This was very interesting, thanks. I’ve read somewhere that some cultures don’t differentiate between blue and green, and actually have one word that covers shades of both.
In Japanese you call a traffic light’s green blue instead, and early fruit or immature people are called blue or bluish.
Also, Spanish and Portuguese got their “blue” word from Arabic: Azul, which in reality it would be closer to Azure than blue, but that’s because it came from lapis lazuli-made dyes for ceramics.
~Note: I might misremembered something from the previous statement, buyers beware.~
Yep, I got it right, originally from Persian lapis lazuli for the dye. Somehow the other Romance languages use a different word for blue but kept a word for the color azure, it could well be that it got introduced through the Iberians.
Pink was also covered by red. I believe the name for pink comes from the plant group Dianthus, which includes carnations. They were a popular adorment worn by men on their suits at weddings for a period of time, during which probably made the colour reference familiar to most people and then became the norm (Hopefully that’s all correct, that’s what I understand at least!).
There also exist ‘pinking scissors’ for cutting those trianglar jagged edges to fabrics. The term ‘pinking’ refering to the Dianthus flower petals that have a jagged edge.
So pink was a shape rather than a colour originally!
This was very interesting, thanks. I’ve read somewhere that some cultures don’t differentiate between blue and green, and actually have one word that covers shades of both.
In Japanese you call a traffic light’s green blue instead, and early fruit or immature people are called blue or bluish.
Also, Spanish and Portuguese got their “blue” word from Arabic: Azul, which in reality it would be closer to Azure than blue, but that’s because it came from lapis lazuli-made dyes for ceramics.
~Note: I might misremembered something from the previous statement, buyers beware.~
Yep, I got it right, originally from Persian lapis lazuli for the dye. Somehow the other Romance languages use a different word for blue but kept a word for the color azure, it could well be that it got introduced through the Iberians.
Thanks for fact-checking!
I’ve heard that early languages also call red and orange fruits the same color or something but I couldn’t find the source.
Pink was also covered by red. I believe the name for pink comes from the plant group Dianthus, which includes carnations. They were a popular adorment worn by men on their suits at weddings for a period of time, during which probably made the colour reference familiar to most people and then became the norm (Hopefully that’s all correct, that’s what I understand at least!).
There also exist ‘pinking scissors’ for cutting those trianglar jagged edges to fabrics. The term ‘pinking’ refering to the Dianthus flower petals that have a jagged edge.
So pink was a shape rather than a colour originally!
Yeah, I think orange is a relatively new “color”
Yes, the color is named after the fruit, not the other way around!