on Quick and Dirty Tips:

Imagine not having a word for “yellow” or “beige” or “orange.” For many years, English got by with a lot fewer words for color than we have today.

Colors are such fundamental, tangible things that it’s hard to imagine not having names for them, but the number of words for colors varies widely by language and for many, many years, English got by without a lot of the color names we take for granted today.

In nearly all languages, the first colors to get names are black and white.

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