Blue–green distinction in language

In many languages, the colors described in English as "blue" and "green" are colexified, i.e., expressed using a single umbrella term. To render this ambiguous notion in English, linguists use the blend word ''grue'', from ''green'' and ''blue'', a term coined by the philosopher Nelson Goodmanwith an unrelated meaningin his 1955 '' Fact, Fiction, and Forecast'' to illustrate his " new riddle of induction".

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 either 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 gray 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.

Afro-Asiatic

Amazigh

The word for blue in the Amazigh (Berber) language is . In some dialects of Amazigh, like Shilha or Kabyle, the word is used for both green and blue. It is likely cognate with the English word ''azure'', which represents the colour between blue and cyan.

Arabic

The color of the sky is sometimes referred to as "the green" in some dialects of Classical Arabic poetry, in which it is (). In Arabic the word for blue is (). The Arabic word for green is ().

In Moroccan Arabic, the word for light blue is , whereas () stands for blue and () for green. The word () is used to describe the color of a suffocated person, and is also used pejoratively as a synonym to "dumb, stupid".

Egyptian

The ancient Egyptian word ''wadjet'' covered the range of blue, blue-green, and green. 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. At the same time, ''wedjet'' was the word used for Egyptian blue in faience ceramics.

Hebrew

In Hebrew, the word () means blue, while () means green and has the same root, (''j-r-q''), as the word for "vegetables" (, ). However, in classical Hebrew, can mean both green and yellow, giving rise to such expressions as 'leek green' (Tiberian Hebrew ) to specify green to the exclusion of yellow. Like Russian and Italian, Hebrew has a separate name for light blue (, )—the color of the sky and of tzitzit on the tallit, a ritual garment. This color has special symbolic significance in both Judaism and Jewish culture.

American languages

Chahta

The Choctaw language has two words, and , which have different meanings depending on the source. In 1852 is translated variously as pale blue or pale green, is given as swarthy, and is defined as deep blue, gray, green, or sky blue. In 1880, and are both given as blue, and green is not specifically listed as a color. In an 1892 dictionary, is deep blue or green, is pale blue or bright green, and a third word is bright green (resembling a , a species of parrot). By 1915, the authoritative Byington dictionary gives as blue and as green, blue, gray, verdant. A coursebook from 2001 differentiates based on brightness, giving as bright blue/green and as pale or dull blue/green. Modern usage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma language school is to use for blue and for green, with no distinction for brightness.

Kanienʼkéha

The language of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation at Akwesasne is at Stage VII on the Berlin–Kay Scale, and possesses distinct terms for a broad range of spectral and nonspectral colors such as , , , , and . According to one researcher, the Kanien'kehá:ka term for purple , which translates to , a recent, post-Christianization coinage. The way in which purple was categorized and referenced prior to the addition of the latter term is not clear.

Lakota

In the Lakota language, the word is used for both blue and green, though the word (a mixture of the words , and ) has become common ( can also be used). This is in line with common practice of using for orange ( meaning ), and for .

Mapudungun

Mapudungun, spoken by indigenous peoples of Chile and Argentina, distinguishes between , and . The word was formerly used to refer to a sky blue, and also refers to the bluish color of stones.

Mayan

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

Tupian

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 meant both, as does the Guaraní . In modern Tupi ( Nheengatu) the word can be used for green and for blue. However, also means immature, as in , and can also mean blue. In modern Guarani, the word is used for blue and (which literally means "dark green/blue") is used for green. The word , which is cognate with Nheengatu , also means .

Yebamasa

The Yebamasa of the Rio Piraparana region in Vaupés Department, southeastern Colombia, use the term for both blue and green in the Barasana-Eduria language.

Austronesian languages

Filipino (Tagalog)

Speakers of Tagalog most commonly use the Spanish loanwords for blue and green— (from Spanish ) and (from Spanish ), respectively. Although these words are much more common in spoken use, Tagalog has native terms: for blue and 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: and , respectively. means sky blue, while is fresh leaf green (i.e., neither brownish nor yellowish).

Humor and jokes of a sexual or derogatory nature that would otherwise be described as "blue" in English (e.g., " blue comedy", "blue joke") are called "green" in Philippine English. This is a calque of the Hispanic term .

