SMDH!

    • @infinitystudyabroadisa1763
      @infinitystudyabroadisa1763 7 лет назад

      Jamie Mackay, thank you for noticing that + they highlighted the Tanzanian map too, SMDH!

    • @falnica
      @falnica 7 лет назад +7

      Those countries are fairly industrialized

  • @creatorsremose
    @creatorsremose 5 лет назад +52

    Not only the subject matter was amazing, the presentation was phenomenal! One of your best, Vox. Thank you.

  • @sofiaortega2363
    @sofiaortega2363 5 лет назад +13

    I genuinely love this comments, it"s nice to see how people perceive colours and how other bilingual people adapt a color that "doesn't"t exist" that does in their language.

  • @Chfrchko-144
    @Chfrchko-144 Год назад +2

    0:25 In Russia we rarely "PURPÚRNYY", more common would be " FIOLÉTOVYY"

  • @acoral1035
    @acoral1035 5 лет назад +50

    Russian language have "purpurnyj" as rather a shade, while the main color called "fiolietovyj" (violet instead of purple).
    And in the main Ukrainian dialect of Russian language we have a second purple color at almost the same level of recognition - "sirienievyj" or "buzkovyj" in Ukrainian (means something like lilac). Might cause misunderstanding:
    1:-... There, woman in a purple skirt.
    2:-Where? I can't see her.
    3:-In lilac skirt.
    2:-See her.
    So Russians generaly mean "purple" speaking of "violet".
    Russian speaking Ukrainians have two distinct colors in place, speaking about "violet" and "lilac". It's hard to explain, but "sirienievyj" feels as more intense purple, and "fioletovyj" - as more "heavy" and/or bluish purple. It is stick into head that much so we continue to use 13-color model when we are speaking Ukrainian. They say, in Russian city of Saint Petersburg they also use "sirienievyj" more often than common shades, though I do not know for sure if they are actually share 13-color model of two purples.
    I find this very interesting.

    • @Acrosscore
      @Acrosscore 5 лет назад +3

      @@stevemcqueenii1547 Лол, так так и есть. Я сам украинец и ничего в этом стыдного нет.

    • @stevemcqueenii1547
      @stevemcqueenii1547 5 лет назад +5

      @@Acrosscore да я не про стыдное. ну какой нафиг "диалект"? ну ,камон, хватит делать украинский язык недоязыком.

    • @DVXDemetrivs
      @DVXDemetrivs 5 лет назад +1

      @@stevemcqueenii1547 если рассматривать исторически то это потомок диалекта древне русского языка общего предка для белорусского и украинского и современного русского, а после серьезного такого географического разделение общего языкового пространства диалекты прилично обособились став считай самостоятельными

    • @AbsoluteHuman
      @AbsoluteHuman 4 года назад +2

      Ых... За всю жизнь так и не запомнил, что именно называют пурпурным, фиолетовым и сиреневым. Вообще это всё - маджента, а фиолетовую часть спектра человеческий глаз даже распознаёт неверно.

    • @serazharkova7564
      @serazharkova7564 3 года назад +1

      Was looking for this comment omg

  • @sarahstanley7913
    @sarahstanley7913 7 лет назад +72

    Dearg (dar-ag)
    Oráiste (or-aw-shta)
    Buí (bwee)
    Glas (gloss)
    Gorm (g-erm)
    Corcra (ker-kra)
    Bán (b-aw-n)
    Bándearg (Just bán and dearg)
    Dubh (duh-v)
    Donn (down)
    Dugorm (doo-gorm)
    Liath (lee-ah)
    Ok that's all the colours that I can remember in Irish. They are in order of..
    Red
    Orange
    Yellow
    Green
    Blue
    Purple
    White
    Pink
    Black
    Brown
    Navy
    Grey

  • @arsheejenson5580
    @arsheejenson5580 5 лет назад +38

    In Filipino, we have no any direct translation of the color "Gray", we just simply call it "Kulay-Abo" which means "Ash-colored". As well as "Pink", we just call it "Kulay-Rosas" which basically means "Rose-colored" but the Philippine National Commission suggested the word "Kalimbahin" as the direct translation for "Pink" which means " a variety of guava with pink flesh". The use of language and everything about linguistics really vary by different factors like culture, geographical location, etc.

  • @wabisabi6875
    @wabisabi6875 2 года назад +2

    One of the most memorable episodes of Radiolab was their exploration of this issue, beginning with Gladstone's Homer. Cool stuff.

