Distinction of blue and green in various languages

The notion of "green" in modern European languages corresponds to about 520–570 nm, but many historical and non-European languages make other choices, e.g. using a term for the range of ca. 450–530 nm ("blue/green") and another for ca. 530–590 nm ("green/yellow").

Many languages do not distinguish between what in English are described as "blue" and "green", respectively. They instead use a cover term spanning both. When the issue is discussed in linguistics, this cover term is sometimes called grue in English.

The exact definition of "blue" and "green" may be complicated by the speakers not primarily distinguishing the hue, but using terms that describe other color components such as saturation and luminosity, or other properties of the object being described. For example, "blue" and "green" might be distinguished, but a single term might be used for both if the color is dark. Furthermore, green might be associated with yellow, and blue with black or gray.

According to Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's 1969 study Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, distinct terms for brown, purple, pink, orange and grey will not emerge in a language until the language has made a distinction between green and blue. In their account of the development of color terms the first terms to emerge are those for white/black (or light/dark), red and green/yellow.^[1]

Afro-Asiatic

Amazigh

In many dialects of the Amazigh language, "Azegzaw" means both green and blue.

Arabic

In Arabic the word for blue is generally azraq (أزرق). The Arabic word for green is akhḍar (أخضر). However, the color of the sky is sometimes referred to as "green" in Classical Arabic poetry, in which al-khaḍrā’ (الخضراء), the feminine form of akhḍar (because the Arabic word for sky, samā’ (سماء) is feminine), literally 'the green one', is an epithet for the sky. But al-zarqā’ (الزرقاء; feminine form of azraq, literally 'the blue one') is used as an epithet for the sky as well.

Egyptian

The ancient Egyptian word wadjet covers the range of blue, blue-green, and green. On the one hand, it was the name of a goddess, the patroness of Lower Egypt, represented as a cobra called Wadjet, "the green one," or as the Eye of Horus, also called by the same name. On the other hand, wedjet was the word used for Egyptian blue in faience ceramics.

Hebrew

In Hebrew, the word "כחול" (pronounced /kaˈχol/) means blue, while "ירוק" (pronounced /jaˈʁok/) means green and has the same root, י־ר־ק (j-r-q), as the word for vegetables (ירקות, jeʁaˈkot). However, in classical Hebrew, ירוק can mean both green and yellow, giving rise to such expressions as ירוק כרתי, "leek green", to specify green to the exclusion of yellow. Like Russian and Italian, Hebrew has a separate name for light blue (תכלת, "t'khelet")—the color of the sky and of fringes on the ritual garment Tzitzit. This color has special symbolic significance in Judaism and Jewish culture.^[2]

Indo-European

Baltic

There are separate words for green (zaļš) and blue (zils) in Latvian. Both zils and zaļš stem from the same Proto-Indo-European word for yellow (*ghel). Several other words in Latvian have been derived from these colors, namely grass is called zāle (from zaļš), while the name for iris is zīlīte (from zils).

The now archaic word mēļš was used to describe both dark blue and black (probably indicating that previously zils was used only for lighter shades of blue). For instance, blueberries and blackberries are called mellenes.

In Latvian black is "melns" (in some local dialects "mells").

Slavic

Bulgarian, a South Slavic language, makes a clear distinction between blue (синьо, sinyo), green (зелено, zeleno), and black (черно, cherno).

In the Polish language, blue (niebieski) and green (zielony) are treated as separate colors. The word for sky blue or azure—błękitny—might be considered either a basic color or a shade of blue by different speakers. Similarly dark blue or navy blue (granatowy—deriving from the name of pomegranate (granat), some cultivars of which are dark purplish blue in color) can be considered by some speakers as a separate basic color. Black (czarny) is completely distinguished from blue. As in English, Polish distinguishes pink ("różowy") from red ("czerwony").

The word siwy means blue-gray in Polish (literally it means the color of gray hair). The word siny refers to violet-blue and is used to describe the color of bruises ("siniaki"), hematoma, and the blue skin discoloration that can result from moderate hypothermia.

