Why 'The Why Files' is WRONG About the Color BLUE in Ancient Times

In this video, Dr. M looks at a dubious claim made by the popular KZbin channel The Why Files as it relates to the color blue in antiquity.
Original Why Files video can be found here: • Why Ancient People Did...
Metatron's video: • Ancient Greeks Couldn'...
Historians' Craft's video: • Did the Ancient Greeks...
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[@morgan97475]

I thought everything was black-n-white before Technicolor in the 1950s.

[@tatechasers2393]

Wizard of Oz (1939)

[@julilla1]

My millennial coworker was dead serious when she asked me (Gen X) what it was like to live my early life in b&w. It's like she thought Pleasantville was a documentary. She's not otherwise a dumb person, so I was pretty stunned.

[@johndunham9979]

Kansas is still black and white

[@Wallyworld30]

@@julilla1 I'm Gen X and recall in 1983 my parents bought me my first TV for my bedroom. It's was B&W at Target for $50. Back then if you bought a B&W TV it cost less. Another relic we had was in 1982 my father bought the family an awesome Toshiba Betamax VCR and I recall the remote control for the VCR had a wired remote. Betamax had a better picture resolution than the VHS but when we went to the Video Rental store we'd have on shelf of movies to pick from meanwhile VHS had 90% of rest of the store. When NES Games came out it replaced the Betamax section completely.

[@lithrae1]

Calvin's dad would approve

[@peterbereczki4147]

I have indisputable evidence that Homer NEVER said "Thank you", this is a well known fact becasue he didn't speak modern english.

[@rahulmenon4357]

So rude

[@rahulmenon4357]

@@JB-mm5ffcontext bro

[@sagitarriulus9773]

You clever SOB

[@garyfrancis6193]

Chances are he said ευχάριστο.

[@ericmoore571]

Lol!

[@adam-k]

The color issue originates from a linguistic debate. The theory is that basic color terms appear in sequence in language development. First black and white, then red, green yellow, blue, brown then (purple, pink, orange or gray.) They analyzed a bunch of languages and found that if a language has 3 basic color terms then they are always black, white and red. The fourth color is always green. and so on. The emphasis is on the BASIC color terms. A basic color term is monolexemic, high-frequency, and agreed upon by speakers of that language. Those criteria are of course not absolutes. This is not about how people see the world but how they categorize it. Also the theory is wrong IMO.

[@San_Vito]

This is exactly what I've seen in anthropology back in college.

[@JMM33RanMA]

My eye color is mixed, usually referred to as hazel, but seems to change under different light conditions, and has changed with age as well. In one class when the students were arguing about color, I asked them what color my eyes are. I wanted to end an argument, but started discussion about perception and color. The students had started out in groups agreeing on blue, green and grey, until they finally agreed on "mixed."

[@stehfreejesseah7893]

@@JMM33RanMADichromatic, that’s what my drivers license says.

[@JMM33RanMA]

@@stehfreejesseah7893 My licence says HAZ, dichromatic means two colors doesn't it?

[@neverstopschweiking]

It's not that complicated with Homer, though. What he wrote meaned blue, specifically a shade of dark blue such as wine grapes have. The sea Homer is described as "oînops póntos". It can mean many things, the 19th century English translation is "wine-dark sea", but it's not correct. "Ops" means "eye", so the correct modern translation is "wine-eye". The word wine is in many languages commonly used not just for the drink, but for grapes as well and the word eye has many meanings (eye of the needle, eye of tornado, in other languages a hunting trap is called "eye") it's very likely that it was simply "wine grapes". The phrase thus meant "sea the color of wine grapes", which makes perfect sense, they are dark blue in color.

[@gabbleratchet1890]

It must have been a nightmare figuring out which printer cartridge was empty back then.

[@Nocturnal2010]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@psychette8846]

Ancient Egyptians couldn't see blue. The pyramid builders used to hold blue cloth in front of workers. People couldn't see the blue so they thought the blocks were floating into place. This optical illusion was known as the blue screen. If a block fell on a worker hidden by the blue screen it was referred to as the blue screen of death.

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

I see what you are doing there! 🤣 {:o:O:}

[@user-cofee]

Interesting theory I run to my computer to research more on this and as soon I opened my browser the computer BSOD. Coincidence? I think not.

[@lenandov]

I used to say Exhaust Fluid At a time like this But the idiots were like hold my beer

[@SamBorgman]

@@user-cofee Here's your problem, you don't use a Mac.

[@BlackCatMargie]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@adam-k]

It worth point out that when Homer wrote wine-dark sea he never referred to a calm mid-day sea in the summer. For him when the sea is wine-dark then it is a sea raged by a storm. Such sea would be almost black, indeed as dark as wine. It is also an epithet of a stormy sea.

[@countofdownable]

Or was the Sun setting and the sea looked red?

[@theaverrainecyclemorgansmi5388]

Wine was traditionally full of sediment (we find wine strainers in tombs in archaic Greece, all the time) and when the storms came in over the Aegean, it would stir the silt up and so..........

[@pattheplanter]

The word did not mean wine-dark, it was οἶνοψ - literally wine-seeming, looking like wine. The ending is the same root as our word optical. Those Homerian stormy seas would have been frothy, like Greek wine when it was mixed. One ambiguous or presumptive translator and we get more than a century of confusion. When used of cows it did mean red. Also, the honey was green in the sense of new and fresh, not the colour.

[@seanhewitt603]

I figured wine-dark came from the way alcohol makes you stumble about like you were on a storm tossed boat.

[@Belenus3080]

Where I live, the sea is generally as dark as wine. Rocky coast, windy weather, deep water, and lots of undersea plant life all contribute. Unless he said “red” than I don’t see anything that indicated a lack of blue

[@Murdo2112]

We can see how unreliable deducing colours from poetic descriptions can be, from an example within the lifetime of many of us. In 1984, William Gibson opened his novel "Neuromancer" with the line "The sky above the port was the colour of a television, tuned to a dead channel". Anyone at the time would hear this and immediately think of the speckled silvery grey shimmer of static. Anyone born after the year 2000 would, most likely, think of the dark blue of an LCD flat screen. And that's just in the space of 20 years or so.

[@pattheplanter]

As an old man, I must congratulate you on an excellent metaphor.

[@MonochromeWench]

A great example and either interpretation could be correct. A blue sky is obvious but an uneven grey sky full of particulates/pollution also makes sense.

[@rizkyadiyanto7922]

"The sky above the port was the colour of #343434"

[@pattheplanter]

@@rizkyadiyanto7922 And flashing-eyed Athena sent them a favorable wind, a strong-blowing West wind that sang over the Pantone® 281C sea.

[@sabinegierth-waniczek4872]

@@pattheplanterAs an old woman, I concur completely. Don't forget the accompanying static noise, if the sound was tuned up... Or the test screen with the strident sound - happy days.

