Language has ghost words awaiting the necessity of
invention, or that pre-exist before exciting new meanings. Consider the
Brazilian language Pirahã. It has no colour words, only terms for bright and
dark in general. Things are described using comparison (leaflike, sunlike) but
with no fixed terms (green, yellow). Nature abhors a vacuum. Pirahã speakers
refer every day to colours, but have no generic words for them. Colour
evolution seems to come entirely from poetic naming of objects. Sitting in
Australia in January, it’s hard to believe that ancient Chinese, Japanese,
Greek, Hebrew had no word for blue. Let alone cerulean.
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