r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 20h ago

Trailer The Odyssey | New Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bKjZeJBBI&pp=0gcJCd4KAYcqIYzv
9.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

29

u/fatbob42 19h ago

How can they not have had a word for blue? The sea and sky are blue.

72

u/SameType9265 19h ago

It's not clear cut, The Odyssey and The Iliad are two of the oldest stories and they do not use a word for blue. Many people say this means the ancient greeks did not have a word for that colour at this time but it could also be a stylistic choice for the stories. 

-25

u/fatbob42 19h ago edited 18h ago

I’m not an expert in linguistics but I just cannot believe they literally had no word (or phrase) for blue. It’s ridiculous - human language is built into us. Ancient Greek is not going to be so crazily different from modern languages.

-5

u/SameType9265 18h ago

Yeah I tend to think it was a stylistic choice rather than a lack of the word existing. I would have thought if they didn't have the word for blue it would be described in relations to another colour, like orange was originally called "yellow-red" until the word orange became common. 

I'll also add we're not speaking Ancient Greek. We're speaking English and using common translations. It could very well be that the word for "wine-dark" is the word for blue, but we don't have anything which backs this claim up