[@terryhunt2659]

FWIW, I don't think the Why Files presenter really believes that the ancients "couldn't see blue." The standard format of his videos is for him to spend the first 2/3 of the episode recounting the 'conspiratorial/fringe' version of the topic, which often contains inaccuracies and fiction, and then in the last 1/3 give a rational rebuttal debunking the impossibilities, correcting the false claims, and where possible uncovering the true explanation (if known). Occasionally, I think some of the rebuttal details may get lost in the editing process.

[@chrywelch]

%100 ^^^^ this

[@TheAdrinachrome1]

lol I just watched the last 5 minutes of the "blue" why file video because he never ends his videos without debunking the title. And the "blue" video is the same.

[@JankyBruv]

Yep. Thus part.

[@The-Cosmic-Hobo]

Normally his debunking vids do follow that format - but not the Blue one.

[@NoMatureContent]

Yes, it worries me that Dr. Marino has essentially picked apart what is a story teller recounting stories and then ignoring the portion where the story teller explains the reality...

[@billcook4768]

One of my favorite cartoon series had Calvin’s Dad explaining that old movies and tv shows are in black and white because the whole world was black and white back then.

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

Yes, I mentioned this elsewhere. _"B.. b... b.. but, if the world turned colour in the 1950s, why didn't the old films and photos turn colour!"_ "They used black and white film." 🤣 {:o:O:}

[@davidconner-shover51]

Long Dad jokes, that you don't figure out for years

[@JonBrownSherman]

Is Calvin & Hobbes a cartoon or a comic strip!?

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

@@JonBrownSherman A newspaper comic strip. But you can get books of collected stories. I don't know if they made an animated cartoon, but they should! {:o:O:}

[@oldpotato5538]

My toddler son asked me when the world started being in color. He had seen old movies and pictures, so he concluded that long ago everything was blurry and black & white.

[@stephenluff9998]

I believe Jackson Crawford did his PhD thesis on the elder futhark word we generally accept as black actually meant blue. I think that video does a good job explaining how different cultures thought of colors differently.

[@rcrawford42]

Considering the Egyptians traded for lapis lazuli that came all the way from Afghanistan, and invented an artificial substitute, the claim is dubious, at best.

[@whyjnot420]

There is being nice, then there is being nice to the point of stupidity/absurdity. The former is polite. The latter is idiotic. This is not the former. The claim about blue not existing is categorically false. The claim about color blindness is also as false as they come. I appreciate people who make a proper attempt at being kind, but sometimes you have to put your foot down and ask people "Does your ass ever get jealous of the shit coming out of your mouth?"

[@Raussl]

@@whyjnot420I hope you haven't patented that quote...it is glorious!

[@whyjnot420]

@@Raussl Unfortunately I cannot claim to have come up with that one myself. I got it from a video on Habitual Linecrosser's channel. (He does political satire involving anthropomorphized countries, organizations and weapons platforms. Generally pretty short and very funny.)

[@MrMackievelli]

I mean thanks for repeating what this video says.

[@Paulsofsteel]

Lapis L'Azul. "Stone of Blue". who knew?

[@yau6666]

In modern Korea, many older people refer to both blue and green as 'Paratha'. Young people usually have a clear distinction between blue and green. Even in modern Korean language, traces of the old days when blue and green were expressed ambiguously still remain quite clearly.

[@NeutralDrow]

Same with Japanese. Green traffic lights are still generally referred to as "aoi" (blue) for that reason. (If Wiktionary is correct, that's because the word now specifically meaning green, "midori," used to just refer to the color of vegetation.)

[@TheRedleg69]

That's because the US soldiers brought over the color blue during the 50s. Everyone knows that 😂

[@JMM33RanMA]

I wrote almost the same thing, but I never heard the word "Paratha" which sounds Hindu and may be related to Buddhist art. Korean color words usually end in the syllable -sek /색/, meaning color, blue = paransek, black = gomunsek, white = hayansek. Note that the sounds in Korean and Japanese are different from English and other languages, more than the usual L/R problem. The more "Western" perception/description or discrimination of color may be owing to the universal English language requirement, so EFL teachers like myself may be responsible for this. The Koreans are much more extreme in requiring English proficiency, and mothers are fanatics about their children's acquisition of English.

[@JMM33RanMA]

@@NeutralDrow New traffic lights around here [Boston area] seem to be more blue and less green than before.

[@NeutralDrow]

@@JMM33RanMA Re: Korean color words...interesting. Are there any exceptions to that construction? I ask because I know less than nothing about Korean grammar, but Japanese has something similar for most colors (-iro, 色, with things being gold-colored, tea-colored, wood-colored, etc.) that function as adjectival nouns, but a handful of colors (shiroi, kuroi, akai, aoi...white, black, red, blue) are adjectival verbs that outright attach to the nouns they modify. Almost like those four are more "basic" colors. Re: traffic lights...huh, I wonder why? I'm given to understand green was originally chosen as a high-contrast color to red (which has long been used as a warning color). Maybe the city planners find bluer lights a stronger constrast to red?

[@neoclassic09]

It's amazing how pervasive dumbassery is online

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

My suggested videos are a swirling vortex of it

[@DutchShocker]

Did you mean 'persuasive'?

[@neoclassic09]

No I meant pervasive

[@GizzyDillespee]

I like to watch some of that stuff... it helps me keep my spidey sense sharp, and my BS alarm charged up, in my lifelong quest to become less gullible without being cynical. It's a razor's edge!

[@elirien4264]

Probably because there's just so damn much of it.

[@Bluebelle51]

He also says that the Sagas don't mention blue but the Sagas even have a motif of "the blue cloak" in which someone wears a dark blue cloak to commit a killing or murder and then there's the infamous incidents of single combat with the "blue men" who were enormous and scary

[@hollyingraham3980]

Also, the sagas take place some 1600 years after Homer. Blue had been around Europe a long while in both lichen blue and wood blue dyes. I don't even know why the Why Files brings up Icelanders.

[@Bluebelle51]

@@hollyingraham3980 Right? Maybe anything older than Mad Magazine seems "ancient" to them

[@recurse]

Well it makes sense, the blue would have rendered them invisible to commit their murders, which would be very scary!

[@DanielMWJ]

The sky has also existed for a while. 😂

[@johnwayne3085]

Why Files always gives both sides of the argument. He says things definitively, but then he contradicts the argument so its very easy to find clips where it seems like he believes what he's saying. Very deceptive of this channel. This is not a fair critique of Why Files.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

If you can find anywhere he corrects himself on this, let us know.

[@dansihvonen8218]

​@@WorldofAntiquityWF is not a science channel.

[@brazenatheist1676]

​@@dansihvonen8218 that doesn't matter.

[@brazenatheist1676]

If you think he actually gives both sides then you've never actually tried to keep track of all the claims he makes and how few he debunks or that they usual end with a u-turn of "but idk maybe it's all real?"

[@dansihvonen8218]

​@@brazenatheist1676It doesn't matter if someone claims to be telling fact instead of fiction?

[@ITHYANDEL]

In vietnamese, blue and green is the same word, it is differentiated by adding an exemple: sky "green" vs leaf "green".