Javanese

Modern Javanese has distinct words for blue and green . These words are derived from Old Javanese and . However, in Old Javanese could mean pale blue, grayish blue, greenish blue, or even turquoise, while which means green, could also mean the blue-green color of clear water. and in Modern Javanese are cognates of Malay/ Indonesian and which both have the same meaning.

Māori

Māori spoken before contact with Europeans did not distinguish between blue and green, using the word ''namu'' (e.g. in ''pou''namu) for both, while words describing greenery in vegetation (e.g. ''ota'', ''mata'') or birds ('' kākāriki'') were dominant in 19th century dictionaries. Descriptions of the new Anglocentric "blue" was developed in association with the sky (''rangi''; e.g. ''kikorangi'' and ''kahurangi''), while darker hues are perceived closer to black like ''pako'' (variant of ''pango'') and ''uriuri''.

Dravidian

Kannada

The Kannada language distinguishes between blue ( ), green ( ) and yellow ( ). The prefix () would indicate darker colors while the prefix () would indicate light colors. Thus () would mean dark/deep blue, while () would mean light blue.

Tamil

The Tamil language distinguishes between the colors , , and . The prefix would indicate dark colors while the prefix would indicate light colors. Thus, would be dark green while would be light green

Telugu

The Telugu language uses a single word, , for green and yellow. To differentiate between the two shades, another word is prefixed in some cases. For example, green will be called and yellow .

Malayalam

In Malayalam, there are distinct words for blue ( ), green ( ) and yellow ( ).

East Asian languages

Chinese

The modern Standard Chinese language has the blue–green distinction ( for blue and for green); however, another word that predates the modern vernacular, (), is also used in many contexts. 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 For example, the flag of the Republic of China is referred to as (, ) whereas is the Chinese word for "green vegetable", referring to bok choy, and the opposing sides of the game liubo were known as and white in antiquity despite using black and white pieces. was the traditional designation of both blue and green for much of the history of the Chinese language, while originally referred to the dye of the indigo plant. However, as a particular 'shade' of applied to cloth and clothing has been attested since the '' Book of Odes'' (1000600BC), as in the title of Ode 27 "Green Upper Garment") in the ''Airs of Bei'' section. After the discarding of Classical Chinese in favor of modern vernacular Chinese, the modern terms for blue and green are now more commonly used than as standalone color terms, although is still part of many common noun phrases. The two forms can also be encountered combined as and , with being used as an intensifier. In modern scientific contexts, refers to cyan as a narrow range of color in between blue and green, and the modern color names are used when referring to other shades of blue or of green.

Japanese

The Japanese words and , the same kanji character as the Chinese , can refer to either blue or green depending on the situation. Modern Japanese has a word for , but it is a relatively recent usage. Ancient Japanese did not have this distinction: the word came into use only in the Heian period and, at that time and for a long time thereafter, was still considered a shade of . Educational materials distinguishing green and blue came into use only after World War II; thus, even though most Japanese consider them to be green, the word is still used to describe certain vegetables, apples, and vegetation. is also the word used to refer to the color on a traffic light that signals drivers to "go". However, most other objects—a green car, a green sweater, etc.—will generally be called . Japanese people also sometimes use the word , 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 () explicitly refers to blue, but can also mean either green, or bluish green. These adjectives are used for blue as in ( ), or for green as in ( ). () is a noun-modifying form. Another word () usually means blue, but sometimes it also means green, as in ( ). There are Sino-Korean expressions that refer to green and blue. / ( adj./ n.), / ( n. or for short, / n.) is used for green. /, another expression borrowed from Chinese (), is mostly used for blue, as in / ( ) and (/), the Blue House, which is the former executive office and official residence of the President of the Republic of Korea, but is also used for green as well, as in / ( ) and / ( ).

Tibetan

In Tibetan, ( Wylie ) is the term traditionally given for the color of the sky and of grass. This term also falls into the general pattern of naming colors by appending the suffix , as in , , , and . Conspicuously, the term for is , likely related to , and defined as—"the grue (sngon po) sprout of wheat or barley".

Vietnamese

Vietnamese used to colexify green and blue with the word . This is a colloquial rendering of , as with Chinese and Japanese. In modern usage, blue and green are dislexified. Shades of blue are specifically described as , or , . Green is described as .

