All The Colours, Including Grue: How Languages See Colours Differently

Tom Scott
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2017–2025
YouTube
2.3M views · 13 years ago · explainer · evergreen

Tom Scott explains how different languages divide the color spectrum differently, including cases where one word covers both blue and green. He gives a short tour of color terms across languages.

HN people send it as a quick, clear explainer for color-word differences and as supporting material for the idea that language shapes how we see color.

“Tom Scott has a great quick explainer on this linguistic quirk”
ColorPsychology for designers
#color#linguistics#perception#grue#colorterms

4 comments from Hacker News

b
@bigmattystyles2021 · in “Color or Fruit? On the Unlikely Etymology of “Orange” (2018)”
This Tom Scott video is also great. ▶ this video It ties languages to color and what they mean respectively, specifically how it can differ depending on the tongue spoken. For instance, in the US, the middle traffic light is called a yellow light whereas in French, it's an orange light. I spent my first few years in France, to this day, those lights are orange to me, even in California.
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J
@JshWright2017 · in “According to Japanese Traffic Lights, Bleen Means Go”
Tom Scott has a great quick explainer on this linguistic quirk: ▶ this video
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s
@sd92025 · in “Diff Algorithms”
The term to search up is Linguistic Relativity There's decent empirical evidence to show that peoples' language influences their perception of colour: Language and Color Perception: Evidence From Mongolian and Chinese Speakers link Tom Scott, All The Colours, Including Grue: How Languages See Colours Differently ▶ this video Similar effects for perception of time. It's very plausible that emojis are perceived differently too, although I'm not aware of any studies on it at the moment. Naturally it's quite hard to talk about, because people don't necessarily have the words to describe the differences between what they experience, or are even aware of a difference in the first place.
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M
@MarioMan2020 · in “Brown: color is weird [video]”
There is certainly a cultural aspect to it. Tom Scott's video on the matter: ▶ this video
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