Theodoric writes about a coincidence of color terms and "four-color printing."
This is not surprising at all. In fact, all languages that have more than a bare minimum of color terms will have this fact because it seems to be a common factor of linguistics.
That is, various languages have different numbers of pure color terms. This doesn't mean that they cannot describe colors outside of those terms. It means that the words used to describe those other colors are in relation to objects that happen to have that color.
For example, English has a pure color term for a light shade of red: "Pink." It does not have a color term for the similar shade of blue. That doesn't mean we can't describe such a color. It simply means that the words we use are based upon something other than pure color: "Sky blue," "baby blue," "turquoise." Russian, on the other hand, does make that distinction.
It turns out that languages seem to have a set pattern for color terms. There are no languages with no color terms or only one. There are some with only two and they are always "black" and "white."
If a language has three, "red" joins the mix.
Things get a bit interesting after that, but there is still a pattern. At four, you get either "green" or "yellow." At five, you get the one you missed. At six, "blue" separates out.
Ancient Greek, for example, only has five color terms. There is no term for "blue." That doesn't mean they didn't see blue for Athena has blue eyes (though many translations put it as "grey-eyed Athena"...but again, it isn't that they couldn't distinguish "grey"...it's that the term used is not a pure color term.)
You then start getting a bit more free-wheeling. "Brown," "grey," "purple," they aren't nearly as regimented in adoption.
So I'm not at all surprised to find that the colors listed in the Bible are sufficient to describe a four-color process system.
That's simply the way language works.
That said, the descriptions are off. When a language has a color term, there is a distinct color that it matches. When you say, "red," to someone, they have a particular shade of red in mind and it is common across cultures. That is, if you present a speaker of a language with a color-chip board with all the various shades of a color and ask them to find the chip that best represents a pure color term, then if that language has that color term, people gravitate toward the same shade. "Red" is a deep, intense, blood red. "Blue" is a dark, cobalt blue. "Green" is deep and organic like grass or leaves. "Orange," of course, is the color of oranges.
So while the languages have terms that correspond to what we might use in a 4-color process system, the particular shades of them are not actually representative of what you would use. It's why the subtractive color model uses cyan rather than blue. What we think of when we say, "blue," is not the color we need.
Similarly, the additive color model isn't quite right, either. The "blue" of RGB is a bit bright for what most people think of when they say, "blue." It's much closer than cyan is, but it's still not there.
This isn't surprising. The reason additive and subtractive color models work has to do with physics: In order to match the entire visual spectrum, you need to be able to disperse light mathematically so that with a limited number of base colors, you can mix them to interfere in the right way such that other colors are dispersed. But the pigments in our eyes that allow us to see color are not mathematically arranged. That's why no 4-color process has ever managed to match the visual spectrum.
Now, if you really wanted to prove an amazing thing in the Bible with regard to color, you would have to show that ancient Hebrew didn't use 4-color terminology at all. If it had used, say, HSL, then that would have really been interesting. Of course, it would be difficult to talk in such a way, but who said miracles were easy?
Edited by Rrhain, : I dropped a "n't" up there...beyond six color terms, things get interesting as the terms that come next are *NOT* regimented the way the first ones are.
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
™ Version 4.2