Vietnamese occasionally employs the terms and in which the second syllables is derived from the Chinese: and respectively, sometimes skipping the syllable , for blue and green, respectively, in formal or scientific speech. can also be used singularly for any color that is the shade in between blue and green inclusively.

Mongolian

Modern Mongolian makes a distinction between green (, ) and blue, which has separate categories for light blue (, ) and dark blue (, ). Historically, Mongolian included greens such as fresh grass in the category, and became a more common term in the modern era.

Indo-European

Albanian

Albanian has two major words for "blue": refers to a light blue, such as that of the sky, but it is derived from Vulgar Latin , itself derived from , a loan from Ancient Greek that meant "marigold" a small and in fact yellow flower. The other word, , refers to a darker shade of blue, and like many similar words across many European languages, derives ultimately from Germanic (see also: Italian ). There is a separate word for green, , which derives from the Latin , which originally meant "yellow" (cf. German ); the original Latin word for green on the other hand, is the source of the Albanian word for "yellow", . Albanian also has a borrowed word for green, , from Turkish ; it tends to be used for non-natural greens (such as traffic signals) in contrast to .

Baltic

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

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

In Latvian, black is (in some local dialects ).

In Lithuanian, is green, is blue, and is gray (hair) or grizzled.

Slavic

Bulgarian, a South Slavic language, makes a clear distinction between blue (, ), green (, ), and black (, ).

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

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

Russian has several words referring to the range of colors denoted by the English term "blue". It traditionally treats light blue (, ) as a separate color independent from plain or dark blue (, ), with all seven "basic" colors of the spectrum (red–orange–yellow–green–/ (sky blue, light azure, but ''does not equal'' cyan)–/ ("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. The Russian word for "green" is . 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" ( , traditionally called ), and "pink" ( , lit. "powder red") have traditionally been considered varieties of a single color in Chinese. The Russian language also distinguishes between red ( ) and pink ( ).

Similarly, English language descriptions of rainbows have often distinguished between blue or turquoise and indigo, the latter of which is often described as dark blue or ultramarine.

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

*Blue: (indicates any blue) and ; in the eastern speaking areas indicates dark blue, in some of the western areas it may indicate any blue
**Navy blue: (mainly in the eastern speaking areas)
**Ash blue: (especially in Dalmatia to describe sea in stormy weather: )
*Green:
*Black:

may also mean dark blue and dark purple that are used to describe colours of a bruise, . Native speakers cannot pinpoint a color on the spectrum which would correspond to .

, cognate to Bulgarian and Russian , is archaic; the term denotes blue-gray, usually used to describe dark seas.

Turquoise is usually described as , and similarly, azure will use a loan word . There is no specific word for cyan. Blond hair is called , reflecting likely the archaic use of for any bright white/blue colors (like the sky).

can refer either dark brown, less often dark gray, or even black. It is etymologically derived from the word for (), but is distinct from (). For instance, it is used to describe the brown bear (). and refer to brown, means red, is for pink and designates orange.

Shades are defined with a prefix (e.g., for dark, or for light), for example, dark blue is .

The Slovene language distinguishes among blue, green and black

* Blue: (officially) or (vernacular) is used for any blue. Sometimes (adj. ) is also used to describe azure. The word is sometimes used for navy-blue.
* Green: is related to the word , which is derived from Proto-Slavic word for "herb" – which in turn is believed to be derived from Proto-Indo-European word for "to shine", which also described light shades of colors (gold, yellow and green).
* Black:

Although the blue and green color are not strictly defined, so Slovene speakers cannot point to a certain shade of blue or green, but rather the whole spectrum of blue and green shades, there is a distinction between light and dark hues of these colors, which is described with prefixes (light) and (dark).

Transient hues between blue and green are mostly described as or , sometimes as (turquoise). Transient hues between green and yellow () are described as or .

Celtic

The Welsh, Cornish, and Breton word is usually translated as 'blue'; however, it can also refer, variously, to the color of the sea, of grass, or of silver (cf. Ancient Greek ). The word (a borrowing from Latin ) is the standard translation for 'green'. In traditional Welsh (and related languages), could refer to certain shades of green and gray as well as blue, and could refer to various shades of gray and brown. Perhaps under the influence of English, Modern Welsh is trending toward the 11-color Western scheme, restricting to 'blue' and using for 'green', for 'gray' and for 'brown', respectively. However, the more traditional usage is still heard today in the Welsh word for 'grass' ( or ), and in fossilized expressions such as 'gray mare', 'green land', 'brown paper' and even red for 'brown' in 'brown sugar'.