Russian does not have a single word referring to the whole range of colors denoted by the English term "blue". Instead, it traditionally treats light blue (голубой, goluboy) as a separate color independent from plain or dark blue (синий, siniy), with all seven "basic" colors of the spectrum (red–orange–yellow–green–голубой / goluboy (sky blue, light azure, but does not equal cyan)–синий / siniy ("true" deep blue, like synthetic ultramarine)–violet) while in English the light blues like azure and cyan are considered mere shades of "blue" and not different colors. To better understand this, consider that English makes a similar distinction between "red" and light red (pink, which is considered a different color and not merely a kind of red), but such a distinction is unknown in several other languages; for example, both "red" (红 / 紅, hóng) and "pink" (粉红, fěn hóng, lit. "powder red") have traditionally been considered varieties of a single color in Chinese. The Russian language also distinguishes between red (красный, krasniy) and pink (розовый, rozoviy).

Similarly English descriptions of rainbows have often distinguished between blue or turquoise^[3] and indigo,^[4] the latter of which is often described as dark blue or ultramarine.^[5]

The Serbo-Croatian color system makes a distinction between blue, green and black:

• Blue: plava (indicates any blue)
  • Navy blue: teget
• Green: zelena
• Black: crna

Shades are defined with a prefix (e.g. "tamno-" for dark, or "svetlo-" for light), for example, dark blue = "tamnoplava". "Sinje", analogue to Bulgarian синьо, sinyo/Russian синий, siniy, is archaic, and denotes blue-gray, usually used to describe dark skies or seas. Turquoise is usually described as "tirkizna", and similarly, azure will use a loan word "azurna". There is no specific word for cyan. Blond hair is called plava ('blue'), reflecting likely the archaic use of "plav" for any bright white/blue colors (like the sky).

Celtic

The Welsh word glas is usually translated as "blue"; however, it can also refer, variously, to the color of the sea, of grass, or of silver. The word gwyrdd (a borrowing from Latin viridis) is the standard translation for "green". In traditional Welsh (and related languages), glas could refer to certain shades of green and grey as well as blue, and llwyd could refer to various shades of grey and brown; however, modern Welsh is tending toward the 11-color Western scheme, restricting glas to blue and using gwyrdd for green, llwyd for grey and brown for brown.

In Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic the word for "blue" is gorm (whence the name Cairngorm mountains derives) – a borrowing of the now obsolete Early Welsh word gwrm, meaning "dark blue" or "dusky". A relic of the original meaning ("dusky") survives in the Irish term daoine gorma, meaning "Black people".

In Old and Middle Irish, like in Welsh, glas was a blanket term for colors ranging from green to blue to various shades of grey (e.g. the glas of a sword, the glas of stone, etc.). In Modern Irish, it has come to mean various shades of green, with specific reference to plant hues, and grey (like the sea); other shades of green would be referred to in Modern Irish as uaine or uaithne, while liath is grey proper (like a stone).

Scottish Gaelic uses the term uaine for "green". However, the dividing line between it and gorm is somewhat different than between the English "green" and "blue", with uaine signifying a light green or yellow-green, and gorm extending from dark blue (what in English might be navy blue) to include the dark green or blue-green of vegetation. Grass, for instance, is gorm, rather than uaine. In addition, liath covers a range from light blue to light grey.

The boundary between colors varies much more than the "focal point": e.g. an island known in Breton as Enez glas ("the blue island") is called in French l'Île Verte ("the green island"), in both cases referring to the greyish-green color of its bushes, even though both languages distinguish green (as in lawn grass) from blue (as in a cloudless midday sky).

Romance

The Romance terms for "green" (Catalan verd, French vert, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish verde) are all from Latin viridis. The terms for "blue", on the other hand, vary: Catalan blau, Occitan blau and French bleu are from Germanic; French bleu was in turn loaned into many other languages, including English.

French, as most Romance languages, makes roughly the same distinctions as English and has a specific term for blue ("bleu"), green ("vert") and grey ("gris"). For all three, different shades can be indicated with different (compound) terms, none of them being considered as basic color terms: "bleu clair" (light blue), "bleu ciel" (sky blue), "bleu marine" (Navy blue), "bleu roi" (royal blue); "vert clair" (light green), "vert pomme" (literally: apple green); "gris anthracite" (very dark grey), "gris souris" (literally: mouse grey).

