The saying “There is no comrade for taste and color” is a typical example of how people briefly and accurately formulate a postulate, for the formulation of which scientists need tens or even hundreds of words. Indeed, the perception of color is subjective and depends on many factors, up to a person's mood. Not only different people can perceive the same color in different ways. Even the color perception of the same person can change. The wavelength of light is objective and measurable. The perception of light cannot be measured.
There are a lot of colors and shades in natural nature, and with the development of technology, in particular, electronics, chemistry and optics, their number has become almost endless. However, only designers and marketers need this variety. The vast majority of the population has enough knowledge of flowers from a children's counting room about a hunter and a pheasant, and the names of a dozen more shades. And even in this relatively small range, you can find a lot of interesting things.
1. Research has shown that in almost all existing languages in the early stages of development, there were only two words for colors. Relatively speaking, these were the words "black" and "white". Then color designations appeared, consisting of two words that conveyed shades. Words denoting colors appeared relatively late, already at the stage of the existence of writing. Sometimes it baffles the translators of old texts - sometimes a word can mean two or more colors, and the context does not allow us to understand which color is being discussed.
2. It is fairly well known that in the languages of the northern peoples there are different names for shades of white or names for the color of snow. Sometimes there are dozens of such words. And the famous Russian ethnographer Vladimir Bogoraz, back in the 19th century, described the process of sorting deer skins by color he saw. It is clear that the scientist's vocabulary did not contain words describing the color change from lighter to darker (he could not even always notice the difference). And the sorter easily named more than 20 words for the colors of the skins.
Deer shades
3. In the language of the Australian aborigines, and now there are only words for black and white. Other colors indicate, adding the names of minerals known to the aborigines, but there are no universal, fixed minerals - everyone can use the name of any stone that matches the color.
It looks like the natives do not suffer much from the narrowness of the color vocabulary.
4. Until relatively recently, the Russian language could not boast of an abundance of adjectives denoting colors. Until about the middle of the 17th century, their number did not exceed 20. Then cooperation with European countries began to develop. The first foreigners appeared in Russia, there were more and more of them. The craze of the nobles for the French language also played a role. The number of adjectives denoting color exceeded 100. However, where it was required to describe the color accurately and clearly for everyone, for example, in botany, a limited number of basic words were used. There were usually 12-13 of them. Now it is believed that an ordinary person knows up to 40 "color" adjectives, and there are less than 100 of them.
5. The purple color was considered noble and even imperial not because of its special beauty - just the dye was very expensive. In order to obtain a gram of dye, it was necessary to catch and process up to 10,000 special mollusks. Therefore, any piece of clothing dyed purple automatically demonstrated the wealth and status of its owner. Alexander the Great, defeating the Persians, received several tons of purple dye as booty.
Purple immediately indicates who is who
6. According to the research of the names of popular products and articles, the inhabitants of Russia are most willing to buy goods with the word “gold” in the name. Next in popularity are the references to red, white and black. In the list of unpopular colors, for some reason, emerald coexists with gray and lead.
7. Almost all peoples associate black color with something bad. The ancient Egyptians seem to be the only exception. They generally treated death philosophically, believing in eternal life. Therefore, black was a very common element of makeup for them, both for men and women.
8. A very coherent theory of color was built by Aristotle. This ancient Greek thinker painted colors not only by spectrum, but also by dynamics. The red and yellow colors symbolize the movement from darkness (black) to light (white). Green denotes a balance of light and darkness, while blue tends to be more dark.
Aristotle
9. In ancient Rome, colors were divided into male and female. Masculinity, whatever the Romans understood by this, was symbolized by red, white and blue. The women got paints that, in their opinion, did not attract attention: brown, orange, green and yellow. At the same time, a mixture of colors was quite allowed: brown togas for men or white robes for vestals.
10. Medieval alchemists had their own theory of light. There are three main colors, according to this theory: black, white and red. All other colors are intermediate in the transformation of black to white and white to red. Black symbolizes death, white - new life, red - the maturity of a new life and its readiness to transform the Universe.
11. Originally the term “Blue Stocking” referred to men, more precisely, to one man named Benjamin Stillingfleet. This multi-talented man was a regular in one of the popular 18th century London salons and liked to talk about science, literature or art in sublime tones. Stillingfleet wore exclusively blue stockings for a reason alone. Over time, his interlocutors began to call the "Circle of Blue Stockings." It was only in the 19th century that women who care more about intellectual development than about appearance began to be called “blue stockings”.
The heroine of Alice Freundlich in "Office Romance" is a typical "Blue Stocking"
12. The perception of colors by the human eye, as already mentioned, is subjective. John Dalton, after whom color blindness is named, did not know until the age of 26 that he did not perceive red. Red for him was blue. Only when Dalton became interested in botany and noticed that some flowers have different colors in sunlight and artificial light, he realized that something was wrong with his eyes. Of the five children in the Dalton family, three suffered from color blindness. After careful research, it turned out that with color blindness, the eye does not pick up light waves of a certain length.
John Dalton
13. White skin can sometimes be extremely life-threatening. In Tanzania (a state in East Africa), a disproportionate number of albinos are born - there are about 15 times more of them than the average on Earth. According to local beliefs, body parts of albinos can heal diseases, so there is a real hunt for white-skinned people. The situation of albinos became especially terrible after the start of the AIDS epidemic - the rumor that a piece of an albino could get rid of a terrible disease opened a real hunt for white-skinned blacks.
14. “The red maiden” is a young, unmarried, timid girl, and the red lantern is the designation of the house of tolerance. The blue collar is a worker, and the blue stocking is an educated lady, devoid of femininity. “Black Book” is witchcraft, and “Black Book” is arithmetic. The white dove is a symbol of peace, and the white flag is a sign of surrender. In Russia, until 1917, it was ordered to paint state buildings in yellow, and to issue “yellow tickets” to prostitutes.
15. “Black Monday” is a stock market crash in the USA (1987) and a default in Russia (1998). “Black Tuesday” is the day of the beginning of the Great Depression (1929). “Black Wednesday” - the day when George Soros collapsed the pound sterling, earning $ 1.5 billion per day (1987). “Black Thursday” is the day when Soviet fighters in the skies over Korea shot down 12 of 21 B-29 aircraft considered invulnerable. The remaining 9 "Flying Fortresses" were damaged (1951). "Black Friday" is the day of the beginning of sales on the eve of Christmas. "Black Saturday" - the most acute phase of the Cuban missile crisis, the world was minutes from a nuclear war (1962). But "Black Sunday" is just a novel by Thomas Harris and a film based on it.