[@zam6877]

Only when we learn different languages, do we become aware of the various ways languages describe qualities like color Thanks for this 😃

[@arachnophilia427]

​@@zam6877english has strange divisions, too. dark orange is "brown" and light red is "pink". we think of these as different colors. while i'm here, "orange" is a pretty recent. as the video says, it was named after fruit (a naranj -> an orange) and didn't exist in english until it was brought back from india. we have some words that are older than that, like "redhead" for orange haired people.

[@funkoxen]

Stop being a Graham Hancock. Dr Miano will get you.

[@johnnemo4146]

Why not "sky blue" and "leaf blue"? Or neither green nor blue but "sky something" and "leaf something"? Because if sky and leaf are the differentiators, then the word itself is neither blue nor green.

[@KasumiRINA]

In English sky blue and navy blue are also the same color. In my language they're a separate color. Rainbow has both so Anglophone people only see 6 colors in it and not 7? No, they see it all.

[@monkerud2108]

i think this is akin to the people who thought Brachiosaurs could detach their skulls because a lot of specimens were found with their skulls detached.

[@DanielMWJ]

I mean, detaching a skull is pretty easy. It's the reattaching bit that's hard. 😂

[@FantasticExplorers]

I didn't know that people didn't know that people didn't know about the blue... But I knew people did know about blue because it's the color of the sky, and water, and...

[@Cat_Woods]

Which is what everyone who say that video was saying in the comments. But he was saying that they couldn't perceive it as blue until they had a name for it. Which is not true, but that's the claim in the video.

[@ZendelWashington]

Da ba dee da ba di?

[@schillieyoung4307]

Blue was light black pink was light red

[@Soapy-chan]

​@@Cat_Woodsthe claim also makes no sense, as if someone suddenly invents a word for something they don't know exists and then everyone can see that? such bs

[@TRsofan]

The idea was that they considered it a shade of a different color, not that they literally couldn't see it. Framing it as if they actually couldn't see it is misleading. Korean language has many more colors than we do in English because we lump a bunch of shades together that they consider separate colors.

[@straingedays]

Double Thumbs on this vid Professor Miano. As an artist (cobalt, periwinkle, or indigo, are my favourite blues that aren't called blue), it bugs me when folk are told: "this colour didn't exist," or "we had no word for," or "we couldn't see this colour." You deserve a million plus views for telling the simple truthful facts about our modern English word for blue.

[@ellenrittgers990]

Plus, watch an infant when they see brilliantly colored toys - they don’t have words for the colors or objects, but they certainly can perceive them!

[@aidandavies7232]

Jeez, thank you! They tried to teach me this in school, and even mentioned the "wine dark sea. Glad to say I mistrusted that line of reasoning. It's similar to another thing I heard, where they say that the native Americans couldn't see the ships that the Spanish arrived on because they had "never seen a ship before". People are VERY BIZARRE.

[@NefariousKoel]

Wow! Goes to show how easily such nonsense can creep into the school system these days. 😒

[@garryferrington811]

It is possible people will not observe something obvious if it's far outside their range of consciousness.

[@Rynewulf]

@@garryferrington811but that usually doesn't apply to obvious phenomena, like the sky or a big boat sailing past you

[@no_peace]

If I had never seen a ship before and one showed up on the horizon, I would find it very difficult to see anything else

[@no_peace]

​@@garryferrington811 no

[@MartijnHover]

Homer wasn't just colour blind, he was completley blind, according to myth and legend.

[@loke6664]

...Written hundreds of years after his death and without details if he always was blind or it happened due to an accident or old age. Yeah, I wouldn't call that confirmed, scholars are still arguing if Homer was a single person or not.

[@MartijnHover]

@@loke6664 I don't use the words "myth" and "legend" for nothing, of course.

[@loke6664]

@@MartijnHover True, but I mean, I could see him being color blind and that later turning into being blind, it is plausible. But the theory that Homer wasn't a name of a person but a name used for poets during the early Greek comeback after the bronze age collapse is also plausible and at least have some circumstantial evidence. Unless an exceptional archaeological find pops up I don't think we will ever learn the truth but it is also a mistake to build a theory only one a poetic description of the sea. :)

[@larryscott3982]

First time I heard the ‘didn’t see blue’ or blue didn’t exist I didn’t but that. I thought Lapis was prized for its color. And it’s used in mosaics. So…

[@MartijnHover]

@@loke6664 I don't think colour blindness is a condition that ever leads to general blindness.

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

The reason for ancient Greek literature not calling the sky and the sea blue is because it's so obvious and trivial. Also, the space on the papyrus, wax, parchment was limited and expensive.

[@TheGahta]

plus the sea being blue is very random, at times/places it can range to green or red. Its just a cultural understanding we have now that it is.

[@NeutralDrow]

Broke: "Homer never used the word 'blue' because the Greeks didn't have the concept for it." Woke: "Homer never used the word 'blue' because of artistic license." Bespoke: "Homer couldn't find an interesting way to fit 'blue' into dactylic hexameter."

[@chrisball3778]

They loved poetry and wrote some very long books, which are often full of descriptive language so I don't think the second part of that holds up as a reason not to use a word.

[@pattheplanter]

@@NeutralDrowBesmoke: Homer never finished his trilogy, dying before completing Elektra Cried in Blue.

[@no_peace]

This is nonsense lol

[@GoblinSlayer_GS]

For those unfamiliar with the format of the Why Files. AJ presents the conspiracies/fringe theories in the first half of the video, as explained by those who believe in them. Then, in the second half, he presents the counter-arguments, debunking them and/or offering more reasonable explanations. The point of his video was not about whether or not the ancient people were able to see "blue" (AJ points out they clearly could), but about how the evolution of language and culture influence our perception of the world, it even closes with a quote from a neuroscientist. Deliberately or not, by using less than half of the WF video, Dr. Miano misrepresented the original video. There are better videos out there to debunk this theory, but my guess is that WF was chosen simply because it is a larger channel.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

For those unfamiliar with Why Files fans, they assume AJ debunks everything at the ends of his videos without actually checking to be sure.

[@JB-jm6lo]

He debunks about 25% There was a particularly bad episode recently about Neanderthals where he made a lot of grand claims with no evidence and debunked little to nothing

[@SpectralViper]

@GoblinSlayer_GS 100% He should have used a video of someone who is actually promoting the theory, like Metatron did. But that way he wouldn't get them big numbers.

[@aceloco817]

The host is on some bullshit to take a shot at AJ while he taking a break from making videos. Yeah u a punk azz snake for the timing of it, host!!!! Unsubbed.

[@adrianblake8876]

So someone just watching a Why Files video, unfamiliar of the format, can leave the video with misinformation!? That very disingenuous of them...

[@edwardwright8127]

This controversy could have been avoided if Homer had simply provided Pantone numbers for the colors he referred to.

[@sabinegierth-waniczek4872]

Whoa - #0a0a0a shaaaaade!

