LANGUAGES spoken in areas that receive a lot of sunlight tend not to have a word for blue.
Delwin Lindsey and Angela Brown from Ohio State University, Mansfield, made the discovery while studying 203 languages from around the world (Psychological Science, vol 13, p 506). Could chronic exposure to UVB radiation affect people鈥檚 ability to see blue? The pair asked English speakers to identify colours on a computer that simulated the effects of UVB damage on the lens of the eye. The volunteers identified blue colours as 鈥済reen鈥� or 鈥済rey鈥� 鈥� terms equivalent to those used in the tropics.
Even if only a minority of people can鈥檛 see blue, languages without the word could evolve, suggests Lindsey.
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