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

In Old and Middle Irish, like in Welsh, was a blanket term for colors ranging from green to blue to various shades of gray (e.g., the of a sword, the of stone). In Modern Irish, it has come to mean both various shades of green, with specific reference to plant hues, and gray (like the sea), respectively; shades of green not related to plants would be referred to in Modern Irish as or , while is gray proper (like a stone).

Scottish Gaelic uses the term for 'green'. However, the dividing line between it and is somewhat different than between the English "green" and "blue", with signifying a light green or yellow-green, and 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 , rather than . In addition, covers a range from light blue to light gray. However, the term for a green apple, such as a Granny Smith, would be .

The boundary between colors varies much more than the "focal point": e.g. an island known in Breton as 'the blue island' is 'the green island' in French, in both cases referring to the grayish-green color of its bushes, even though both languages distinguish green from blue.

Romance

The Romance terms for "green" (Catalan ', French ', Galician, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish ') are all from Latin '. The terms for "blue", on the other hand, vary: Catalan ', Occitan ', French ' and Italian ' come from a Germanic root, whereas the Spanish, Galician and Portuguese ''azul'' is likely to come from Arabic. French ''bleu'' was in turn loaned into many other languages, including English. Latin itself did not have a word covering all shades of blue, which may help explain these borrowings. It did, however, recognise ' (dark blue, sometimes greenish), and ' (grayish blue, like lead).

French, as most Romance languages, makes roughly the same distinctions as English and has a specific term for each of blue (""), green ("") and gray (""). For all three, different shades can be indicated with different (compound) terms, none of them being considered as basic color terms: "bleu " (light blue), "bleu " (sky blue), "bleu " (Navy blue), "bleu " (royal blue); "vert clair" (light green), "vert " (literally: apple green); "gris " (deep gray), "gris " (literally: "mouse gray"). French also uses "" for the lighter shade of blue of the sunny sky, that was in turn loaned to English as "azure".

Catalan distinguishes blue (') from green (') and gray ('). Other basic or common colors by its own right are ' "purple", ' "yellow", ' or ' "orange", ' "red", ' "pink", ' "brown", ' "gray", ' "black" and ' "white". For all these colors except black and white it is possible to indicate different shades using ' "light" and ' "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 pàl·lid'' "pale pink", ''lila'' "lilac", ''granat'' "carmine", ''ocre'' "ocher", ''verd oliva'' "olive green", etc.). Catalan actually distinguishes two reds with different and common words: while ' refers to the color of blood, ' is a red tending towards yellow or the color of clay.

Italian distinguishes blue ('), green (') and gray ('). There are also common words for light blue (e.g. the color of the cloudless sky): ' and ', and other for darker shades, e.g. ', indigo. ', the equivalent of the English azure, is usually considered a separate basic color rather than a shade of ''blu'' (similar to the distinction in English between red and pink). Some sources even go to the point of defining ''blu'' as a darker shade of ''azzurro''. ''Celeste'' literally means '(the color) of the sky' and can be used as synonym of ''azzurro'', although it will more often be considered a less saturated hue. ' (aquamarine) literally "sea water", indicates an even lighter, almost transparent, shade of blue. To indicate a mix of green and blue, Italians might say ''verde '', literally ''water green''. The term ', not common in standard Italian and perceived as a literary term, is used in scientific contexts (esp. botany) to indicate a mix of blue, green and gray. Other similar terms are ' and ' (turquoise/teal); they are more saturated hues (especially turchese) and differ in context of use: the first is a literary or bureaucratic term (used for example to indicate light green eyes in identity cards); the second is more common in any informal speech, along with the variant ''turchino'' (for instance, the fairy of ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' is called ''fata turchina'').

In Portuguese, the word "" means blue and the word "" means green. Furthermore, "azul-" means light-blue, and "azul-" means dark-blue. More distinctions can be made between several hues of blue. For instance, "azul-" means sky blue, "azul-" means navy-blue and "azul-" 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-" means olive-green and "verde-" means emerald-green. Cyan is usually called "azul-celeste" (sky blue) and "verde-", meaning water green.

