50 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



absent from so many languages. The fact is perhaps the more strange 

 in that the word 'brown' bears evidence of having arisen in an early 

 stage of our language, and is not, like violet or orange, obviously of 

 recent origin. 



The special characteristics of primitive color language appear, then, 

 to be the following: The existence of a definite name for red, some- 

 times with subsidiary names for shades of red; a definite name for 

 orange and yellow; indefinite nomenclature for green; absence of a 

 word for blue, or confusion of the terms for blue and green, and absence 

 of a word for brown, a brown object being called red, yellow or dark, 

 according to its prevailing character. 



These features closely resemble those of Homers color terminology, 

 Homer uses several words for red, (poivi$, (poiviog, /aiXtos, epvS- 

 po5 and Tioptpvpeos; he has a definite word for yellow, ^avdog, an in- 

 definite word for green, jA-typog; and no word for blue. Two words 

 which later came to mean blue, yXavKog and Kvareo?; were used by 

 Homer, but it can not be said that the terms mean more than 'light' 

 and 'dark' respectively. There seems now to be little doubt thai Kva- 

 'yos, the substance, was 'lapis lazuli" and also an imitation of 

 this substance made by coloring a glass paste with salts of copper, but 

 Kvaveoz is not used by Homer as an epithet for any distinctively blue 

 object (except Kvavoz), while it is used for a perfectly black garment.* 

 The substance, Kvavoz is also qualified in one place, t as pieXag. 



There appears, also, to be no word for brown in Homer, but brown 

 or brownish objects are qualified by the same adjectives which are used 

 for red, thus (poivi^X is used for the color of a horse, and ^aqjoivog 

 is applied to jackals § and the skin of a lion. II 



The resemblance is so striking that the conclusion seems irresistible 

 that we have to do in Homer with a color vocabulary in the same early 

 stage of development which is found among many primitive races at the 

 present day. Indeed, one might almost go so far as to say that Homei-'s 

 terminology for color is in a stage of development which is on much 

 the same level as that of Kiwai, and distinctly less developed than those 

 of Murray Island and Mabuiag. 



From the nature of the defects of language, it has been concluded 

 that the color sense of both ancient and existing primitive races is in 

 some way defective. The next stage in the inquiry is to investigate the 

 color sense of some existing people, and this I have been able to do 

 most satisfactorily in Mun-ay Island. I tested about 150 natives of 

 this island with Holmgren's wools for color-blindness, and failed to find 

 one case in which there was any confusion between red and green, the 



* 11., XXIV., 93. §11., XI., 474. 



fll., XL, 24. ill., X., 23. 



\ II., XXIII., 454. 



