-------- Original Message --------
We've been here before. Someone recommended the book "Blue : the
history of
a color / Michel Pastoureau. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University
Press,
2001, c2000" or "Bleu:..". I read it in English; the all-important
illustrations must be the same in French. I second the recommendation,
even
though I had hoped for more about the word "blue" rather than the
pigments,
etc. And now I have some more questions, especially inspired by Don
Johnson. Do we know whether the Greeks - Homeric or classical - had a
word
for blue that covered nearly as much as "blue" does in English - blue
flowers and birds, pigments and gemstones and other stone, eyes, sky,
sea
and other waters, rainbow band? Our "cyan" is, I think, quite limited.
Do
we know whether "kuanous" is that same color? The rainbow brings up
questions on its own: Is there any agreement about whether it has six
colors or seven? Do the bands (red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
{indigo},
violet) have designated (by the appropriate scientists) wave-lengths?
Did
the Greeks name the rainbow colors? Other languages?
Thanks for any information, or accessible references.
Mary Krimmel
At 03:16 PM 2/22/07 jansy wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>Inspite of the etymology, when we describe anything as "celestial"
( also,
>as heavenly) we do not necessarily imply it is "blue". In Russian,
as Fet
>describes, azure is indeed used as a synonum of sky ( I ask: is it
also a
>synonym for heaven?)
. . .
. . .
and from Don Johnson,
>. . .The theory that the Greeks lacked words for certain colors
>...(propounded first I believe by Julian Jaynes) is considered to
be
>pretty far-fetched. The classical Greeks, as opposed to those of
Homer's
>time, certainly had a word for blue, kuanous, the same as our word
>cyan...The whole spectrum of Greek colors is by no means a
congruent match
>with our conceptions of what is meant by the same color-words.