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

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  • čas přidán 3. 03. 2024
  • In this video, Dr. M looks at a dubious claim made by the popular CZcams 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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    ► REFERENCES
    burnaway.org/magazine/blue-la...
    link.springer.com/article/10....
    www.brooklynmuseum.org/storie...
    www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...
    sci-hub.se/doi.org/10...
    www.grsampson.net/AGal.pdf
    sci-hub.se/doi.org/10...
    amzn.to/3SOHlaS
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Komentáře • 1,9K

  • @morgan97475
    @morgan97475 Před 3 měsíci +404

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

    • @tatechasers2393
      @tatechasers2393 Před 3 měsíci +20

      Wizard of Oz (1939)

    • @julilla1
      @julilla1 Před 3 měsíci +25

      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
      @johndunham9979 Před 3 měsíci

      Kansas is still black and white

    • @Wallyworld30
      @Wallyworld30 Před 3 měsíci

      @@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
      @lithrae1 Před 3 měsíci +14

      Calvin's dad would approve

  • @adam-k
    @adam-k Před 3 měsíci +157

    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
      @San_Vito Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @JMM33RanMA
      @JMM33RanMA Před 3 měsíci +4

      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
      @stehfreejesseah7893 Před 3 měsíci +3

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

    • @JMM33RanMA
      @JMM33RanMA Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @neverstopschweiking
      @neverstopschweiking Před 3 měsíci +12

      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
    @gabbleratchet1890 Před 3 měsíci +52

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

  • @psychette8846
    @psychette8846 Před 3 měsíci +334

    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
      @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 Před 3 měsíci +17

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

    • @user-cofee
      @user-cofee Před 3 měsíci +12

      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
      @lenandov Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @SamBorgman
      @SamBorgman Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @BlackCatMargie
      @BlackCatMargie Před 3 měsíci +2

      😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  • @adam-k
    @adam-k Před 3 měsíci +99

    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
      @countofdownable Před 3 měsíci +5

      Or was the Sun setting and the sea looked red?

    • @theaverrainecyclemorgansmi5388
      @theaverrainecyclemorgansmi5388 Před 3 měsíci +5

      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
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +12

      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
      @seanhewitt603 Před 3 měsíci +3

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

    • @Belenus3080
      @Belenus3080 Před 3 měsíci +5

      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

  • @peterbereczki4147
    @peterbereczki4147 Před 3 měsíci +572

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

  • @Murdo2112
    @Murdo2112 Před 3 měsíci +41

    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
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +11

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

    • @MonochromeWench
      @MonochromeWench Před 3 měsíci +2

      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
      @rizkyadiyanto7922 Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @pattheplanter
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @sabinegierth-waniczek4872
      @sabinegierth-waniczek4872 Před 3 měsíci +3

      @@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.

  • @billcook4768
    @billcook4768 Před 3 měsíci +60

    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
      @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 Před 3 měsíci +4

      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
      @davidconner-shover51 Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @AethelwulfBretwalda
      @AethelwulfBretwalda Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095
      @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 Před 3 měsíci +1

      @@AethelwulfBretwalda
      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
      @oldpotato5538 Před 3 měsíci +5

      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.

  • @yau6666
    @yau6666 Před 3 měsíci +83

    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
      @NeutralDrow Před 3 měsíci +19

      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
      @TheRedleg69 Před 3 měsíci +10

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

    • @JMM33RanMA
      @JMM33RanMA Před 3 měsíci +7

      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
      @JMM33RanMA Před 3 měsíci +2

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

    • @NeutralDrow
      @NeutralDrow Před 3 měsíci +2

      @@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?

  • @ITHYANDEL
    @ITHYANDEL Před 3 měsíci +40

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

    • @zam6877
      @zam6877 Před 3 měsíci +2

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

    • @arachnophilia427
      @arachnophilia427 Před 3 měsíci +7

      ​@@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
      @funkoxen Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @johnnemo4146
      @johnnemo4146 Před 3 měsíci +1

      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
      @KasumiRINA Před 3 měsíci +6

      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.

  • @stephenluff9998
    @stephenluff9998 Před 3 měsíci +18

    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.

  • @Bluebelle51
    @Bluebelle51 Před 3 měsíci +17

    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
      @hollyingraham3980 Před 3 měsíci +3

      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
      @Bluebelle51 Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @recurse
      @recurse Před 3 měsíci +3

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

  • @rcrawford42
    @rcrawford42 Před 3 měsíci +222

    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
      @whyjnot420 Před 3 měsíci +23

      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
      @Raussl Před 3 měsíci +8

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

    • @whyjnot420
      @whyjnot420 Před 3 měsíci +4

      @@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
      @MrMackievelli Před 3 měsíci +2

      I mean thanks for repeating what this video says.

    • @Paulsofsteel
      @Paulsofsteel Před 3 měsíci +5

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

  • @monkerud2108
    @monkerud2108 Před 3 měsíci +23

    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.

  • @terryhunt2659
    @terryhunt2659 Před 3 měsíci +242

    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
      @chrywelch Před 3 měsíci +35

      %100 ^^^^ this

    • @TheAdrinachrome1
      @TheAdrinachrome1 Před 3 měsíci +46

      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
      @JankyBruv Před 3 měsíci +9

      Yep. Thus part.

    • @The-Cosmic-Hobo
      @The-Cosmic-Hobo Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @NoMatureContent
      @NoMatureContent Před 3 měsíci +37

      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...

  • @edwardwright8127
    @edwardwright8127 Před 3 měsíci +6

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

  • @neoclassic09
    @neoclassic09 Před 3 měsíci +342

    It's amazing how pervasive dumbassery is online

    • @Breakfast_of_Champions
      @Breakfast_of_Champions Před 3 měsíci +19

      My suggested videos are a swirling vortex of it

    • @DutchShocker
      @DutchShocker Před 3 měsíci +5

      Did you mean 'persuasive'?

    • @neoclassic09
      @neoclassic09 Před 3 měsíci +28

      No I meant pervasive

    • @GizzyDillespee
      @GizzyDillespee Před 3 měsíci +17

      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
      @elirien4264 Před 3 měsíci +4

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

  • @FantasticExplorers
    @FantasticExplorers Před 3 měsíci +39

    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
      @Cat_Woods Před 3 měsíci +5

      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
      @ZendelWashington Před 3 měsíci +1

      Da ba dee da ba di?

    • @schillieyoung4307
      @schillieyoung4307 Před 3 měsíci

      Blue was light black pink was light red

    • @Soapy-chan
      @Soapy-chan Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@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
      @TRsofan Před 3 měsíci

      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.

  • @aidandavies7232
    @aidandavies7232 Před 3 měsíci +25

    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
      @NefariousKoel Před 3 měsíci +3

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

    • @garryferrington811
      @garryferrington811 Před 3 měsíci +2

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

    • @Rynewulf
      @Rynewulf Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @no_peace
      @no_peace Před 3 měsíci +5

      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
      @no_peace Před 3 měsíci +1

      ​@@garryferrington811 no

  • @straingedays
    @straingedays Před 3 měsíci +7

    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
      @ellenrittgers990 Před 3 měsíci +1

      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!

  • @MartijnHover
    @MartijnHover Před 3 měsíci +150

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

    • @loke6664
      @loke6664 Před 3 měsíci +15

      ...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
      @MartijnHover Před 3 měsíci +33

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

    • @loke6664
      @loke6664 Před 3 měsíci +5

      @@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
      @larryscott3982 Před 3 měsíci +7

      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
      @MartijnHover Před 3 měsíci +6

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

  • @Breakfast_of_Champions
    @Breakfast_of_Champions Před 3 měsíci +21

    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
      @TheGahta Před 3 měsíci +8

      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
      @NeutralDrow Před 3 měsíci +7

      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
      @chrisball3778 Před 3 měsíci +4

      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
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +2

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

    • @no_peace
      @no_peace Před 3 měsíci +1

      This is nonsense lol

  • @GoblinSlayer_GS
    @GoblinSlayer_GS Před 3 měsíci +18

    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
      @WorldofAntiquity  Před 3 měsíci +4

      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
      @JB-jm6lo Před 3 měsíci +1

      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
      @SpectralViper Před 3 měsíci +4

      @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
      @aceloco817 Před 3 měsíci +1

      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
      @adrianblake8876 Před 11 dny

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

  • @jonjohns8145
    @jonjohns8145 Před 3 měsíci +10

    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.

  • @Belenor
    @Belenor Před 3 měsíci +23

    Views > Being correct. Sadly...

    • @BaranKRool
      @BaranKRool Před 3 měsíci

      Views > Integrity.
      Quite sadly.

    • @GizzyDillespee
      @GizzyDillespee Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @neverstopschweiking
      @neverstopschweiking Před 3 měsíci +5

      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
      @GoblinSlayer_GS Před 3 měsíci +5

      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
      @TheAdrinachrome1 Před 3 měsíci +5

      @@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

  • @murphylhunn
    @murphylhunn Před 3 měsíci +17

    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
      @loke6664 Před 3 měsíci +8

      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.

  • @dizzychrist
    @dizzychrist Před 3 měsíci +34

    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.

  • @djpenton779
    @djpenton779 Před 3 měsíci +7

    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.

  • @wayneclayton5426
    @wayneclayton5426 Před 3 měsíci +21

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

    • @chrisl4999
      @chrisl4999 Před 3 měsíci +17

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

    • @williamjenkins4913
      @williamjenkins4913 Před 3 měsíci +4

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

    • @GoblinSlayer_GS
      @GoblinSlayer_GS Před 3 měsíci +12

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

    • @wayneclayton5426
      @wayneclayton5426 Před 3 měsíci +2

      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
      @Bellumization Před 3 měsíci +2

      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 😂

  • @algi1
    @algi1 Před 3 měsíci +28

    Homer color blind? Wasn't he blind blind?

    • @loke6664
      @loke6664 Před 3 měsíci +2

      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.

  • @tyrannywargaming
    @tyrannywargaming Před 3 měsíci +2

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

  • @OffRampTourist
    @OffRampTourist Před 3 měsíci +6

    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
      @irenebecker4815 Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @OffRampTourist
      @OffRampTourist Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @flightographist
      @flightographist Před 2 měsíci

      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.

  • @joek600
    @joek600 Před 3 měsíci +3

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

  • @jffryh
    @jffryh Před 3 měsíci +3

    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?

  • @anitapollard1627
    @anitapollard1627 Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you, Dr. David! I very much appreciate you doing "these kinds of videos" 😁 keep up the good work!!

  • @gj1234567899999
    @gj1234567899999 Před 3 měsíci +4

    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
      @gj1234567899999 Před 3 měsíci

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

  • @J_Z913
    @J_Z913 Před 3 měsíci +15

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

    • @nektu5435
      @nektu5435 Před 3 měsíci +1

      CZcams 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
      @WSFM_Rex Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @nektu5435
      @nektu5435 Před 3 měsíci

      @@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
      @WSFM_Rex Před 3 měsíci

      @@nektu5435 sus fr

  • @chrisball3778
    @chrisball3778 Před 3 měsíci +5

    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
      @martinhughes2549 Před 3 měsíci +1

      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.

  • @zacharyclark3693
    @zacharyclark3693 Před 3 měsíci

    Excellent video! I appreciate all the sources you used to show how different ancient cultures interpreted colors. It’s good to recognize that part of an argument can be true but may also have incorrect assumptions and interpretations wrapped up in it.

  • @TALON-7
    @TALON-7 Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you for the correction. I've seen a coule of those videos you had cited and came away accepting their conclusions.

  • @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095
    @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 Před 3 měsíci +7

    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
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +1

      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
      @garryferrington811 Před 3 měsíci +1

      That's a good idea.

  • @k-matsu
    @k-matsu Před 3 měsíci +4

    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
      @sabinegierth-waniczek4872 Před 3 měsíci

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

  • @eleonb
    @eleonb Před 3 měsíci +2

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

  • @ludoviccelle5781
    @ludoviccelle5781 Před 3 měsíci +3

    Excellent video. You did some brillant research and I just learned a lot in a row. I love when debunking is done with such calm. Thank you !

    • @thirdlegstalliano
      @thirdlegstalliano Před 3 měsíci +1

      What is it with you people and the term "debunked?" Just stop

    • @ludoviccelle5781
      @ludoviccelle5781 Před 3 měsíci

      @@thirdlegstalliano What term do you recommend ?

  • @MossyMozart
    @MossyMozart Před 3 měsíci +3

    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
      @MossyMozart Před 3 měsíci +2

      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.

  • @dgetyoung
    @dgetyoung Před 3 měsíci +4

    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

  • @Robert-sd1iz
    @Robert-sd1iz Před 3 měsíci +2

    I’m amazed that, “As a student of ancient history,” you had never heard this claim before. I’m not a student of ancient history and I had heard of this fifty years ago from someone who was also not a student of ancient history.

  • @keithcurtis
    @keithcurtis Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you. This sort of demystifying and debunking is sorely needed.

  • @gardeneroflight
    @gardeneroflight Před 3 měsíci +3

    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.

  • @stevenswitzer5154
    @stevenswitzer5154 Před 3 měsíci +3

    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
      @xsjado_anon Před 3 měsíci

      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.

  • @therealzilch
    @therealzilch Před 3 měsíci

    Fascinating stuff, very well explained. Subscribed.
    cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott

  • @corymoore2292
    @corymoore2292 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Great video, it might be good to do the why files more often!

  • @ZorValachan
    @ZorValachan Před 3 měsíci +3

    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
      @manos7958 Před 3 měsíci

      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".

  • @maxdaly8185
    @maxdaly8185 Před 3 měsíci +11

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

    • @WorldofAntiquity
      @WorldofAntiquity  Před 3 měsíci +1

      Not in this case.

    • @brazenatheist1676
      @brazenatheist1676 Před 3 měsíci

      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 CZcams care?

  • @stanleyshannon4408
    @stanleyshannon4408 Před 3 měsíci +2

    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.

  • @brt5273
    @brt5273 Před 3 měsíci +2

    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.

  • @zedudli
    @zedudli Před 3 měsíci +23

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

    • @973Kozy
      @973Kozy Před 3 měsíci +6

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

    • @jfjoubertquebec
      @jfjoubertquebec Před 3 měsíci

      Wiping the floor with their arguments... 😆

    • @dialecticcoma
      @dialecticcoma Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @rizkyadiyanto7922
      @rizkyadiyanto7922 Před 3 měsíci +2

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

    • @MT-ub8qg
      @MT-ub8qg Před 3 měsíci +1

      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.

  • @Vo_Siri
    @Vo_Siri Před 3 měsíci +3

    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
      @MT-ub8qg Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @Vo_Siri
      @Vo_Siri Před 3 měsíci

      @@MT-ub8qg Seethe

  • @jamesolivier5224
    @jamesolivier5224 Před 3 měsíci

    It's always a joy to watch your videos. Thanks again.

  • @carymartin1150
    @carymartin1150 Před 3 měsíci

    Great video, Dr. Miano, thanks.

  • @davidnotonstinnett
    @davidnotonstinnett Před 3 měsíci +3

    This is more an issue of language and how humans categorize things than anything….and also a dash of old school ignorance.
    This is comparable to how Japan (and probably other East Asian countries, but I’m most aware of Japan) tends to lump blue and green together…as in, until outside influence, people in Japan wouldn’t have saw a hard line between green and blue, even if they perceived the color. It was all Green, and the distinction didn’t arise until after World War II, and even then, many still think of it as a “shade” of green, rather than a distinct “class” of color.
    I will never understand this fundamental inability to understand that people can just see the world differently.

    • @pattheplanter
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci

      But those categories were only at the top level and that one should not be translated as green. With an added adjective you get a closer description of the hues. I don't know in Japan but I bet some artists asked for a pigment like that Hokusai wave blue/green.

  • @polytropos1.1
    @polytropos1.1 Před 3 měsíci +3

    Tʜᴀɴᴋ Yᴏᴜ!
    I saw this Why Files video some years ago and just wondered what these people smoked. I just looked up the reference for ‘green honey’ and found μέλι χλωρόν Λ.631 and dismissed the claim alltogether - χλωρός, as you also say in 13:52, may mean any faint hue of green or yellow or (most often in Homer) just pale.

    • @stephencuffel4932
      @stephencuffel4932 Před 3 měsíci

      Similarly, there is debate over just what "γλαυκός" meant. It appears on the color wheel, between κυανοῦς and χλωρός. The word is used to describe Athena's eye-color, and often translated simply as "grey", much as κυανοῦς often = dark, and χλωρός = pale. In other words, no specific colors at all. My Woodhouse English-Greek dictionary, first published in 1910, not so long after Gladstone, has two entries for blue, κυανοῦς and γλαυκός (specified as blue-grey), so obviously scholars of the era knew that the Greeks had words for it.

    • @pattheplanter
      @pattheplanter Před 3 měsíci +2

      In the case of honey, chloros meant fresh, new - like we would say someone is green if inexperienced. The Greeks used green of new cheese, fresh fish, freshly-picked fruit and newly-cut wood, whatever the colour. A very similar use is found in English for particular products, though not common now.
      In the Idylls of Theocritus there is a poem (X - The Reapers, ἐργατίναι ἤ θερισταί) praising a charming sunburnt dancer/flute-player who was mocked as Syrian by all the town. The besotted poet compares her to "green honey" μελίχλωρον. It is clear she is not pale but the colour of dark fresh honey, before it sets. Commonly mistranslated as even Liddell and Scott got μελίχλωρον confused in their Lexicon.
      Are you the Gernot Katzer who did the incredible Spice Pages? I still visit occasionally to check things.

    • @sabinegierth-waniczek4872
      @sabinegierth-waniczek4872 Před 3 měsíci +1

      @@pattheplanterOne might add the ELUSIVE GK, I also repeatedly check for news!!! Clarification would be appreciated, thank you in advance!

  • @ElLenadorLA
    @ElLenadorLA Před 3 měsíci

    I actually heard this concept originally from a radiolab episode years ago. Thanks for clearing things up!

  • @kellydavis9122
    @kellydavis9122 Před 3 měsíci

    This high quality video with interesting information and incredible presentation. Good job.
    I personally wouldn’t have been able to watch it if I hadn’t watched so many The Why Files. Often many of the topics are brought up for entertaining conversation and exploration. The host, talking fish, and camel are very entertaining. Most of all the host provides a platform for people to ask why or what and even room to explore new information. Welcome to the conversation. I mean this with love for you and The Why Files- You should write the show and see if they will higher you to dig up facts for them. That would be pretty amazing

  • @thirdlegstalliano
    @thirdlegstalliano Před 3 měsíci +5

    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
      @varyolla435 Před 3 měsíci

      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.

  • @alexcarter2542
    @alexcarter2542 Před 3 měsíci +16

    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
      @no_peace Před 3 měsíci +2

      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
      @653j521 Před 3 měsíci

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

  • @Just_some_guy74
    @Just_some_guy74 Před 3 měsíci +2

    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.

  • @hefruth
    @hefruth Před 3 měsíci

    Well done. I've never seen the video you refer to, but I am so glad that someone is willing to make the effort to debunk cultural myths. You do so with clarity and precision. Keep up the great work!

    • @MT-ub8qg
      @MT-ub8qg Před 3 měsíci

      anyone using the term "debunking" is a bottom feeder lacking any credibility. That is how inept argument from authority academics cover for a complete lack of ability,. Universities are overrun with these tyrants of classroom kingdoms who substitute sarcasm and sincerity for wit and wisdom.

  • @rickh3714
    @rickh3714 Před 3 měsíci +4

    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
      @sabinegierth-waniczek4872 Před 3 měsíci

      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 ;-)

  • @jeush2709
    @jeush2709 Před 3 měsíci +6

    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
      @JB-jm6lo Před 3 měsíci +1

      Yea that debunking does get less and less

    • @Sinai459
      @Sinai459 Před 3 měsíci

      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.

  • @diebesgrab
    @diebesgrab Před 3 měsíci

    I didn’t know Historian’s Craft did a video on this. I’ll have to dig through his archives, that’s my favorite history channel on CZcams.

  • @theeddorian
    @theeddorian Před 3 měsíci +2

    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."

  • @nektu5435
    @nektu5435 Před 3 měsíci +37

    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
      @MarkVrem Před 3 měsíci +4

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

  • @johnwayne3085
    @johnwayne3085 Před 3 měsíci +7

    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
      @WorldofAntiquity  Před 3 měsíci +1

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

    • @dansihvonen8218
      @dansihvonen8218 Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@WorldofAntiquityWF is not a science channel.

    • @brazenatheist1676
      @brazenatheist1676 Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@dansihvonen8218 that doesn't matter.

    • @brazenatheist1676
      @brazenatheist1676 Před 3 měsíci

      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
      @dansihvonen8218 Před 3 měsíci

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

  • @erinmcgraw5208
    @erinmcgraw5208 Před 3 měsíci +1

    Fascinating!!! I would love a long-form video on ancient pigments!! 👀🌈🩵

  • @anitapaulsen3282
    @anitapaulsen3282 Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you for making this video and pointing these things out. I happened to see the video you referred to and wrote in the comments of that video that blue is mentioned in the Bible many times. By the way, my dad who was from Denmark for a long time called any color in the red/reddish orange/orange spectrum "red" and my brother and I noticed that some from England did the same thing. When I asked my grandparents and parents how to say pink in danish they had to think about it for a while and finally said it was "light red". I guess referring to colors has some cultural aspects after all.

  • @absarius1216
    @absarius1216 Před 3 měsíci +5

    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.

  • @semplybalanced3210
    @semplybalanced3210 Před 3 měsíci +5

    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.

  • @achilles3271
    @achilles3271 Před 3 měsíci +1

    Thank you for this video and your amazing work in general!
    Also, I would like to note that Homer actually HAS references to the color blue in the Iliad. An example is in Rhapsody 20.144, where Poseidon is named 'Κυανοχαίτης'
    literally translated to 'Βlue Ηaired' . As in having hair similar to the color of the sea, which apparently was blue (who could have guessed).
    I don't know why, but the English translations I checked out of curiosity, translate it to dark-haired! Τhe Greek ones I have in mind keep the same word, because Κυανό as you aforementioned means 'Blue' in modern Greek as well, or change it to 'γαλαζόχαιτος' which has almost the same meaning (light-blue haired).

  • @HepCatJack
    @HepCatJack Před 3 měsíci +1

    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.

  • @SensiProductionzBlindDogVideos
    @SensiProductionzBlindDogVideos Před 3 měsíci +3

    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

  • @JonnoPlays
    @JonnoPlays Před 3 měsíci +5

    You could make an entire channel just debunking The Why Files.

    • @MikeMurphChops
      @MikeMurphChops Před 3 měsíci +7

      The why file dubunks itself on most of its videos if you watch till the end.

    • @charleshartley9597
      @charleshartley9597 Před 3 měsíci +3

      ​@@MikeMurphChopsmost definitely. I'm a regular viewer of TWF and I love their content. The video discussed here is early and probably done to get views, nothing more. You can see AJ didn't do much research outside what was in the article.
      More recent videos are waaayy longer and go into a lot more detail. Part of the fun of the channel is how they tell a story, and across the board the claims are debunked in the last part of the video. Cheers.

    • @JB-jm6lo
      @JB-jm6lo Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@MikeMurphChopshe spreads conspiracies for 45 mins then debunks about 8 mins. Apparently from this video you can determine he doesnt do much research other than watching other conspiracy youtubers

  • @Playerone1287
    @Playerone1287 Před 3 měsíci

    I just watched this particular video 6-7 days ago
    And now you made a video about it
    Addicted to your myth buster videos

  • @birthofacapital
    @birthofacapital Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you so much for this video! I am very interested in colorimetry and color theory, and have been aware of the linguistic debate about basic color terms. The archeological angle you take is extremely informative because it reinforces a concept in colorimetry that there are no "pure" colors and color itself is an abstraction of phenomena that usually encountered via specific pigments. So it's totally intuitive that until this abstraction/theoriziation takes hold, people simply talked in terms of concrete pigment. This makes me hate disciplinary walls and dive into find out more!

