The Word for Blue

Distillations | Science History Institute

In his epic poem, The Odyssey, Homer mentions the colors black, white, red, and yellow. But despite numerous mentions of the brilliant Greek sea and sky, the word blue never makes an appearance.

This omission set off a debate between perception and language that would repeat itself over and over again throughout history: was there something wrong with the ancient Greek’s eyes? If they didn’t name blue, did that mean they couldn’t see it?

We treat color like it's a clear measure of whether or not our brains are working the same. We expect an answer we can all agree on. Only it turns out some colors elude us. So when it comes to blue, are we truly seeing things differently or just seeing the same thing and describing it differently?

Credits

Host: Alexis Pedrick Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Associate Producer: Sarah Kaplan Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer “Color Theme” composed by Jonathan Pfeffer. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions