[PinguTS]

How do you come, that they had no distinction between blue and green?

The Greek had no word for blue, which is the reason Homer described the sky with different words. But I never heard that the sky was green-isch.

While on the other side the Greek had more similarities between green and yellow.

[adrian_b]

The fact that Greek did not have a word for blue is a myth without any ground.

Already in Homer the word for blue was "cuaneos", which means of the color of "cuanos", like "chruseos" (golden) means of the color of "chrusos" (gold).

"Cuanos" was initially the name for the blue pigment that now is named "ultramarine blue", which was an expensive pigment imported from Afghanistan.

Later, "cuanos" was also used as a name for other cheaper blue pigments that could be used to substitute the expensive ultramarine blue, i.e. for the azurite mined in Cyprus and for the artificial pigment "Egyptian blue".

The English word "cyan" comes from the Greek word "cuaneos", but due to a misunderstanding it is used now for blue-green, despite the fact that it was never used for blue-green by the Greeks. In the Ancient Greece and Rome, when blue-green had to be distinguished from green, it was specified as the color of the beryls, or as the color of turquoise, or as the color of the littoral sea.

While in Greek there was an unambiguous word for blue, what was missing was a word for green. Green is mentioned very rarely in what I have read, and when it is mentioned they use one of the following expressions: the color of the emeralds (smaragdinos), the color of grass (poodes) or the color of leek (praseos).

In the early Greek authors, "chloros" that is now used to mean green in many scientific terms was not used for green, but perhaps for yellow or yellow-green, e.g. Homer uses "chloros" for the color of some honey.

[mgaunard]

The Greek said the sea was green, for example; so did the Romans.

The Romans did have a word for blue, but it only applied to the sky.

[adrian_b]

The Romans used the word "viridis" both for green and for blue-green.

Nevertheless, when they wanted to describe more precisely a color, for example when Pliny the Elder had to explain the difference in color between emeralds and beryls, they used expressions like "green like the leaves" or "green like the grass" for green, and "green like the littoral sea" for blue-green.

[thaumasiotes]

> The Greek said the sea was green, for example; so did the Romans.

This isn't exactly a surprise; they were both heavily involved with the sea.

English speakers talk about the sea being blue, but that's not because it is blue by the standards of English speakers. It's because most people don't bother to give any thought to the things they say. If you go look at the sea, it is obviously green.

[icehawk]

Which sea?

[jhbadger]

Although Homer speaks of the "wine-dark sea" which is an odd visual picture for us.

[psychoslave]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=green+sky&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=im...