[@MossyMozart]

The "wine-dark sea" phase may have been Homer's way of saying the sea looked opaque, like a dark wine, or the way oceans look in faded light, since it reflects the color of the sky above it and looks very dark indeed after the sun sets or when dark clouds cover the sky. ----------- Also consider that colorblindness is real, an actual genetic trait. My sib, who was red-green colorblind in life, required the crayon box to be arranged precisely so coloring attempts wouldn't be off in the elementary school grades. Our uncle even had achromatopsia - the complete inability to see any colors at all. To him, everything was a gradation of white-to-grey-to-black, like an eternal black & white film.. ----------- There is also a blue-yellow colorblindness type called "tritanopia". The National Eye Institute says : "Tritanopia makes someone unable to tell the difference between blue and green, purple and red, and yellow and pink. It also makes colors look less bright." Therefore, to that one person with the condition - Homer? - a blue ocean may well have looked the way wine also looks to a person with tritanopia.

[@MossyMozart]

Just like some people are more sensitive to odors than most and may work in a perfumery, some people are more sensitive to color than most. My partner had such a client once when restoring her home. Sometimes whole rooms had to be repainted when she could not live with the color chosen. --------------- She was not being difficult, it just effected her more deeply and she would gladly pay for any color change she needed. So, in addition to culture, exposure, availability, colorblindness, and lighting, extra sensitivity or desensitivity can effect color perception.

[@dizzychrist]

Well done on your continued efforts to set the record straight. As Jonathan Swift once wrote, "Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it". Still, we must try.

[@murphylhunn]

I believed the "wine-dark sea" thing until i read the iliad for myself (not a flex, its not too long and theres good audiobooks for free if you need). The poetic meaning is profound, a lot is lost when we try to slot ancient texts into our modern understanding.

[@loke6664]

It is poetry, you really shouldn't take that literary (and I read it), Besides, the sea during the sunset do look reddish and a bit dark, so it isn't wrong either.

[@maxdaly8185]

The Why Files doesn’t hide that it’s entertainment, and typically debunks it’s own content.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Not in this case.

[@brazenatheist1676]

If you actually think he's debunking all this stuff you're not listening close enough. He leaves everything open ended. For instance his video "terrifying truth: possession and exorcism is real" Yeah, he "debunks" it at the end (20 min in) but all of his debunks are riddled with statements like "here's why x, y and z are wrong but also medicine didn't work in some cases of possession but exorcism did?" Then later explains that some people admitted to faking their possession and doesn't go back to mention "oh yeah, maybe exorcism only 'worked' because those people were faking" He just did it again with his Bigfoot video, he explains how a guy admitted to wearing a suit in the famous video but then ends with "but idk the video is pretty convincing and it's really well made if it's fake" there's ALWAYS a u-turn to keep the believers hooked. It's a smart grift, you get all sides of the people paying the least attention. Skeptics think he's debunking while believers think he's spreading truth despite the "elites" trying to silence them all. He's complained that he can't do 9/11 and COVID conspiracy bullshit, but if he debunks the claims why would KZbin care?

[@HepCatJack]

The mention of “blue gods” in Hinduism (Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Rama) indeed emphasizes the fact that blue had a significant presence in Indian culture for thousands of years.

[@k-matsu]

This is an old linguistic talking point that people have been discussing for ages. The problem is that the "missing" color theyre looking for is actually green. Linguistically speaking, the first colors that need to be distinguished in daily life (after light/white and dark/black) are the violet-blue-green end of the spectrum and the red-orange-yellow end. Many languages develop words for these two "colors" and never go any further - describing everything else based on nouns (eg. "grass-colored," "daffodil-colored", "strawberry-colored, etc.). Yellow is usually the next word to appear, with things like green, orange, violet, etc. coming later. While some languages do start out with words for all the "primary colors", other languages only develop more specific color words as they are exposed to outside influences. For example Japanese has very old native words for red, blue, yellow, violet and even indigo, but no orange or green (words that were traditionally desigated with noun-based "colors" like "seawater-colored" or "mikan-colored"). Today the colors are designated using recent loanwords ("midori" for green and "oranji" for orange). However the traditional word "ao", which covered the entire blue/green spectrum, is still used to mean both "blue" and some green things as well (such as a green traffic light or green vegetables). TLDR: Yeah this is old news that experienced linguists know all about.

[@sabinegierth-waniczek4872]

Thank you, very interesting aspect for me as a non-linguist (do I remember correctly that aoki means forest, as in "large green thing"?)!

[@jonjohns8145]

In Arabic, Nelah is also used to describe Dark Blue Dyes used on cloths. The Arabic word for Blue as a color is Izraq with the feminine version being Zarqaa'. There is a famous character in pre-Islamic Arabia known as the "Zarqaa' Al-Yamamah" meaning the Blue Woman of the city of Yamamah (in modern Saudi Arabia) who was famous for having the sharpest eyes. The accounts differ on whether the Blueness here is Blueness of the Eyes or of some other trait.

[@sudhanvabhat3100]

Nila is an ancient Sanskrit word for dark blue

[@Belenor]

Views > Being correct. Sadly...

[@BaranKRool]

Views > Integrity. Quite sadly.

[@GizzyDillespee]

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!" - my tour guide

[@neverstopschweiking]

The Why Files is a satire of crazy theories. It is very clear from the fact he explains most of the theories he mentions and gives out the real evidence to the contrary, he just assumes (incorrectly) some intelligence in the general audience and with the more stupid theories, he just puts them out, thinking "the viewer will know this is satire, I don't have to explain it".

[@GoblinSlayer_GS]

AJ presents the conspiracies/fringe theories in the first half of the video, as explained by those who believe in them. Then, in the second half, he presents the counter-arguments, debunking them and/or offering more reasonable explanations. The point of his video was not about whether or not the ancient people were able to see "blue" (AJ points out they clearly could), but about how the evolution of language and culture influence our perception of the world, it even closes with a quote from a neuroscientist.

[@TheAdrinachrome1]

@@GoblinSlayer_GS Yep, I was super surprised to see world of antiquity debunking a why files video. For half a second I thought maybe they actually didn't see the color blue! But then I realized he probably just didn't watch the entire video, or maybe he is running out of weird history channels to debunk

[@J_Z913]

Great video, as always, Dr. Miano. Can't wait for your upcoming class on the origins of ancient civilization in March!

[@nektu5435]

KZbin says you posted this comment 5 days ago but that Dr. Miano only uploaded his video 20 minutes ago... is this evidence of time travel?!? 😂 😉

[@WSFM_Rex]

How is there a comment from 6 days ago on here when this was uploaded 1 hour ago?

[@nektu5435]

@@WSFM_Rex that’s weird as hell 😂 wtf?!? It said 5 days when I left my first comment and now it says 6 days.

[@WSFM_Rex]

@@nektu5435 sus fr

[@OffRampTourist]

I enjoyed the video and appreciate the point but was surprised by the focus on a video on another channel as I have been hearing this 'no blue' idea widely discussed for many years before this other channel existed. That other channel is known for leaning into an idea before questioning and/or redefining.

[@irenebecker4815]

So it was time for Dr. Miano to set the record straight, no matter how long that silly idea has been out there.

