Thursday, January 31, 2013

No Language in Our Lungs

Update from my daughter's Chinese class:

She now knows the word for "Electric box."

She still has no idea how you would say "Blue."

I'm beginning to suspect colors have been declared capitalistic.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Sherri said...

"Blue" is a concept that doesn't exist in all languages, or came very late to some. Here's a fascinating article about color and language: http://www.empiricalzeal.com/2012/06/05/the-crayola-fication-of-the-world-how-we-gave-colors-names-and-it-messed-with-our-brains-part-i/

6:04 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I just read an interesting article about how some cultures don't differentiate between blue and green, or didn't until they encountered a lot of traffic from foreigners. http://bit.ly/XbhULe This BLEW MY MIND. One word encompassing the whole blue/green range of the spectrum.

Chinese color words come up a bit in the post, and more in the comments--you might enjoy. :) Me, I'm hung up on "electric box." There's a word for that? Are we talking, like, television? Car battery? The thing you put Schrodinger's cat in? I'm baffled.

6:21 PM  
Blogger MommyLisa said...

Electric Box could be blue. :)

11:25 AM  
Anonymous Lydia G said...

I laughed and then I got educated by your readers. One of many reasons I love your blog.

8:28 PM  
Blogger StevenIre said...

There is something called electric indigo. I’m guessing its blue2: Electric Boogaloo.

10:21 AM  

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