Catalan distinguishes blue (blau) from green (verd) and grey (gris). Other basic or common colours by its own right are porpra "purple", groc "yellow", taronja "orange", vermell "red", rosa "pink", marró "brown", gris "grey", negre "black" and blanc "white". For all these colours except black and white it is possible to indicate different shades using clar "light" and fosc "dark"; for blue, though, it generally is blau cel "sky blue" and blau marí "sea blue". Other words and compounds are common to indicate more elaborated shades (verd llimona "lemon green", rosa pàlid "pale pink", lila "lilac", granat "carmine", ocre "ochre", verd oliva "olive green", etc.). It is noteworthy that Catalan actually distinguishes two reds with different and common words: while vermell refers to the colour of arterial blood, roig is a red tending towards yellow or the colour of clay.^[6]

Italian distinguishes blue (blu) and green (verde). There are also two words for light blue (e.g. sky's color): azzurro and celeste. Azzurro, the English equivalent of azure, is not considered to be a shade of blu, but rather the opposite, i.e. blu is a darker shade of azzurro.^[7] Celeste literally means '(the color) of the sky' and is often used as synonym of azzurro, although it may be considered a lighter color.^[8] To indicate a mix of green and celeste, Italians say verde acqua, literally water green or acquamarina (aquamarine), or glauco, which is also used to indicate a mix of green and gray in plants.^[9]

In Portuguese, the word "azul" means blue and the word "verde" means green. Furthermore, "azul-claro" means light-blue, and "azul-escuro" means dark-blue. More distinctions can be made between several hues of blue. For instance, "azul-celeste" means sky blue, "azul-marinho" means navy-blue and "azul-turquesa" means turquoise-blue. One can also make the distinction between "verde-claro" and "verde-escuro", meaning light and dark-green respectively, and more distinctions between several qualities of green: for instance, "verde-azeitona" means olive-green and "verde-esmeralda" means emerald-green. Cyan is usually called "azul-celeste" (sky blue) or "azul-piscina", meaning pool blue, but also less commonly "ciano", and "verde-água", meaning water green.

Romanian clearly distinguishes between the colors green (verde) and blue (albastru). It also uses separate words for different hues of the same color, e.g. light blue (bleu), blue (albastru), dark-blue (bleu-marin or bleomarin), along with a word for turquoise (turcoaz) and azure (azur or azuriu).

Similarly to French, Romanian, Italian and Portuguese, Spanish distinguishes blue (azul) and green (verde) and has an additional term for the tone of blue visible in the sky, namely "celeste", which is nonetheless considered a shade of blue.

Germanic

In Old Norse, the word blár "blue" (from proto-Germanic blēwaz) was also used to describe black (and the common word for people of African descent was thus blámenn 'blue/black men'). In Swedish, blå, the modern word for blue, was used this way until the early 20th century, and it still is to a limited extent in modern Faroese.

German and Dutch distinguish blue (respectively blau and blauw) and green (grün and groen) very similarly to English. There are terms for light blue (hellblau and lichtblauw) and darker shades of blue (dunkelblau and donkerblauw). In addition, adjective forms of most traditional color names are inflected to match the corresponding noun's case and gender. A number of "modern" color names (such as rosa, meaning 'pink' or 'rose') are not inflected; instead, in Standard German, it is necessary to add the suffix farben or farbig (colored), and inflect the result (for example: ein rosafarbenes Auto, lit. 'a pink-colored car'). This, however, is often disregarded in colloquial speech, resulting in forms like ein rosanes Auto or simply ein rosa Auto.

Greek

The terms for "blue" and "green" have changed completely in the transition from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek. Ancient Greek had γλαυκός (glaukos) "clear light blue", contrasting with χλωρός (chloros) "bright green" (cf. Words such as chlorophyll). κυανός (which turned into "cyan" in English) meant either a "dark blue substance" or just "blue". Modern Greek has πράσινο (prásino) for green and γαλάζιο (galázio) or θαλασσί (thalassí, 'sea colored') for light blue/sea blue. The recent loan μπλε (ble, French bleu) is used for blue.