[@OffRampTourist]

@@irenebecker4815 Unsubscribing. Comments section missing actual point re other channel's format/actual position rather than straw man repeated yet again.

[@flightographist]

The good doctor mentions that when he referred to Gladstone, did you miss that part? His main point was the proliferation of mindless beliefs based on poorly researched internet information- a novel phenomenon not the least bit resembling Gladstone's seminal lack of comprehension and the minor effect it had on culture and cultural comprehension due to literacy and interest prior to the internet age.

[@jeush2709]

I used to watch The Why Files and after attending a live stream after watching a video premier and paid to ask about source material and the host had no idea what I was talking about even though it was heavily discussed in the episode. It was an episode about anti-gravity and he claimed the Vimanika Shastra was a real ancient text and did not mention that it was a modern channeled text. After that I noticed their "debunking" section got shorter and and less researched with every episode until it honestly seemed it was devolving into a channel placating and promoting false information and dishonestly giving information without proper sources or all the facts or rebuttals. I hope you do more episodes debunking this channel as they don't deserve such a large following as it is harmful for promoting false information as fact.

[@JB-jm6lo]

Yea that debunking does get less and less

[@Sinai459]

Who decides which channel deserves subscribers? You? Who decides what misinformation is. The 'authorities'? At one time, it was misinformation to say the continents were once one landmass. It turned out Wagner was right after being ridiculed until his death. Let everyone have a platform. Leave the validity of all claims up for debate.

[@wayneclayton5426]

I thought it was just there was no word for the colour Blue. It was considered a shade of Green.

[@chrisl4999]

You’re right. Either WoA is intentionally ignoring what TWF was saying or it just completely went over his head.

[@williamjenkins4913]

Yeah. I'm a fan but he should stick with history rather then linguistics.

[@GoblinSlayer_GS]

Yeah that's the point made around the halfway mark of the WF video, which was conveniently left out in this video.

[@wayneclayton5426]

There is a BBC series all about Blue. Called The History of Art in Three Colours. Blue is 2 of 3. The other colours are Gold and White. It is on YT.

[@Bellumization]

Thats what ive been taught aswell. And if i wanna learn a new colour today I just ask a random clothes or interior designer. They know thousands of them 😂

[@nektu5435]

So all of this confusion and misinformation came from a dude too lazy to do his homework before writing an article? Sounds about right. Great video and I learned a few things too!

[@MarkVrem]

Right, some guys clickbait article from 2018. Now being used as a reference source in 2024 by AAA channels.

[@gj1234567899999]

People need to get out more. When I read “wine dark sea” i immediately understood it. If you look at say, certain wines in a cup, the sea in certain light and shadows and depths can indeed look just like this - dark, purplish, and not at all blueish. Many wines are dark purplish rather than red.

[@gj1234567899999]

@stopthecrazyguy9948 you probably havent seen the sea or seen a cup of wine, since you live in your moms basement

[@stevenswitzer5154]

The files said having more words to describe color leads to you more easily making the distinctions between them. I.e. navy blue, and powder blue. He was not wrong

[@xsjado_anon]

He even gave the example of the African tribe who couldn't distinguish the blue square in a test anywhere near as quickly as people who had words for blue, but smashed the same test when the had to identify a green square that was a slightly different shade, because they have like 300 words for green and shades of it. That's legit science, and makes his point exactly, its all about how we perceive and group colours based on social agreements over those colour groupings. As a colour blind person who's watched something change colour in front of me in real time because someone told me what it really was, and my brain went "okay, I guess it's green then", it's amazing how much impact your brain has on how you perceive colour.

[@stanleyshannon4408]

This actually came up academically over ten years ago when it was noticed that Amazonian natives had words for shades of green that other people could not distinguish. The point was made that many cultures do not distinguish colors linguistically as we do. Blue was usually referred to as shades of other colors. It wasn't that they weren't seeing blue, but they were perceiving it in a different contextual color palette.

[@algi1]

Homer color blind? Wasn't he blind blind?

[@loke6664]

We have no clue of either. Some people claimed he was blind hundreds of years after his death but even if that is true, we don't know if that happened due to him getting really old and losing his sight or if he was always blind. There is no description of Homer from someone that could actually have seen him and we aren't actually sure if Homer was one person or several. So yeah, it is confusing. Also, there might be some confusing exactly what the word "blind" means in certain circumstances, some cultures used the same word for someone with bad eye sight as well, other only for people completely blind. If you want an example, lokk on the Norse God Hoder (or Höder). Snorri tells us he is blind, but in Saxo Grammaticus he is not, he is kinda a jerk though. The reason for that is a word that we would directly translate as "dark" which in old Norse could mean blind but also mean "not a very nice person". In Saxo Höder kills Baldur in a duel over a girl while Snorri tells us that Loki tricks Höder to kill his brother since he is blind. And yeah, I am pretty sure Snorri misunderstood the myth, he had a political agenda going on and was trying to paint Baldur as a Norse Jesus and Loki as a version of Satan. Both stories as written around the same time, one in Lund (Denmark at the time) and the other in Iceland. But I can be wrong, it could be Saxo who misunderstood the story. However, we have plenty of petroglyphs with Gods dueling with blades in Scandinavia and not a single one depicting Snorri's story, we even have a comics version of Tyr and the Fenris wold from the mid to late Bronze age. Saxo's story is also very similar to the stories of the Greek twin Gods (including Höder going to the underworld to retrieve the girl both are fighting about and who accidentally dies due to their fighting) and we know the Norse did borrow more then a few stories from there during the iron age. But in any case, we know almost nothing about Homer and his alleged blindness wasn't mentioned until over 300 years after his death. It could have been real, it could have been a myth or it could have been a misunderstanding. It could even be that he was color blind and that somehow turned into him being totally blind after a few hundred years of oral stories.

[@djpenton779]

I have modern English translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The scholarly commentary in these translations suggests that both were passed on orally by Greek bards. Many oft repeated phrases in both are said to be used both for mnemonic purposes (hard to remember long poems), and for metric and other concerns that work for oral performance in Greek. "Wine dark sea" is one of those phrases, according to commentary in my translations. So, Homer may no be a good reference for literal colour terms anyway.

[@joek600]

Fun fact the acronym CMYK used in typography today starts with Cyan which is the Greek Kyanon. There you go.

[@Just_some_guy74]

I watched this exact episode a few weeks ago. I enjoyed a second perspective. I make no judgment, I enjoy The Why Files for its content, but as with any channel I take everything with a grain of salt. I'll have a watch of a few more of your videos as well. Thank you for the added context and historical accuracy.

[@Pbav8tor]

Sapphire? Sky? Aqqua/water? Lapis? Turquoise? Slate? Indigo? All shades of blue. The ancients love blue so much they had as many names as there are for snow.