  • @heyitsalex99
    @heyitsalex99 7 лет назад +500

    'red is fundamentally more different than the others' more like humans/mammals have evolved to easily notice the colour red as noticing blood is kinda important...

    • @THELASTMASTA
      @THELASTMASTA 7 лет назад +10

      John keppelman But do you associate that directly with the color or with things that are that color?

    • @Dragoniiia
      @Dragoniiia 7 лет назад +17

      @John keppelman
      well... you actually agreed. Red is not different than any other wavelength, it's our psyche that make it "different". .... mostly because blood is red.

    • @eve36368
      @eve36368 7 лет назад

      John keppelman that's way too social... but still some of it seems salvageable.

    • @neke989
      @neke989 7 лет назад +6

      That's what I thought too, but even the simulated computer populations came up with a word for red first! I need to look into those studies/results more, but I'm assuming that they didn't have the same biological or evolutionary circumstances programmed in...

    • @elyssatruman1292
      @elyssatruman1292 7 лет назад +5

      red is also a pretty common warning color in nature

  • @billievanderpol
    @billievanderpol 5 лет назад +64

    its like how we dont call green "yellowish blue" but we call that limey colour "yellowish green"
    also think of colours like blush, when we were young we wouldve called it pink, but now its "blush"

    • @janetmiller2160
      @janetmiller2160 5 лет назад +3

      An artist friend had an unsolved argument: is that yellow, green, chartreuse (a thing to drink) green, or neon green? fluorescent green or yellow?

    • @musaran2
      @musaran2 4 года назад +5

      Except we don't perceive green as a mix of yellow and blue, that was a surprise discovery of color science.
      But we do perceive "limey" as a mix of yellow and green.

    • @melodi996
      @melodi996 4 года назад +1

      @@musaran2 lime has a colour we don't see regulary in our lives, so it makes sence if we see it as something we know mixed up, plus green is more solid colour than most of mixes, while lime is seen as another green but with more yellow in it.

    • @barcelonachair6487
      @barcelonachair6487 4 года назад

      I'm an artist so blush to me is always light red. It forces me to understand the colour spectrum that way. Technically A yellowish blue is turquoise, but I understand what you mean. "Blush" is actually a " yellow-coral". It's all so technical.

  • @alexanderm9446
    @alexanderm9446 7 лет назад +22

    ERROR:
    At 0:26 for the Russian colours you mixed up Siniy (which is Blue/Dark Blue) and Goluboy (which is Light Blue).
    Also, Purpurnyy is (at least in the Moscow Dialect) much less common than Fioletovyy.
    Fioletovyy, Sirenevyy and Purpurnyy (the most common Russian words for this colour region) are the Purple, Violet and Magenta 'counterparts' respectively.
    Russian spelling: фиолетовый, сиреневый, пурпурный.

  • @DavidPeacockChannel
    @DavidPeacockChannel 3 года назад +2

    "Blue was scarce before manufacturing" -- Gosh, I think the sky is blue.

  • @mattshiz
    @mattshiz 5 лет назад +20

    I love RUclips. They answer the questions I never would have even thought to ask.

  • @slprime
    @slprime 6 лет назад +42

    One thing not mentioned in the video that might be another possibility is the nature of our photoreceptors in the eye that are responsive to different wavelengths of light, the cones. There are more so-called "red" cones than "blue" cones, the special cells in the eye that receives light information and send signals to the brain. Perhaps that is another reason why red is more prominent in the naming systems - our eyes are just constructed in a way that is more sensitive to those wavelengths. Same explanation can be said for green vs blue. According to this video green is often higher in the naming hierarchy than blue and it turns out there are more "green" cones than blue cones.
    Maybe someone else left a similar comment but I am not going to search through over 4000 comments to see. This is just my two cents.

    • @OliverJazzz
      @OliverJazzz 5 лет назад +3

      Never thought of that, very interested theory, sounds plausible!

    • @dyetaa
      @dyetaa 5 лет назад +5

      And we have that exact amount of cones for each color because of the sun.The sun rays are made of red,green and blue yet when they enter the atmosphere the rays loose most of the blue waves.And thus because the blue waves are truly rare we just didn't need more cones to perceive them

    • @musaran2
      @musaran2 4 года назад +2

      And that is because our somewhat distant ancestors were fruit eaters. (most ripe fruits are red-ish)

  • @TheRealGuywithoutaMustache
    @TheRealGuywithoutaMustache 4 года назад +40

    When someone says taste the rainbow, this isn't what they meant.

  • @elnino9m
    @elnino9m 2 года назад +1

    I watched this multiple times within years and I still love it