How we gave colors names and it messed with our brains (part II)
I was actually talking with some friends about just this recently.<p>Particularly, I speak Russian as well as English. In Russian, we actually have two separate words for blue: one for light blue and one for dark blue. They are completely different colors. My idea was that this actually changes how Russians view colors as compared to English speakers. Good to see my idea has some scientific backing :).<p>I personally am in a particularly odd position: I learned Russian first but still learned English at a very young age (5) and have since used it more. I'm not entirely certain how this has affected my view of blue, but I think I see it more like English speakers (e.g. not differentiating between the two blues intuitively) than Russian speakers. This probably says something about my relative comfort in the two languages.<p>Another interesting thing is that for the longest time I did not even realize that the difference was so fundamental. I just took it in stride. When I thought about it, it was a little weird: there is actually a different set of <i>colors</i> (rather than just shades of color) in the two languages. The fact that I could go from one set to the other without noticing is rather interesting as well.