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No one could describe the color 'blue' until modern times (businessinsider.com)
1 point by unilynx on Aug 21, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


sigh, this again... The experiment they quote never happened: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17970


Yes and translating is not a straightforward process.

I looked at three [0-2] translations of the Odyssey on the web. In one of them [0] there is 30 times the word blue, in the other only [1] 3 times and in the last [2] 8 times.

And the word "blue" is not rarer in each of those translations than words for other colors.

--------------------------

Even the first line looks very different in the three translations:

[0] Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

[1] Muse, speak to me now of that resourceful man who wandered far and wide after ravaging the sacred citadel of Troy.

[2] Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.

--------------------------

[0] https://www.boyle.kyschools.us/UserFiles/88/The%20Odyssey.pd...

[1] http://wp-blogs.moundsparkacademy.org/english8/files/2014/02...

[2] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1727/1727-h/1727-h.htm




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