  • @donaldnewman4597
    @donaldnewman4597 Před 3 měsíci +4

    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
      @WorldofAntiquity  Před 3 měsíci

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

    • @Sumitsu02
      @Sumitsu02 Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@WorldofAntiquitywatch the rest of the video.

    • @WorldofAntiquity
      @WorldofAntiquity  Před 3 měsíci

      @@Sumitsu02 I watched it several times.

    • @Sumitsu02
      @Sumitsu02 Před 3 měsíci

      @@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.

  • @Jordan_Starr
    @Jordan_Starr Před 3 měsíci +7

    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 💕

  • @buzzell93
    @buzzell93 Před 3 měsíci +9

    I keep seeing these ridiculous claims popping up on my feed. I’d rather find out what they’re talking about from you. Thank you for another great episode!

    • @arachnophilia427
      @arachnophilia427 Před 3 měsíci +1

      i am so tired of this one.
      it's pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and bad literary studies. like, we have text searches now and can easily verify that homer does in fact call stuff blue. but nobody ever does.

  • @jawsbert
    @jawsbert Před 3 měsíci

    This claim has been floating around online for ages. It always sounded dubious to me, but is the first debunking I've come across. Thank you

    • @MT-ub8qg
      @MT-ub8qg Před 3 měsíci

      He clearly didn't watch the whole Why Files episode.... Anyone using the term "debunking" is a bottom feeder lacking any credibility. That is how inept argument from authority academics cover for a complete lack of ability,. Universities are overrun with these tyrants of classroom kingdoms who substitute sarcasm and sincerity for wit and wisdom

  • @atheistdingo6273
    @atheistdingo6273 Před 3 měsíci +6

    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.

  • @mountainwombat
    @mountainwombat Před 3 měsíci

    Thank you so much for this information! 💙

  • @theMedicatedCitizen
    @theMedicatedCitizen Před 3 měsíci +2

    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
      @vihangahiggoda5101 Před 3 měsíci

      Later videos actually have many references to its research

  • @xt7519
    @xt7519 Před 3 měsíci +1

    My first thought on seeing this 'ancients didn't know what blue was' (to paraphrase) was to think of Egyptian Blue or the Ishtar Gate or similar things then put that in context with when Homer theoretically lived and come to a similar conclusion as you did in this video. Great job, as usual, on this one. And thanks for mentioning Metatron and his video...I haven't seen that one, so thanks for pointing it out. Going to watch that one today.

  • @scavengerethic
    @scavengerethic Před 3 měsíci +2

    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.

  • @aaronmarks9366
    @aaronmarks9366 Před 3 měsíci

    Excellent video as always, Dr. Miano!
    One small correction, Latin "caeruleum" isn't related to the Greek-Hittite "kuwano" word, but is instead a derivation of Latin "caelum" - thus the color term literally means "sky color".

  • @kikiTHEalien
    @kikiTHEalien Před 3 měsíci +2

    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.

  • @alainaaugust1932
    @alainaaugust1932 Před 3 měsíci +2

    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?

  • @JohnDoe-ol3yz
    @JohnDoe-ol3yz Před 3 měsíci

    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.

  • @MARILYNANDERSON88
    @MARILYNANDERSON88 Před 3 měsíci +1

    Eye receptors for colors are:
    60%red 30% green 10% blue
    Each eye has a unique color experience.

  • @federook78
    @federook78 Před 3 měsíci +1

    The rumor, presented much more elegantly, is in an episode of radiolab from the early 2010s, also with the reference to homer and his wine blue. Can't give you more details but I do remember about it

  • @Captain-Donut
    @Captain-Donut Před 3 měsíci

    ‼️ That’s another great channel ‼️
    Subbed
    🙏❤️ Love from Scotland ❤️🙏