I've spoken to many Russians about this and they call blue blue.

There is an exception with a group in Africa. Cannot recall their name/location, but they discern "colour difference" more between shade than tone. So it could be said that they perceive shade as we perceive colour and colour as we perceive shade (although I think this is mostly, if not entirely, between the common mismatch of blue and green).

Orange used to be just a shade of red. Language does play some role in here and some have even posited that without language there woudl be no colour experience!

I've spoken to many Russians about this and they call blue blue — I like sushi

So have I and they don’t. But your comment is meaningless without more information. The colours denoted by “синий” and “blue” are not the same.

It blows my mind how people don’t get it, and even refuse to accept it. Surely once in my life I’ll get the appropriate reaction: “oh really, that’s cool” (perhaps followed by, “I wonder if that backs up linguistic relativism”)

If you actually take on board what I said, which is that Russians (Russian speakers) do not see light blue and dark blue as shades of the same colour, then you will understand why this is the case — Jamal

Are you saying:

1) Russians don't see light blue and dark blue as shades of the colour blue. I would be surprised if Russians saw colours differently to non-Russians.

2) Russian speakers have Russian words for "light blue" and "dark blue", and these Russian words don't make any reference to being part of the same colour "blue". But this applies to English also, in that neither ultramarine nor cerulean refer to the colour blue.

But pain is not art, nor is it an interpretation of an object's aesthetic elements. So there's a problem with that comparison. — Tom Storm

Though the experience of pain and the aesthetic experience are both subjective feelings, and both exist in the mind rather than the world.
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By your reckoning, all we're doing is looking at shapes and colours, without context, composition, and experience. That strikes me as a very limited conception of aesthetics. If one did this to a work by Caravaggio where would we get? — Tom Storm

Take away all the shapes and colours from Caravaggio's "Boy Peeling Fruit" c. 1592-1593 and what would remain?

As Clive Bell said, it is the Significant Form of these shapes and colours that establishes the aesthetic.
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Going back to pain for a moment, in a hospital, one of the first questions asked is, "On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?" This reveals that pain alone isn’t self-interpreting; we need language and description to give it meaning, to locate it within a framework that allows for understanding, assessment, and response. — Tom Storm

I walk into my house holding my hand and looking for antiseptic after being stung by a wasp.

I am carried into a hospital after being run down by a car and screaming in pain.

Language is not needed to distinguish the level of pain on a scale from one to ten.

1) Russians don't see light blue and dark blue as shades of the colour blue. I would be surprised if Russians saw colours differently to non-Russians. — RussellA

Yes, Синий and голубой are basic colour terms and are thus seen as basic colours, not as shades of the same colour.

2) Russian speakers have Russian words for "light blue" and "dark blue", and these Russian words don't make any reference to being part of the same colour "blue". But this applies to English also, in that neither ultramarine nor cerulean refer to the colour blue. — RussellA

The difference is that we think of ultramarine and cerulean as shades of blue, since in English that's what they are.

Read this, it's short:

https://thecolorlanguageproject.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/linguistic-facts-about-color/

A result of what I just said is that Russians can distinguish shades of blue more accurately than English speakers, showing that perception is to some degree linguistically relative. See this study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701644104

English and Russian color terms divide the color spectrum differently. Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”). We investigated whether this linguistic difference leads to differences in color discrimination. We tested English and Russian speakers in a speeded color discrimination task using blue stimuli that spanned the siniy/goluboy border. We found that Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). Moreover, this category advantage was eliminated by a verbal, but not a spatial, dual task. These effects were stronger for difficult discriminations (i.e., when the colors were perceptually close) than for easy discriminations (i.e., when the colors were further apart). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. These results demonstrate that (i) categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks and (ii) the effect of language is online (and can be disrupted by verbal interference). — Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination

I think English speakers have the same thing with pink and red. It's hard to grasp that pink is light red because we never call it that. We have potent and distinct emotional associations with each, so it's almost a little magical that adding white to red makes pink.

I think habit has a lot to do with the way we describe things. Habit actually configures highways through the nervous system, so maybe language (not just the syntax, but the whole history and emotional anchoring) influences what a person is conscious of.

Habit actually configures highways through the nervous system, so maybe language (not just the syntax, but the whole history and emotional anchoring) influences what a person is conscious of. — frank

Language does affect what a person is conscious of.

Count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball

:up:

Language does affect what a person is conscious of. — RussellA

Makes them realise how LITTLE they are actively conscious of more like ;) Such focus shows how limited our active visual perception is. It still blows my mind to think that the vast majority of what I think I can see is just a patchwork of previous experiences knitted together to form a coherent whole.