[@chrisball3778]

The myth about various ancient languages not having any words for 'blue' definitely goes back before 2018. I saw it repeated on the British TV show QI years ago. Glancing at Wikipedia, I believe the episode was first shown in 2004. They also claimed Welsh had no word for 'blue', which came a surprise to the half-million plus Welsh speakers in the UK, who used the word 'glas' meaning 'blue' all the time, and there was a fair amount of controversy about it. I assume their source for it was Gladstone, although I can't really remember. Also, I don't know why this even needs saying, but the sea only looks blue because it reflects the sky, so it only looks blue on a clear day. A 'wine-dark' sea implies a stormy outlook, and that far better suits the atmosphere of menace and violence in the Iliad than a sparkling blue sea would. Maybe one of history's greatest poets was I dunno... good at poetry or something?

[@martinhughes2549]

In modern Welsh "Glas" is blue, and Gwyrdd is green, in old Welsh , Glas could be green. This is still true of placenames with "Glas" in them. Or some modern Welsh phrases. Eg "Glaswellt" meaning Greengrass. it's complex. Gwyrdd is thought to a borrowing from Latin "Viridis", which was borrowed into brythonic, then developed into Okd Welsh. So blue as a distinct colour has always existed in Welsh,but maybe the Latinate blue was used in specific contexts at first. I think the confusion comes from the use in Old Welsh of Glas as denoter of some types of green, eg grass. The use of Gwyrdd was more specific at first to other contexts. These days there's a clearer division between "blue" and "green" In Welsh. The idea isnt that hard to understand, Mauve,Magenta for example, where the trade names for anniline dyes, not colours. So colours can exist without a name. Without the dye you wouldn't have any experience of that shade of colour , so you didn't need the name.

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

Bar staff and waiters have to use blue sticking plasters when they cut themselves (at least in UK), because it's rare in nature and is not camouflaged against green stuff like salad if it falls off, and sticks out against meat, vegetables and pastries. {:o:O:}

[@pattheplanter]

And it probably doesn't matter if it gets in a Blue WKD or a Blue Curacao because they are only drunk by people who are so blasted they won't notice.

[@garryferrington811]

That's a good idea.

[@thirdlegstalliano]

Why is everyone kissing this guy's ass and patting him on the back for "debunking" a "myth" that absolutely no one believed in the first place? He's done no service to humanity here.

[@varyolla435]

Not too bright I see.......... 🙄 p.s. - if people did not believe = there would not be channels pushing the lies........... Accordingly the debunking here is warranted after all.

[@flapdrol]

I overheard some guy on the street yesterday who claimed to a friend that atmospheric pressure goes up when you are in the mountains, that there is more oxygen there and that therefore it's easier for fire to ignite high in the mountains. You see, people believe stupid shit that sounds intelligent.

[@danielhurst8863]

It's a stupid argument that has been going on for years. As a general rule, a language does not add a name for a color, until the users of the language can make that color. They Ancient Egyptians could make a blue pigment, so they had a name for the color blue. there were other older civilizations couldn't make a blue pigment, so they don't have a name in the language for blue. This presents a weird paradox, where something is obviously blue, but because the language doesn't have a word for it, it is not described as blue. Language exists to describe, and the actual color of something, like the sea or the sky, doesn't really matter that much. It's enough to say or write SEA or SKY, and people understand. Once a pigment color can be made, then the words for that color are added to the language, and it is used to describe things that are blue in nature.

[@brt5273]

Anyone who doesn't understand "wine dark sea" has obviously never seen a rough sea under stormy skies. "Homer describes honey as being green" ...because green honey is a thing. The highly prized early season honey featuring predominant nectar from accacia blossoms is greenish.

[@jffryh]

Isn't it true that we seem to consider pink as more different from red than we do light blue from blue? And doesn't that have something to do with the fact that we have this distinct word for pink?

[@gardeneroflight]

I first heard this wild tale when I was a teenager..... I'm 65 now. Seems folks didn't need the internet to spread misinformation. 😂 Thank you sir for all you do.

[@zedudli]

Thanks man. Your debunking videos are precious, keep pumping them out

[@973Kozy]

The why files debunks at the end of his videos. He clearly don’t watch his content

[@jfjoubertquebec]

Wiping the floor with their arguments... 😆

[@dialecticcoma]

i do, they spend far less time "debunking," and often ignore certain evidence. seems reasonable though, and fools people like you.@@973Kozy

[@rizkyadiyanto7922]

then you will like The Why Files videos too lol. ironic.

[@MT-ub8qg]

Yet another shameless attempt to leech of the popularity of a far more successful channel. Reeks of insecurity, a lack of talent, and desperation. Argument from authority channel disagrees with far more successful channel that dares to explore if any validity exists in alterative theories and puts the channel name in title to leech off their fan base?........ I have come to expect nothing less from this dog whistling bottom feeder.

[@Fred_Lougee]

My suspicion, and that's all it is, not a theory or hypothesis but just a suspicion, is that our ancestors originally gave names not to the colors they saw but the pigments they used. That is why black, red, and white are the earliest color words. Black from ash mixed with water, red from ocher, white from white clays like kaolinite or from crushed bone and bivalve shell. These are the easiest pigments for primitive peoples to make.

[@oddsman01]

Wait a minute. When people say they didnt “see” blue, it doesnt mean the 450-495 nm wavelengths were literally invisible to the viewer. It means what we call blue was just a shade of another color to them, just like the million or so colors we see are just shades of colors modern society has named. Right? Dont some modern tribes do exactly that?

[@VeretenoVids]

Not just modern "tribes"--there are many languages that split what we think of as a single color, e.g., blue into different categories. English speakers recognize a whole range of tints and shades of blue, but they still all fall into the category blue, whereas in other languages they are as separate as yellow and red is to us. Anyway, in a nutshell, yes this has been known to linguists for years and years.

[@semplybalanced3210]

You are kind of misconstruing or misunderstanding The Why Files, intentionally or not. The host intentionally discusses conspiracies, and then debunks them at the end of the video, every time.

[@dgetyoung]

We need to distinguish between basic color terms and specific color names like those of pigments. We have names like cerulean, indigo, etc. But those can both *also* be called blue. On the other hand, generally in English we don't refer to pink as a shade of red, even though many other languages do. Pink is its own basic color term for us (and this development was quite recent). The argument claims like these are based on is that ancient cultures lacked blue as a basic color term. There wasn't one word that included all those blue pigments without also including black or green. I don't know if this is true; I imagine it'd be difficult to conclusively determine without access to living speakers. But it has been claimed, and seems to hold to some degree as far as modern languages go, that there is a certain order in which basic color terms tend to become distinguished from each other. Blue is said to be separated out from either black (previously encompassing both blue and black shades) or green (previously encompassing both blue and green shades). There are languages today that lack blue as a basic color term. It's probably worth noting too that the exact borders of color terms are always a bit fuzzy. Two languages with basic terms for blue and green may put the boundary between them in very different places, and even speakers of the same language will disagree sometimes. That's just true of all concepts and categories

[@ZorValachan]

11:15 yes! And he also uses "καλος" (good) almost exclusively to refer to warrior-like traits in the Iliad. It doesn't mean ancient Greeks didn't have a concept of "good" like us, just that the emphasis was promoting a war story. Herodotus uses the same word for farming/labor traits for the same reason.