In the Modern Greek language, there are additional names for light and dark blues/greens:

1. τυρκουάζ (tyrkouáz) for turquoise
2. κυανό (kyanó) for azure
3. λαχανί (lachaní 'cabbage colored') for lime green
4. λαδί (ladí) for olive and
5. χακί (chakí) for dark khaki
6. κυπαρισσί (kyparissí 'cypress colored') for brownish green.

As a rule, the first two words of the list are accepted as shades of blue, and the rest as shades of green. Also βιολέ (violé) / βιολετί (violetí) for violet blue (which is, however, usually considered as a shade of purple, rather than blue).

Iranian

Ossetian has one word for blue, light blue and green—цъæх (tsəh), which also means "grey" and "glaucous"—but it also has a separate word for green, кæрдæгхуыз (kərdəghuɨz), literally "grassy" (from кæрдæг "grass"). The latter derives from кæрдын (kərdɨn) "to mow" (like in German Heu (hau) < hauen (to mow)).

Ossetian also has separate words for these colors:

• light blue: æрвхуыз (ərvhuɨz) from æрвон "sky"
• glaucous: бæлонхуыз (bəlonhuɨz) from бæлон "pigeon" (a calque from Russian, cf. голубой (light blue) < голубь (pigeon)); also фæздæгхуыз (fəzdəghuɨz) from fazdag "smoke", from Old Persian *pazdaka-, cognate of Latin pedis (louse) and Russian (obscene) пизда (cunt), because of its stinking.
• blue: копрадзхуыз (kopradzhuɨz), from копрадз (kopradz) - bluing for laundering, transliteration of Russian купорос "vitriol" from Latin cuprum "copper"
• grey: фæныкхуыз (fənykhuɨz), from фæнык "ashes", originating from Persian *pa(s)nu-ka, cognate or Russian песок "sand"

Pashto uses the word shīn to denote blue as well as green. Shinkay, a word derived from shīn, means 'greenery' but shīn āsmān means 'blue sky'. When there is ambiguity, it is common to ask (as in Vietnamese), "Shīn like the sky? Or shīn like plants?"

Persian words for blue include آبی ābi (literally the color of water, from āb 'water'), for blue generally; نیلی nili (from nil, 'indigo dye'), for deeper shades of blue such as the color of rain clouds; فیروزه fayruzeh 'turquoise stone', used to describe the color of blue eyes; لاجوردی lājvardi or لاژوردی lāzhvardi 'lapis lazuli color', source of the words lazuli and azure; نیلوفری nilufari 'water lily color'; and کبود kabud, an old literary word for 'blue'.

The Persian word for green is سبز sabz. As in Sudan, dark-skinned people may be described as "green."

The color of the sky is variously described in Persian poetry using the words sabz, fayruzeh, nil, lājvardi, or nilufari— literally "green", "indigo", "turquoise", "azure" or "the color of water lilies". For example, sabz-ākhor "green stable", sabz-āshyāneh "green ceiling", sabz-ayvān "green balcony", sabz-bādbān "green sail", sabz-bāgh "green garden", sabz-farsh "green carpet", sabz-golshan "green flower-garden", sabz-kārgāh "green workshop", sabz-kh^vān "green table", sabz-manzareh "green panorama", sabz-maydān "green field" sabz-pol "green bridge", sabz-tāq "green arch", sabz-tasht "green bowl", and sabz-tā’us "green peacock" are poetic epithets for the sky—in addition to similar compounds using the words for blue, e.g. lājvardi-saqf "lapis lazuli-colored roof" or fayruzeh-tasht "turquoise bowl". Moreover, the words for green of Arabic origin اخضر akhzar and خضرا khazrā are used for epithets of the sky or heaven, such as charkh-e akhzar "green wheel".^[10]

Indo-Aryan

Indo-Aryan languages distinguish blue from green. In Urdu, blue is neela and green is sabz. There are some names of shades of blue as well, like ferozi. In Hindi, blue is neela and green is hara.

