-------- Original Message --------
Just for the record, I actually wrote the paragraph Mary
attributes to Don, when I addressed Mary's question the first
time she posted it. My two responses are here
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505&L=nabokv-l&D=0&T=0&P=3574&F=P
and here
http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505&L=nabokv-l&T=0&O=D&F=P&P=4982
although I no longer believe Rutherford-Dyer's thesis makes
sense. I still recommend the Irwin book though. There is also an
interesting digital book available here
www.library.umass.edu/benson/jbgc.html
and a promising-looking abstract (specifically mentions blue,
although I believe it deals primarily with modern Greek), of an
article in the journal Perception, here
ww.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=v010010
Mary Bellino
Mary Krimmel wrote:
>and from Don Johnson,
>. . .The theory that the Greeks lacked words for certain colors
...(propounded first I believe by Julian Jaynes) is considered
to be
pretty far-fetched. The classical Greeks, as opposed to those of
Homer's time, certainly had a word for blue, kuanous, the same
as our word cyan...The whole spectrum of Greek colors is by no
means a congruent match with our conceptions of what is meant by
the same color-words.<