[@manos7958]

It has nothing to do with promoting war, it was merely used to describe the proficiency in a skill in the same way it is used in modern language. The word used to convey a character embodying the concept of "good" is usually "ἀγαθός".

[@theMedicatedCitizen]

I had seen the Why Files video and found the lack of sources referenced to be somewhat suspect. You really shouldn't make a grand claim based off the research of one person. Thanks for the in-depth dive into the history of colors!

[@vihangahiggoda5101]

Later videos actually have many references to its research

[@kerryhubley3921]

thanks for your video, it was good. i am a fisherman, and i know what homer meant by wine colored water, some days the water looks green, some times it looks black, blue, and wine colored. its hard to describe, but it looks almost brown, and I've often thought of homers description of wine colored when i see it. he's basically trying to describe the weather to the reader. you know its not a nice day when its wine colored. the sea is a bit rough, its overcast, just not a nice day. thanks again for your video. great job, take care.

[@alexcarter2542]

Thank you so much for this video Dr. Miano! There are a LOT of people confused about this one! In fact, while I am a Spanish teacher in a midwestern high school, there is a sociology class which takes place in my classroom during one of my planning periods, and just last week I overheard the instructor making this exact claim! That if a linguistic group has no word for "blue," they can't see it! The last time I had heard this argument was in college!!! The argument always bugged me, though I never found the time to do my own research. Thank you for doing that research for us, Dr. Miano! And thank you for reminding us all how truly widespread ideas with no actual basis in research are in our society! It is an alarming trend though. It seems easier than ever for unscrupulous folks who want to make a few bucks with a click bait-ey headline to make fantastical claims and then; to get away with it! I hope all the young people watching this video understand a.) how pervasive unfounded inaccuracies like this are and b.) how relatively simple it is to do a little research on your own and sniff out the truth! Love your channel Dr. Miano

[@no_peace]

It's funny because all languages have a word that includes blue. They also have ways to refer to certain blues without specific words. "The color of the daytime sky" or what have you

[@653j521]

Professors state a lot of strange things as indisputable facts. They help spread it across the internet.

[@Vo_Siri]

I saw another video debunking this a while back which was very interesting. Not sure if it was Metatron’s. Basically talking about how terminology for colours doesn’t always translate accurately because colour is a spectrum, and the region of that spectrum covered by a given word may not always fully overlap with the region covered by its closest equivalent in another language.

[@MT-ub8qg]

anyone using the term "debunking" is a bottom feeder lacking any credibility.

[@Vo_Siri]

@@MT-ub8qg Seethe

[@MrConstant23.]

I love The Why Files

[@Matts_Ancient_Coins]

So many alternative ancient “historians” seem to read many primary sources, literally. But it’s important to have context about the person writing it, as usually those texts need to be understood with a grain of salt.

[@stephenmillertime]

"Mixing facts with fiction" I can tell you haven't watched the why files just from this comment. I would be careful disrespecting a loved channel like this, it's not a good look.

[@rickh3714]

Cerulean, Caerulean, Coeruleum are some of the spellings I've seen on artist's grade paint tubes of the genuine pigment Cerulean Blue ( Cobalt stannate). Pthalo - 'Cyan'- ine blue developed as a working pigment at least by the 1920s by someone who worked at ICI ( I briefly met him, he was the boss at my father's work at a Midland's scientific think tank -as a very young boy in the mid 1960s). This was called Monastral blue at the time. Also spelt Monestial or often referred to in the modern form as 'Thalo' blue - I think initially by the Grumbacher artist's paint company. Didn't classical or (neo classical?) poets & writers refer to Halcyon ( Kingfisher) as a blue colour symbol? I'm no linguist but maybe 'cyon' and ' cyan ' MIGHT cognate? Nowadays art colour theoreticians often treat cyan as a separate colour to other ' bluish ' hues. The Cobalt blue glass was called frit at one stage. The modern use of Cobalts was about 300 yrs ago or later though. Cobalt violet was long used in fired porcelain. Lapis Lazuli processing is very arduous and involves much more than simple rock pulverizing- many grading soaks ( levigations) dryings and even a wax extraction process.

[@sabinegierth-waniczek4872]

All the more kudos to Dr. Kremer of Kremer Farben, where (among a myriad of other pigments) the real ultramarin blue is manufactured from lapis lazuli. He TMK also was part of the group of researchers who reverse engineered the formula for Mayan Blue ca. 20 years ago. I also sometimes wonder how many people know that their Bohemian lead glassware contains radioactive compounds (at least the yellow, light green and red specimens). Ok, over the years and with constant usage at least the superficial content is washed out gradually, and let's face it, malachite, banana peel and Brazil nuts are also radioactive - no risk, no fun. I kind of wish that I knew your father, he seems to be an interesting person ;-)

[@absarius1216]

8:42 That proves Why Flies' point. Blue wasn't distinguished as a separate color by many people. It was lumped in with other colors including black. For examples, in sanskrit and sanskrit-derived languages, black clouds used to be described as "nila", the same word used for blue. But to conclusively prove that greeks too didn't have a idea of blue, we have to find instance of uses of word that is used both to describe something that is blue and something of another color.

[@Jordan_Starr]

I realise this comment will get buried now but for anyone who sees it, please bear in mind that AJ from whyfiles is currently taking a break for his mental and physical health. Please don't dogpile him over a video he made a year ago - one that he even debunked himself 💕

[@tyrannywargaming]

Oh awesome! I have been wanting this channel to cover some of the Why Files.

[@JohnDoe-ol3yz]

Thank you for this video. And sadly, you're right... it won't get as many views as the sensationalized, click-bait, misinformation videos that pollute youtube.

[@SensiProductionzBlindDogVideos]

The why files says anything that gets impressionable, easily manip*lated kids to obsess over the channel. And blocks or hides anybody from the channel that disagrees. It’s truly disgusting

[@atheistdingo6273]

Wow, how dishonest. The Why Files debunks his videos at the end. Very very deceptive. Have come to expect it from this woke channel though.

[@donaldnewman4597]

So you're taking cheap shots at someone that does debunk and tries to get the most of the story out , shame on you.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

What's cheap about it? And where does he debunk this?

[@Sumitsu02]

​@@WorldofAntiquitywatch the rest of the video.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@Sumitsu02 I watched it several times.

[@Sumitsu02]

@@WorldofAntiquity they how are you debunking what's been debunked? You both said the same things. That's not debunking, that's beating a dead horse.

[@aramaxes4802]

But Christopher Hall does raise a valid point even tho everything you said. If the color blue existed why no reference to the sky being blue or the sea having a blue shade? The naming of color is cultural and "maybe" they used those words you spoke of for the color blue but how can we be 100% certain of this? This debate will remain open until we find actual text pointing out something that we know is blue in color (like the morning sky or the sea) from that era. And since we cannot find it despite how hard we look for it... it cannot be debated that this is strange at the very least.

[@st.anselmsfire3547]

It is genuinely interesting how many academics get so deep into the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that they can't imagine people having concepts that they don't have words for. You know what's wild? A ton of languages don't have a specific word for brown, or pink, but they still recognize those colors. Maybe they see them as shades of other colors, but they still recognize them. Japanese actually considers blue and green to be shades of one much larger color. But they still see both colors.

