Various aspects of this topic continue to attract strong interest. One example is IFLS post dated 4 March by Lisa Winter entitled When did humans start to see the colour blue? (my respelling and caps).
Quotable quotes:
In fact, the first mention of blue wasn't found in any language until about 4,500 years ago. Was it possible that they weren’t able to perceive it as we do now?
If you’d like to learn more about the color experiment with the Himba tribe, the origin of the word blue, and extreme instances of color perception in humans and in animals, check out the Radiolab podcast episode Colors right here. (audio duration > 1 hour)Many thanks to asmarttranslatorsreunion for the constructive feedback. The LanugageLog post concludes:
Whatever the explanation, I submit that the BBC documentary (and the subsequent coverage) has given us a sensationalist interpretation of an undocumented experiment, presented as reliable science, without giving us any basis to trust that this interpretation is even close to true.See also The Evolution Of Language: Study Of Rare Indigenous Language Shows All Humans Think Of Colors In The Same Way.
