Distinguishing blue from green in language
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The English language makes a distinction between blue and green but some languages do not.
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[edit] Vietnamese
Vietnamese usually does not use separate words for green and refers to that colour using a word that can also refer to blue. In Vietnamese, blue and green are denoted by xanh; blue is specifically described as "xanh like the sky" (xanh da trời) and green as "xanh like the leaves" (xanh lá cây).
[edit] Chinese
The modern Chinese language has the blue-green distinction; however, another word which predates the modern vernacular, qīng (青), is also used. It can refer to either blue or green, or even (though much less frequently) to black, as in xuánqīng (玄青). For example, the Flag of the Republic of China is today still referred to as qīng tiān, bái rì, mǎn dì hóng ("Blue Sky, White Sun, Whole Field Red" — 青天，白日，满地红); whereas qīng cài (青菜) is the Chinese word for "green vegetable".
[edit] Japanese
The Japanese word ao (青 n., 青い aoi adj.), the same kanji character as the Chinese qīng above, can refer to either blue or green depending on the situation. Modern Japanese also has a word for green (緑 midori), although this was not always so. Ancient Japanese did not have this distinction: the word midori only came into use in the Heian period, and at that time (and for a long time thereafter) midori was still considered a shade of ao. Educational materials distinguishing green and blue only came into use after World War II, during the Occupation: thus, even though most Japanese consider them to be green, the word ao is still used to describe certain vegetables, apples and vegetation. Ao is also the name for the color of a traffic light, "green" in English. However, most other objects—a green car, a green sweater, and so forth—will generally be called midori. Japanese people also sometimes use the English word "green" for colors. The language also has several other words meaning specific shades of green and blue.
[edit] Celtic languages
Welsh has different boundaries than English regarding blue and green. The word glas is usually translated as "blue". It can also refer, variously, to the colour of the sea, of grass, or of silver. The word gwyrdd is the standard translation for "green". Glas (same spelling) is, comparably, the translation for "green" in Irish and Breton, with specific reference to plant hues of green; other shades would be referred to in Irish as uaine. In Irish, gorm is the word for "blue"—the first part (gor(m)) pronounced as in the Welsh gwyr(dd).
[edit] Kurdish, Kasak and Pashto
In Kurdish the word "şîn" (pronounced sheen), meaning "blue", is used for green things in nature like leaves, grass, and eyes. However, there is another word, "kesk", which is used for other green things, for instance in the Kurdish flag.
The Kazak language, like many Turkic languages, makes the same distinction, with kök as the word for the color of the sky, the sea, and green plants, but jasâl as the color for man-made green things.
Pashto uses the same word, "sheen", as in Kurdish to denote blue as well as green. "Shinkay", a word derived from "sheen", means greenery but "sheen asman" means blue sky. When there is ambiguity, it is common to ask (as in Vietnamese), "'sheen' like the sky?" or "'sheen' like plants?"
[edit] Zulu
Zulu uses the word "-luhlaza" (the prefix changes according the the class of the noun) for "blue/green".
[edit] Maya
Single words for blue/green are also found in Mayan languages; for example in the Yukatek Maya language "blue/green" is "yax".
[edit] See also
- Semantic field for the concept of the range of words
- Blue
- Green
- Sea green
- Grue is sometimes used to translate from the above-mentioned languages into English.
- List of colors
- Traditional Colors of Japan
[edit] References
- Green... midori? ao? – Yomiuri Shimbun's "Pera Pera Penguin" column, vol. 32