Are you suggesting something like linguistic relativism is going on when it comes to differentiating what a painting is compared to a drawing? Sounds interesting.

I have mentioned before that I believe there is cultural relevance in the distinction depending on how we use the tools in day-to-day life (the pen or the brush).

As I said earlier, we're too far apart on this, I’m not keen on formalism. Thanks for the chat.

I wonder if that's the case of blue particularly or for most or all colors. I'll read more myself when I get time.

In Russian it's only blue; the other colours correspond. But of all the colours I suspect the green-blue region is particularly variable across languages.

I thought it interesting that it’s blue because according to the Berlin–Kay color term hierarchy theory blue is the latest primary color, or maybe to think of it differently, the least important primary.

According to the theory (or study?) colors were added in about the same order across languages. That order being:

Red
Green or yellow
Both green and yellow
Blue
Brown
Purple, pink, orange, gray, etc.

It may not indicate anything of course and be purely coincidental.

Very interesting. I'm in danger of going down a rabbit hole now.

I thought it interesting that it’s blue because according to the Berlin–Kay color term hierarchy theory blue is the latest primary color, or maybe to think of it differently, the least important primary. — praxis

Really! What on Earth do they base that on? That seems to fly in the face of evolutionary biology. We have three receptors in our eyes and one is specialised towards blue light which control our cycadian rhythm.

It has also been shown that in infants before they can speak one sid eof their brain lights up when you ask them to point out a colour, but once they learn to speak the other side of their brain lights up.

White rabbit, blue dress, red queen…

It was the Himba people from Namibia I was thinking of previously btw.

Such different uses in language pervade other areas too. In South Korea parents prioritise prepositions over knowns when teaching their language. This results in very young children being far better at spacial logic puzzles but far worse at categorising compared to other children.

The same do doubt effects our perceptions of painting and drawings. A non-artist with little to no exposure to artworks would likely not really care about any difference. Language certainly builds hard wired cogntiive preferences -- that is obvious though right?

Really! What on Earth do they base that on? — I like sushi

Simply the order that the names for colors begin appearing in written language.

If you asked someone who didn’t yet have a name for blue what the color of the sky is they would likely say something like black. That doesn’t mean they can’t actually see blue.

So the reason I brought up Russian blues was to cast doubt on this statement:

I don't approach seeing colours with any preconceptions — RussellA

We now know that how we conceptualize the spectrum does affect how we see colours. But the underlying point has been standard in philosophy for centuries. Intuitions (as in perceptions) without concepts are blind, as Kant said. All seeing is seeing as (see Sellars and the "Myth of the Given") and all perception is targeted, selective, and organized according to the state of the perceiver and its desires—all of which for humans includes preconceptions.

The idea of a pure, preconceptual and uninterpreted perception is widely rejected in philosophy. RussellA was arguing for a primary, universal innocence in the perception and appreciation of a work of art, based on the idea that colours are perceived in a basic way universally. The example of Russian blues is just one among many that show this to be naive.

Heidegger's "Origin of the Work of Art" is very relevant:

In immediate perception, we never really perceive a throng of sensations, e.g. tones and noises. Rather, we hear the storm whistling in the chimney, the three-motored plane, the Mercedes which is immediately different from the Adler. Much closer to us than any sensation are the things themselves. In the house we hear the door slam – never acoustic sensations or mere noises. To hear a bare sound we must listen away from the things, direct our ears from them, listen abstractly.

The point he's leading to is that the perception and appreciation of art are not separate, that art is meaningful all the way down. What the eye does with light of varying wavelengths and intensities is none of our business—unless we're doing physiology or optics.

that art is meaningful all the way down. — Jamal

Not just art.

Goats too.

them as well. And their dinner.

Ah! I see. Not sure how relevant that is but it is something at least.

This can be explained by basic physiological neural priming though. If we are brought up around chimpanzees we recognise the differences in facial features -- irrespective of language involvement I assume -- yet without exposure to numerous chimpanzees humans will not so easily tell the difference between individual chimpanzees.

It is kind of obvious that this will flow into language and concept use. I would bet that a English speaker would be better able to distinguish teal and turqouise where a Russian would struggle as the concepts are not so rigidly defined. The same was true for Orange which is a reletively new addition to the English language.

I prefer Husserl's use of 'pregnant' meaning we fill in the gaps that are not seen -- we see beyond knowing there is a surface, side, rear and volume. His use of 'parts' and 'moments' is useful, but I do think Heidegger did a better job of articulating a lot of what Husserl had to say.

Another rabbit hole: constructed emotion theory and aesthetic experience.