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

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

Germanic

In Old Norse, the word (from proto-Germanic ) was also used to describe black (and the common word for people of African descent was thus ). In Swedish, , 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 and ) and green ( and ), very similarly to English. There are (compound) terms for light blue ( and ) and darker shades of blue ( and ). In addition, adjective forms of most traditional color names are inflected to match the corresponding noun's case and gender.

Greek

The words for "blue" and "green" completely changed in the transition from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek.

Ancient Greek had () "clear light blue" contrasting with () "bright green"; for darker shades of both colors, and were replaced by (), meaning either a "dark blue or green". The words had more than one modern meaning: in addition to "clear light blue", also meant "turquoise" and "teal-green" – it was the typical description of the color of the goddess Athena's eyes, portrayed as either gray or light blue. As well as "bright green", was also used for "acid yellow" (compare "chlorophyll"). Furthermore, not only meant "turquoise" and "teal-green", but could mean either a "dark blue" or "dark green" or just "blue" (adopted into English as "cyan" for light sky-blue).

Those terms changed in Byzantine Greek as seen from the insignia colors of two of Constantinople's rival popular factions: (, "the Greens") and (, "the Blues"). It is not known if those groups' names influenced the word change or if they were named using the new color terms, but whichever way it went, () is a Modern Greek word for "green".

The ancient term for blue () has become an archaic term in Modern Greek, replaced by () or (, "sea colored") for light blue / sea blue, and the recent indeclinable loan-word (, from French ; = ) is used for blue.

In the Modern Greek language, there are names for light and dark blues and greens in ''addition'' to those discussed above:

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

Iranian

Ossetian has only one word for blue, light blue and green— , which also means "gray" and "glaucous"—but it also has a separate word for green, , literally "grassy" (from ). The latter derives from (like in German () < ).

Ossetian also has separate words for the following colors:
* light blue: from
* glaucous: from (a calque from Russian, cf. < ); also from , from Old Persian , cognate of Latin
* blue: , from - bluing for laundering, transliteration of Russian from Latin
* gray: , from , originating from Persian , or Russian cognate

Pashto uses the word to denote blue as well as green. , a word derived from , means 'greenery' but means 'blue sky'. One way to disambiguate is to ask " like the sky? Or like plants?" (Blue and green are however distinguished using different words in the eastern parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, due to contact with other languages.)

Kurdish has two words for 'blue', namely شین ''şîn'' and کەوی ''kewî''. Another word, ''şinahî'', means 'green', e.g. for plants and grass.

Persian words for blue include (literally the color of water, from ), for blue generally; (from , 'indigo dye'), for deeper shades of blue such as the color of rain clouds; 'turquoise stone', used to describe the color of blue eyes; or 'lapis lazuli color', source of the words lazuli and azure; ' water lily color'; and , an old literary word for 'blue'.

The Persian word for green is . 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 , , , , or — literally "green", "indigo", "turquoise", "azure" or "the color of water lilies". For example, "green stable", "green ceiling", "green balcony", and "green peacock" are poetic epithets for the sky—in addition to similar compounds using the words for blue, e.g., "lapis lazuli-colored roof" or "turquoise bowl". Moreover, the words for green of Arabic origin and are used for epithets of the sky or heaven, such as "green wheel".

Indo-Aryan

Chinalbashe (an unclassified Indo-Aryan language) & Chambyali (a Western Pahari language) have the same term for blue & green, i.e., Takri: ISO: .

Other Indo-Aryan languages distinguish blue from green. In Urdu, blue is and green is . There are some names of shades of blue as well, like .
In Hindi, blue is and green is . In Marathi, blue is and green is . In Bengali, blue is and green is .

Niger-Congo A

In Yoruba, there are only three fundamental terms for colors, one of them, the word , is used for the word black and colors such as blue, green, purple, and grey. In modern times, unique terms for the colors are formed based on descriptive markers or English loan words, is used for green, while (from English "blue") or , is used for blue.