Basque

In the Basque language there are three native color words derived from "ur" (water). Urdin, is nowadays used in most cases for blue. "Ubel", originally meant flash flood and, with respect to colors, is often used in relation to bruises. "Begi ubela" would be translated into English by "a black and blue eye". But in Basque, unlike English, ubel remains in use after the hit skin has lost its purple color and become pale, why this word is used for both purple in particular and pale hue in general. "Uher", originally meant dirty, still water or rusty and is used for gray or sienna tones or impure, dark color in general. Green is usually expressed with the loan-word berde from Spanish "verde"/ French "vert". The authenticity of the less common Basque terms for green (h)orlegi and musker is disputed.^[11]

Uralic

Finnish

Finnish makes a distinction between vihreä (green) and sininen (blue). Turquoise or teal (turkoosi or sinivihreä) is considered to be a separate, intermediate color between green and blue, and black (musta) is also differentiated from blue.

The name for blue, sininen, is shared with other Finnic languages and is thus dated to the era of the Proto-Finnic language (ca. 5000 years old). However, it is also shared with the unrelated Russian language (синий, siniy), suggesting that it is a loanword. (Alternatively, the Russian word синий could represent Finnic substratum). The word vihreä (viher-, archaic viheriä, viheriäinen) is related to vehreä "verdant" and vihanta "green", and viha "hate", originally "poison". It is not shared with Estonian, in which it is roheline, probably related with the Estonian word rohi "grass". However, the form viha does have correspondences in related languages as far as Permic languages, where it means not only "poison" but "bile" or "green or yellow". It has been originally loaned from an Indo-Iranian protolanguage and is related to Latin virus "poison". Furthermore, the word musta "black" is also of Finnic origin.

The differentiation of several colors by hue is at least Finnic (a major subgroup of Uralic) in origin. Before this, only red (punainen) was clearly distinguished by hue, with other colors described in terms of brightness (valkea vs. musta), using non-color adjectives for further specificity. Alternatively, it appears that the distinction between valkea and musta was in fact "clean, shining" vs. "dirty, murky". The original meaning of sini was possibly either "black/dark" or "green". Mauno Koski's theory is that dark colors of high saturation—both blue and green—would be sini, while shades of color with low saturation, such as dark brown or black, would be musta. Although it is theorized that originally vihreä was not a true color name and was used to describe plants only, the occurrence of vihreä or viha as a name of a color in several related languages shows that it was probably polysemic (meaning both "green" and "verdant") already in early Baltic-Finnic. However, whatever the case with these theories, differentiation of blue and green must be at least as old as the Baltic-Finnic languages.^[12]

Hungarian

Hungarian makes the distinction between green (zöld) and blue (kék), and also distinguishes black (fekete). Intermediate colors between green and blue are commonly referred to as zöldeskék (literally greenish-blue) or kékeszöld (bluish-green), but names for specific colors in this continuum—like turquoise (türkiz)—also exist. Particular shades of a color can also have separate names, such as azure (azúr).

Turkic

The Kazakh language, like many Turkic languages, distinguishes between kök for blue and jasâl for green. In Kazakh, many adjectival variations can be found referring to perceived gradations in saturation level of "blue", such as kögildir, kökshil, and kökboz, which respectively denominate the gradual decrease in the intensity, kökboz being often used as a color referent in its own right. Interestingly, kök is occasionally used to denote green plants (e.g. 'kök' shöp'), but such usage is mostly confined to poetic utterances or certain localized dialects.

Turkish treats dark or navy blue (lacivert, from the same Persian root as English azure and lapis lazuli) as a separate color from plain or light blue (mavi). Mavi is derived from the Arabic word مائي mā’ī 'like water' (ماء mā’ being the Arabic word for water) and lacivert is derived from Persian لاجورد lājvard 'lapis lazuli', a semiprecious stone with the color of navy blue. In the pre-Islamic religion of the Turks, blue is the color that represented the east, as well as the zodiac sign Aquarius (the Water Bearer). A characteristic tone of blue, turquoise, was much used by the Turks for their traditional decorations and jewelry.

In traditional pre-Islamic Turkic culture, both blue and green were represented by the same name, gök 'sky'. The name is still in use in many rural areas. For instance, in many regions of Turkey, when mold is formed on cheese, the phenomenon is called gögermek 'turning into the color of gök/sky'.

