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Comment by sdenton4 | Hacker News Reader

"Another example is orange, which originated in a Dravidian language (likely Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam), and whose likely path to English included, in order, Sanskrit, Persian, possibly Armenian, Arabic, Late Latin,[citation needed] Italian, and Old French."

Which leaves me with the question of what word was used for the color orange before the current word was imported. Or was there simply no word for the color previously? Does not having a word for a color change one's perception of the color?

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> what word was used for the color orange

I once answered this question for Polish [0]:

1. Find the Latin word for the color orange: "luteus".

2. Find Polish words corresponding to the Latin word in a scanned Latin-Polish dictionary from 1644.

3. Find Latin words corresponding to the Polish words in the Polish-Latin volume of the dictionary.

4. If new words found, GOTO 2

The main answer was "fawn", the color of deer. Besides "yellow-red" and "red-yellow", other words were based on red pine mushroom [1], fox, honey, fire, saffron, and gold.

[0] https://oslowach.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/jak-sie-przedtem-n...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactarius_deliciosus

At least in Swedish the word "orange" for colour is a recent import. That color was called "fire yellow" (brandgul) when I was a child.

I remember hearing in a podcast or reading once (it was a long time ago) that in Homer's Odyssey the word "blue" never occurs. Instead objects we would typically think of as blue are described strangely, like the ocean being "wine" colored. Judging by that, I'd guess the answer to question is "yes" but it'd be interesting to hear more on the subject.

Berlin and Kay posit seven levels in which cultures fall, with Stage I languages having only the colors black (dark–cool) and white (light–warm). Languages in Stage VII have eight or more basic color terms. This includes English, which has eleven basic color terms. The authors theorize that as languages evolve, they acquire new basic color terms in a strict chronological sequence; if a basic color term is found in a language, then the colors of all earlier stages should also be present. The sequence is as follows:

Stage I: Dark-cool and light-warm (this covers a larger set of colors than just English "black" and "white".) Stage II: Red Stage III: Either green or yellow Stage IV: Both green and yellow Stage V: Blue Stage VI: Brown Stage VII: Purple, pink, orange, or gray

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I read the same fact in "through the language glass" by Guy Deutscher.

with reference to your second question, you can listen to this podcast:

https://lingthusiasm.com/post/157327666801/lingthusiasm-epis...

There is also this frequently quoted book (I haven't read it yet): Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour your World by Guy Deutscher

About your last questions, I recommmend "through the language glass" by Guy Deutscher

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