Reply To: Music, maths and language
Food for thought: color systems, some cultures (primarily in Africa) have only two color labels: black and white, after that red is added… and so on to the eleven color system that reminds us of our own Crayola boxes. Interestingly enough, all languages develop their color system in the exact same sequence the world round.
I often tell people about this… it’s one of the most interesting things I learnt in the single linguistics course I was able to work into my timetable. Iwondered whether red came next because it’s the colour of blood,something common across all cultures.
When colors are not labeled in a language… that’s not tosay that there is no perception of that color, but just that it is classified as another
Labels do make a difference though. If you have a word for something, it’s much easier to remember… like compiling something to a word of compact machine code instead of a whole line of text. I’ve heard of studies where kids had to search for things with specific patterns on them. One group was given words for the patterns and the other wasn’t, and the group who had words for them did better. Or something like that. I don’t remember the specifics… perhaps I was never told the name of the study. Also, if you have 20 different words for something you’re much more likely to perceive the differences. Language affects the way you see the world.
I was asking about the color/math/music connection because I create a lot of art, and was wondering if there is some sort of A= burntsienna, A# is brick red, B flat is olive green, etc. If there was a chart to show the analogous colors and notes, you could createsomething…
There was a <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn13599-bol