Dravidian

The Tamil language clearly distinguishes between the colors பச்சை green (paccai), நீலம் blue (neelam) and கருப்பு black (karuppu). The prefix karu- would indicate dark colors while the suffix iḷam would indicate light colors. Thus karupaccai would be dark green.

The Telugu language uses a single word, Telugu: పచ్చ pacca, for green and yellow. To differentiate between the two shades, another word is prefixed in some cases. For example, green will be called ఆకుపచ్చ ākupacca "leaf-pacca" and yellow పసుపుపచ్చ pasupupacca "turmeric-pacca"

East Asian languages

Chinese

The modern Chinese language has the blue–green distinction (蓝/ 藍 lán for blue and 绿 / 綠 lǜ for green); however, another word that predates the modern vernacular, qīng (Chinese: 青), is also used. The character depicts the budding of a young plant and it could be understood as "verdant", but the word is used to describe colors ranging from light and yellowish green through deep blue all the way to black, as in xuánqīng (Chinese: 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 Ground Red"—Chinese: 青天，白日，滿地紅); whereas qīngcài (青菜) is the Chinese word for "green bok choy". Qīng 青 was the traditional designation of both blue and green for much of the history of the Chinese language, while 蓝 lán and 绿 lǜ were introduced relatively more recently, as a part of the adoption of modern Vernacular Chinese as the social norm, replacing Classical Chinese.

Japanese

A billboard in Okazaki, Aichi, depicting traffic lights with a blue, rather than green, 'go' signal. The distinction of blue and green (ao (青)) in Japanese is fluid enough to allow these variances in the depiction of the color.

The Japanese word ao (青, n., aoi (青い, adj.)), the same kanji character as the Chinese qīng above, can refer to either blue or green depending on the situation. Modern Japanese has a word for green (緑, midori), but it is a relatively recent usage. 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: 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 word used to refer to the color on a traffic light that signals one to "go". However, most other objects—a green car, a green sweater, and so forth—will generally be called midori. Japanese people also sometimes use the word gurīn (グリーン^?) , based on the English word "green", for colors. The language also has several other words meaning specific shades of green and blue.

Korean

The native Korean word 푸르다 (Revised Romanization: pureu-da adj.) may mean either blue or green, or bluish green. This word 푸르다 is used as in 푸른 하늘 (pureun haneul, blue sky) for blue or as in 푸른 숲 (pureun sup, green forest) for green. Distinct words for blue and green are also used; 파란 (paran adj.), 파란색/파랑 (paransaek/parang n.) for blue, 초록 (chorok adj./n.), 초록색 (choroksaek n. or for short, 녹색 noksaek n.) for green. However, in the case of a traffic light, paran is used for the green light meaning go, even though the word is typically used to mean blue. Cheong 청 is also used for both blue and green. It is a loan from Chinese (靑, pinyin: qing) and is used in the proper name Cheong Wa Dae (청와대 or Hanja: 靑瓦臺), the Blue House, which is the executive office and official residence of the President of the Republic of Korea.

Tibetan

In Tibetan, སྔོན་པོ། (Wylie transliteration sngon po) is the term given for the color of the sky and of grass.^[13] This term also falls into the general pattern of naming colors by appending the suffix "po", as in "mar po" (red); "ser po" (yellow); "nag po" (black); and "dkar po" (white). Conspicuously, the term for "green" is "ljang khu", likely related to "ljang bu" - "the 'blue' (sngon po) sprout of wheat or barley."^[14]

Vietnamese

Vietnamese usually does not use separate words for green and refers to that color using a word that can also refer to blue. In Vietnamese, blue and green are denoted by xanh (青). This is a colloquial rendering of thanh (青), as with Chinese and Japanese. Blue is specifically described as xanh, as in the skin of the sky (xanh da trời) or "xanh, as in the ocean" (xanh dương, xanh nước biển) and green as "xanh, as in the leaves" (xanh lá cây).

Modern Vietnamese occasionally does employ the terms xanh lam and xanh lục (in which the second syllables derive from the Chinese: 藍 and 綠 as explained above) for blue and green, respectively.

Mongolian

In Mongolian, the word for green is ногоон (nogoon). Mongolian distinguishes between dark and light blue. The word for light blue is цэнхэр (tsenher) and the word for dark blue is хѳх (höh).

