Have you ever noticed that we often refer to people with bright orange hair as “redheads”? It seems a bit odd, right? This is an interesting topic that touches on the colors we use in our language and how they relate to our perception of the world. To understand why we call red-haired individuals “red,” we must delve into the evolution of language and color terminology throughout history. It turns out that our language reflects much more than just colors; it also reveals our cultural needs and perceptions. In earlier periods, color categories were broader and less precise than they are today. The persistence of the term also shows how tradition in language can outweigh technical accuracy.
For the greater part of existence, humanity did not have a different name for orange. In pre-16th century articulation among Europeans, oranges were red, yellow, or gold. This dearth of particular designations can be compared with distinctly labeling Eskimo cultures, who have many words for snow because they need to make those distinctions, considering their environment. In this way, not having a word for orange meant that people simply described the color of redheads as falling under the label category closest in the spectrum, that being red. The very act of naming indicates how language changes to meet what society wants to communicate about, adapting itself to what people think is important.