[@PareliusC]

If blue 'didn't exist' then why did the Pharaohs and Ancient Egyptian nobles go to great lengths to import lapus lazuli from Afghanistan

[@toddklein77]

I’m glad to see you’ve addressed this. Though I’m curious to know if you at all reached out to “The Why Files” on this? It could’ve unironically been a great collaborative piece between the two channels. Despite initial appearances, the channel’s underlying conceit is mostly debunking each of the wild conspiracies it generally features. They may’ve admittedly dropped the ball on this one, but ultimately I’d say you’re two channels have lot in common. And I say this is someone who’s followed both your channels for quite a while now.

[@talantabdurashid3939]

"Asul" in Quechua language is the origin of the colour blue and it means "the best, noble, sky". The Aztek means "the noble origine". All elite in history claimed that they belong to the "As, az, or ashyn" which means they were demigods from the sky or Asul.

[@eleonb]

Great to see you already have 200k subscribers! Well deserved. 🎉

[@scavengerethic]

I've seen the Nile close up only once, but It was definitely green. If it "became blue" after the invention of a word for blue, it must have changed back since.

[@satinswan1979]

I think the more correct argument, rather than "didn't see blue" would be "didn't subdivide as much". For instance, if I have a pile of blue laundry, it's "blue laundry" even if I have pale blue, light blue, blue-teal, navy blue, denim blue, etc. in the pile. So if you have a culture that groups blue and green together as a "single color", there are still shades and hues, they just might not give every shade and hue its own name, which seems really only necessary when you're producing goods and want to share information for matching, like, "This [blue] is from Egypt, so you need Egyptian [blue] to match it."

[@kikiTHEalien]

Taking into account that homemade red wine stains one's teeth dark blue, and it is traditionally referred as "black", not red, I would say calling the sea the colour of red wine is pretty accurate description for some portions of the sea, while others are different shades of blue.

[@flobbertdobson1598]

Having watched his whole video he states most cultures counted blue as variations of green

[@theeddorian]

The approach that determines perception by language is an argument advanced by Benjamin Whorf. Whorf's argument has been debated among anthropologists and linguists for decades. The empirical reality is that we tend to view the world through individual palettes, that are partially the result of physiological differences. As the Why Files observes, physiologically we can see many shades of color, and the way we divide them is to an extent, culturally determined. The tricky part is that you and your wife can both look at a particular color sample and discover that she sees purple where you see a dark, rose color, or a bright white to her has a cream cast to your eye. As concerns Homer's "wine dark sea" the comparison is the "dark" rather than the wine. In photography we are concerned with proper metering of light - bright vs dark. The standard is an 18% grey, but, you can also use a cloudless, hazeless sky, or the palm of your hand as stand-ins for a grey card. None of those alternatives are the same color, but they do have about the same "darkness."

[@dougrobinson6683]

I'm pretty sure the Why Files only exists as a prong in the anti-information campaign.

[@iansayers2414]

The only semi-true example I can think of is one he didn't mention, the Mayan language. To the best of my knowledge, the Mayans didn't have different words for Green and Blue. They used the same word, Yax. But, they did clearly see the difference between them because they would articulate that objects were either Yax like the sky or Yax like a tree.

[@mistyhaney5565]

He does another thing that really irritates me, he refers to various "ancient" civilizations as if they existed at the same time. Ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the ancient near east, ancient China, all referred to as if there weren't thousands of years dividing them. I hear it all the time "in ancient times" or "in antiquity" these phrases mean absolutely nothing if you're not willing to name the civilization or society you're referring to. When it comes to Egypt, China, the Indus Valley, and the near east civilizations, it is necessary to be more specific, "ancient" isn't a time period. Sorry for ranting, but hearing sweeping generalizations made about vast time periods, and vastly different groups of people is tiresome.

[@stanleywang8686]

Speaking of blue, what language you speak does influence your perception of color to some extent. In Thai for example, what we call 'sky' blue has a specific name (สี​ฟ้า)​ -​it is​ a very commonly used color in Thailand vs 'regular' blue (สีน้ำเงิน)​ and is perceived by Thais as distinct from each other as say green is to yellow, and not as shades of the same color

[@imjustsaying2769]

The ancient people couldn't see blue until one day this little child rushed inside the house and said "Guys, checked this out sky is finally blue for the first time in 200 million years" and after that they were no more ancient.

[@xwolf6960]

I find it hard to believe that none of the people in question didn’t know that lapis lazuli was blue, they had rainbows , they had sea water, skies aplenty as well as people with blue frickin eyes.

[@dividedwefall5382]

Ripe oranges, especially in warmer regions/countries aren't actually orange 🍊 they're green 🍏 due to chlorophyll build up. They don't turn orange until they're cold, dyed, at the beginning stage of rot

[@DeyvsonMoutinhoCaliman]

Often ancient people are portrayed as barelly human, as if it was possible for a biologically health human to not see the color blue due to "culture". It's often degrading to other cultures, saying they lack certain feelings and other human attributes, but all in the name of "diversity". Blue is the most common color in a sunny day.

[@AwesomeJerkface]

This has bothered me so much. For the last decade or so. I couldn’t debunk it, but I had to suffer the most contorted rationalizations.

[@suzykeene9298]

They did see the colour blue but in their languages it was various shades of green. Even now if you put some shades of blue in front of people some will it see as a shade of purple or green. Our languages shape our perceptions.

[@urdnal]

I don't get people saying why files is just for fun or entertainment. It's fun and entertaining to be told falsehoods as if they're facts?

[@alainaaugust1932]

I read the blue tale long ago, way before 2018. That dissertation held that blue and green being close together-right next to each other in the rainbow-ancients had one word for blues and greens. In particular, it mentioned a certain African tribe had to be taught the difference by missionaries. I vaguely recall the writer saying that the locals smiled and laughed at the missionaries’ strange idea. “Nila” meaning “all shades of blue down to black” comes closest to the idea the writer advocated. Only it was blue and green meshed together, as if blue-green or turquoise was the primary hue and green one variant of that, blue another variant of the same hue, like the Chinese, “qing.” That article I read long ago also concluded that ancients saw blue but just talked about it differently, named it differently. That African tribe found it a distinction without a difference-quaint white man nonsense. But the video makers and the 2018 article must have missed the earlier long history of the subject. A warning to all of us not to make into history simple misunderstanding of cultural differences: how much else of what we call history is really our misunderstanding of past cultures?

[@paulduffy9481]

Remembering when my brother in law told his then very young daughter that old films were in black and white because colour didn't exist then. It seemed funny at the time.

[@howaboutataste]

OMG! The Why Files wrong about something? Shocker.

[@DJTheTrainmanWalker]

Responding to the title cold: The true bit is.... The Greeks described the colour of the sky as >Bronze

[@ivilivo]

On a side note, on the blue/black reference. When mixing colours/pigment, to get the darkest black it's classic to use (very dark) blue.