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Why doesn’t every language have a word for blue?
Description
Our planet is full of blue things. The sea, the sky. Blueberries, bluebirds, bluebells. If English is your only language, it’s probably inconceivable to you that a language could exist without a word for blue. After all, it's one of the three primary colours according to traditional colour theory.
And yet in reality not every language in the world does have a specific word for blue. You see, in some languages, blue and green are grouped together as a single category. Linguists sometimes refer to these as “grue” languages, a blend of the words green and blue.
How do people get by without a word for blue? So why do some colours appear later than others? What about modern languages though - surely they all have a word for blue? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!
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A Bababam Originals podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.
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