Niger-Congo B (Bantu)

isiZulu and isiXhosa

Zulu and Xhosa use the word ''-luhlaza'' for ''blue/green''; the prefix changes according to the class of noun. Speakers of the two mutually intelligible languages can add a descriptive word after the colour term to differentiate between the two colours; for example "(lu)hlaza okwesibhakabhaka" meaning 'like the sky' or (lu)hlaza okwotshani meaning 'like grass'.

Kiswahili

The Swahili word for blue is , which is derived directly from English and has been in the language for a relatively short time. For other colors, Swahili uses either or a shortened version, . For example, green is or . Sky blue is from the Arabic word for sky (plural: ). These examples can be written as , ,

OtjiHimba

The Himba people use a single word for shades of green and blue: . They curiously have only three other color names; thus, their limited color perception has both aroused interest in anthropologists, who have studied this phenomenon.

Setswana

Tswana uses the same word 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.

Northern Caucasus languages

In the language Tsakhur, not only are blue and green distinguished, but also turquoise.

Pama–Nyungan languages

Eastern Arrernte

In Eastern Arrernte, the words and both can be used to refer to the colour green, including some shades of blue and yellow. Additionally, can also be used as a noun to refer to grass and other small plants.

Other European languages

Basque

The Basque language has three native color words derived from . , is nowadays used in most cases for blue. originally meant "flash flood" and, with respect to colors, refers to bruises. would be translated into English by "a black and blue eye". But in Basque, unlike English, 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. originally meant "dirty", "still water", or "rusty"; it is used for gray or sienna tones, and more generally for dark colors. Green is usually expressed with the loan-word from Spanish /French . The authenticity of the less common Basque terms for green and is disputed.

Uralic

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

The name for blue, , is shared with other Finnic languages. Cognates of the root are also found in the Mordvinic languages and it is thus dated even beyond the era of the Proto-Finnic language ( 2000 years old). It appears similar to a word found in the Slavic languages (Russian ), but there is no consensus that there would be a relationship (see Proto-Finnic *sini, Proto-Slavic *siňь). The word (, archaic , ) is related to and , and , originally . It is not shared with Estonian, in which it is , probably related with the Estonian word . However, the form 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 . Furthermore, the word 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.

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

Turkic

Kazakh

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

Tuvan

Before the standardization and mongolization of the Tuvan language, many centuries ago, Tuvans used the word (from the Proto-Turkic ''kök'' – "blue/celestial") for both blue and green. To distinguish the color green from blue, they used to name it ''sug-kök'' – "water-blue", no matter how strange it may sound. Although note that was used for green primarily, they used only if they needed to. Thus, blue was , and green was . However, the dark hues of both colors can be named similarly as even nowadays.

Over time, due to the diversity of the country (Tuva being at the border of different major tribes, both Turkic and Mongol), the green color was named differently from one area to another. In some parts, Tuvans used ("green" in the majority of the Turkic languages), other parts used the Mongol , the rest used the traditional .

Under the influence of the Mongol Empire and due to the need to standardize the language at the beginning of the 20th century, the word green became (from the Mongolian "green"). The linguists who were responsible for the standardization had to take into account two factors: the Mongolization of the language, and the lack of the word for green. They decided to use the Mongolian word for green because they wanted to implicate the Mongol legacy in the lexicon.

Hence today, in the standardized Tuvan language, blue and green are named differently, but it led to the following controversies:

* The problem with is that it is purely symbolic, and not a natural thing.
* The color was named after a foreign non-Turkic word.
* Not choosing the obvious Turkic , which was already used in Western parts of Tuva.
* The new naming of the green color was done in the 20th century, which was subjectively recent. Also, the realization of the innovation was performed forcibly, also touching the previous point, by making the people to switch from to .

Nowadays, the "Blue-green distinction" topic is quite forgotten, people are used to the usage of . In general, Mongolisms in the lexicon of the Tuvan language are not considered unusual.

Turkish

Turkish treats dark or navy blue (, from the same Persian root as English "azure" and "lapis lazuli") as a separate color from plain or light blue (). is derived from the Arabic word ( being the Arabic word for water) and is derived from Persian , 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, . 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 .

See also

References

Sources

Etymological Dictionary of Basque
*

External links

*, a website that tests one's personal boundary between green and blue

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue-green distinction in language
Color in culture
Color names
Language comparison
Lexicology