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The author bases the first part of this book on a linguistic debate that ranged from the late 1800s through the middle of the 20th century. It began with detailed studies of Homer's writing. Research found that the only colors Homer used in description were black, white and red. The reasoning, early linguists determined, was that the human eye was not evolved enough to see more than those colors. A few decades later though linguists started arguing against that, saying that the eye was fine, the problem was that the Greeks had no words for other colors.
Various cultures certainly differ widely in their color terminology. Generally, though, they differ in the way they see similarities and differences in color. In Chinese, for example, there are no well-established words for "orange" or "brown." What we call "brown" tends to be seen as either a type of red or of yellow. What we see as "blue" or as the non-yellow greens are seen as a single color. So "blue sky," "green grasses" or "grey clouds" are often called by this single color term. If you were raised in the dry, sunny American South-West, as I was, you might be non-plused by this apparent confusion. But if you are from an area like the Pacific North-West (or China), with its clouds, mists and humidity, you will see the greens of near-by trees turn to the blues of distant tree-clad hills, and see overcast clouds with a definite blue-ish tinge.
I possess a copy of a little-known book by Eleanor Irwin, entitled
Colour Terms in Greek Poetry. The author makes the point that the ancient Greeks were more impressed by
value (black and white, dark and light) than they were by
hue (specific colors). Sheen, gleaming and highlights were also more noticed by them than they tend to be with us (as can be seen in the surviving paintings and mosaics of the ancient world). There were more color distinctions in the red and yellow portions of the spectrum than in the blue and dark-green regions, which tended to be lumped together as "dark". Homer's famous epithet, "the wine-dark sea"
[oinops], probably conveyed the sense of "dark and gleaming".
Greeks terms for hue increased in number over the centuries, but as late as the fourth century BC, one finds Aristotle saying that all colors are ultimately made up out of black and white---an idea that was recapitulated in Wolfgang Goethe's famous Color Theory. Moreover, if one restricts oneself to pure visual impressions, it is quite easy to create clear, bright colors by the rapid alternation of black and white.