Austronesian languages

Filipino (Tagalog)

Speakers of Tagalog most commonly use the Spanish loanwords for blue and green—asul (from Spanish azul) and berde (from Spanish verde), respectively. Although these words are much more common in spoken use, Tagalog has native terms: bugháw for blue and lunti(án) for green, which are seen as archaic and more flowery. These are mostly confined to formal and academic writings, alongside artistic fields such literature, music, and poetry.

In Cebuano, another major Philippine language, the native words for "blue" and "green" end in the same syllable: bughaw and lunhaw, respectively.

Humour and jokes of a sexual nature, which are called "blue" in English (e.g. "blue comedy", "blue joke"), are otherwise called "green" in Philippine English (e.g. "green joke", "green-minded"), a calque of the Hispanic term chiste verde.

Javanese

Modern Javanese has distinct words for blue biru and green ijo.^[15] These words are derived from Old Javanese birū and hijo.^[16] However, in Old Javanese birū could mean pale blue, greyish blue, greenish blue or even turquoise, while hijo which means green, could also means the blue-green colour of clear water. Biru and ijo in Modern Javanese are cognates of Malay/Indonesian biru and hijau which have the same meaning.

Bantu

The Swahili word for blue is buluu, which is derived directly from English and has been in the language for a relatively short time. For other colors, Swahili uses either rangi ya ___ (the color of ___) or a shortened version, -a ___. For example, green is rangi ya kijani or rangi ya majani, which means the color of grass/leaves. Sky blue is rangi ya samawati, or the color of the sky from the Arabic word for sky. (Note: all of these can be written as -a kijani, -a majani, -a samwati, etc.)^[17]

Zulu and Xhosa use the word -luhlaza (the prefix changes according to the class of the noun) for blue/green.

Tswana uses the same word tala to refer to both blue and green. One has to deduce from the context and prior knowledge, of what is being talked about, to be able to pinpoint exactly the color in question.

The Himba people have a limited number of words for different colors and their color perception has been studied by anthropologists.

American languages

The language of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation at Akwesasne is at Stage VII on the Berlin–Kay Scale, and thus possesses distinct terms for a broad range of spectral and non-spectral colours, including blue (oruía), green (óhute), black (kahúji), white (karákA’), and grey (atakArókwa). According to one researcher, the Nation’s term for purple (arihwawakunéha), which translates to ‘bishop[’s colour]’, “is definitely a recent addition to the language”.^[18] The way in which purple was categorized and referenced prior to the addition of the latter term is not clear.

In the Lakota Sioux language, the word tȟó is used for both blue and green, though the word tȟózi (a mixture of the words tȟó meaning "blue (green)," and zí meaning "yellow") has become common (zítȟo can also be used). This is in line with common practice of using zíša/šázi for Orange (šá meaning "red"), and šátȟo/tȟóša for "purple/violet."^[19]

Single words for blue/green are also found in Mayan languages; for example in the Yukatek Maya language blue/green is yax.

Tupian languages did not originally differ between the two colors, though they may now as a result of interference of Spanish (in the case of Guaraní) or Portuguese (in the case of Nheengatu). The Tupi word oby (IPA: [ɔˈβɨ]) meant both as does the Guaraní hovy (IPA: [ɦɔvɨ]). In modern tupi (nheengatu) you can use the word "suikiri" for green and "iakira/akira" for blue, but they are still interchangeable, because "iakira/akira" also means immature, as in "pakua akira" (green banana/immature banana), and "suikiri" can also mean blue. In modern guarani, they use "hovy" for blue and "hovy'û" (which literally means "dark green/blue) for green. So "hovy" can still be used for green" and "hovy'û" can be used for dark blue shades. They also have the word "aky", cognate with nheengatu "akira", and it means green/immature too.

The Yebamasa of the Rio Piraparana region in Vaupés Department, southeastern Colombia, use the term sumese for blue/green. The letter "u" is pronounced like the German "ü".^[20]

See also

Sources

• Etymological Dictionary of Basque
• Hirayama, Hitomi (1999). "Green... midori? ao?" (PDF). Pera Pera Penguin (Yomiuri Shimbun) 32. 

References