How Would You Describe Colours To The Blind?

[beryllium]

Red, Yellow, Pink and Blue. Orange, Purple and Green?
Brown.... Black and White?

[B00]

I don't think you can, can you?

In order to describe them you'd have to compare them to other things, and if they haven't seen them either...........

[~Wingnut~]

Oddly enough I often think about this (don't ask me why lol) and it makes me think back to the film "Mask" with Cher in and how he describes to the blind girl (at camp I think it was) about hot and cold and he put a hot potato (?) in her hand and said that was the colour red and she understood.

Been quite a few years since I have seen this film so not totally sure if it was a potato but I think I'm right that they were in a kitchen when he was trying to describe it to her.

[missyR]

Yeah i'd agree with B00 or you could describe them as a metaphor such as red is the colour of passion or love or anger.

[efc]

With great difficulty!!

[RATTER15]

I was one assisting a totally blind person, and I mean totally!! and she told me I had a nice brown shirt on, I said how do you know it is brown, she said "it feels brown!!"

No kidding, she lived in a world where she couldn't even tell light from dark.

Freaked me out a bit!!

[B00]

Thinking about it though, I can see how the hot/cold theory that wingnut (hey girl, how's you?) suggested could work.

[saxy_jag]

By using other senses to describe them:

Blue is cold - a stone, a rock
Red, yellow and orange are warm or hot - the warmth of a fire, a radiator, or the steam from a pan.
Purple is rich, soft velvet.
Green is grass or the leaves of a plant.
White is clean - the smoothness of tiles, the smell of a hospital.
Black (or dark brown) is the cold, smelly stickiness of thick mud. Or it's fingernails down a blackboard.

You just have to use your imagination.

[beryllium]

lol... never considered the smell of a hospital as white.....

[sunday]

... so Ratters, was your shirt brown?

[RATTER15]

Yes it was!! very brown!!

[beryllium]

Do our shirts that we wear really feel of the colour? did/does your brown shirt feel different to the touch to your other colour shirts RATTER?
I have a feeling I'm going to be feeling my red shirt to my white shirt lol......

[RATTER15]

She had never felt any of my shirts before as I had never mt the lady before, she said she can sense colour by the feel.

[beryllium]

Dearest RATTER,
I want you to feel your different coloured shirts. With your eyes closed. Do they feel different to you?

[RATTER15]

Yes of course they feel different, they are all made from different materials, she had never met me until this day as she was a fare in my cab so had no idea of my clothing. Her observation was purely on touch as I helped her to her frond door.

I know that if you are deprived of one of your senses (in this case Blindness) you often make up for it by heightening other senses, not sure what sense was heightened in this case though, but very strange indeed!!