Quoting Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>:
Andreas Johansson writes:
A great many of the world's languages don't bother with different words for "blue" and "green". To speakers of such languages there apparently *is* no category difference between them, suggesting that "red", "green", and "blue" are particularities not of human vision but of some culturally conditioned ways of thinking about colour. I'll try and hound down a reference tomorrow.
Some pacific islander languages don't have separate words for 'blue' and 'green', but instead differentiate shades of the two. Dark blue and dark green are considered the same thing, while there is a separate word that describes light green and light blue collectively. No doubt it's a result of strong sea-faring traditions (I imagine the same stretch of water can look blue or green depending on the time of day, whereas the shade differences probably reflect depth or currents which are more important for sea faring).
-- Nick Pharris Department of Linguistics University of Michigan
"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
--Edwin H. Land