Are Somalis Color Blind?

[Huur]

Is it possible for the Nation of Poets to be Color blind?

Is there a Somali word for blue?

In Arabic the color blue is
أزرق ( 'azraq )

In Amharic the color blue is
ሰማያዊ (semayawī)

But Af-Soomaali doesn't appear to have a word for the color blue, one of the most basic colors.

Not only the color blue is non-existent (apart from the recently borrowed "buluug" from the english "blue"),
A Somali word to describe the color "Purple" is also non-existent

In Arabic, Purple is
أرجواني ( 'arijwani )

In Amharic, Purple is
ሐምራዊ ( ḥāmirawī)


Is it really possible that Somalis are unable to see the colors blue and purple?
Or could it simply be that Af-Soomaali hasn't fully developed to give certain colors a unique label?


Read this book to get a clearer understanding of this topic

"Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages"
by Guy Deutscher

[Link]


Also, read through this article that has been published by the Journal Of Vision in March, 2016 relating to "The color lexicon of the Somali Language"

[Link]

 

[Xooshdheere]

why would a geeljire need to learn irrelevant colours

 

[Apollo]

why would a geeljire need to learn irrelevant colours

The Somali language is extremely primitive. Whenever I speak it I have to use a lot of Euro words just to be specific.

 

[Prince Abubu]

The Somali language is extremely primitive. Whenever I speak it I have to use a lot of Euro words just to be specific.

English without Latin and Greek is also very primitive. The three richest and most sophisticated languages are Classical Arabic, Classical Greek, Latin and Classical Chinese. Every other major language on earth is just an ugly stepchild.

 

[Apollo]

English without Latin and Greek is also very primitive. The three richest and most sophisticated languages are Classical Arabic, Classical Greek, Latin and Classical Chinese. Every other major language on earth is just an ugly stepchild.

IMO, Somali should steal en masse from Arabic. Update its vocabulary. Since Arabic is the most advanced Afro-Asiatic language.

Indo-European phonology matches Somali less than Arabic.

 

[Poets]

The Somali language is extremely primitive. Whenever I speak it I have to use a lot of Euro words just to be specific.

I think that says more about your somali skills than about the language itself.

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[Lord Flacko]

Colour isn't universal.


Somalis aren't colorblind, it's only that blue and purple probably fell under some other colour . Here's some videos on the matter

 

[Apollo]

I think that says more about your somali skills than about the language itself.

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It's not about me, but the language. Even when you look up academic or formal words in Somali dictionaries you don't get a decent word, but long descriptions instead.

 

[Poets]

It's not about me, but the language. Even when you look up academic or formal words in Somali dictionaries you don't get a decent word, but long descriptions instead.

You're right, but mind you a lot of the academic words in english aswell as the other languaged used in the west are originally either latin or greece. And somalis have traditionally been rular hence the absence of such words. Now, since even the english language needed to loan latin to describe diverse phenomenon, describing somali as "primitive" is tantamount to labeling english as such. Especially knowing that somali is a lot closer to arabic than english is to latin making loan words easy to incorporate into the somali language. With that said, somali has its richness in other things, what else could be expected from the Land of the Poets!

(And as a side note you may want to look at one of the sticked post in the section of science, I personally found it beneficial).

 

[Jodeci]

Of course we have the color blue, if you don't know what it is, then your parents failed you

But its interesting in Amharic purple is basically Xamarawi

 

[Cambuulo Tonight]

We call blue 'buluuga' or something.

 

[Sophisticate]

Colour wasn't crucial to Somalis, hence the lone words. How would it be significant in agropastoral life? Though poetic, we weren't particularly artsy. Just look at those cave paintings in Las Geel. The colours are very neutral. Not very much diversity on their palate.

 

[RasCanjero-]

Of course we have the color blue, if you don't know what it is, then your parents failed you

But its interesting in Amharic purple is basically Xamarawi

name it then.

Buluug is copied from Italian/English in the past century.

For hundreds of years we didn't have a word for it.

Wonder if other Cushitic languages have the same issue.

 

[Nightline Kid]

I read this interesting article a while ago that suggested that people with languages that have a lot of words for various colors, relatively speaking, perceive more colors than people with languages that have a limited amount of words for colors. This particular article goes more in-depth.
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2011/you-only-see-colors-you-can-name