History UsefulNotes / GreenIsBlue

[[caption-width-right:350:[[DrivesLikeCrazy Yellow still means floor it]].]]

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* The Russian language differentiates two hues of blue. They are ''siniy'' for dark, navy blue, and ''goluboy'' for a bright azure blue[[note]](with a secondary meaning of male homosexuality)[[/note]]. Green in Russian is ''zeleniy''.

* And in contrast to the Irish and Scots (Goidelic Celtic languages), Welsh (a Brythonic Celtic language) shifted the word ''glas'' all the way over to '''blues''' rather than to greens, which are ''gwyrdd''.

* In both Irish and in Scottish Gaelic, ''gorm'' is a range of colours including blue and some shades of green, while ''glas'' ranges between green and grey. However, the exact cut-off point varies, with grass usually being described as ''gorm'' in Gaelic and ''glas'' in Irish. Both languages make a distinction between [[GoodColorsEvilColors "warm" and "stark" colours]] as well, with ''gorm'' also including the warm uses of black (which in English might be described as brown-black or glossy black) in contrast to ''dubh'' covering the stark ones (i.e. pitch-black or ashen black). Thus ''duine gorm'' is someone with dark skin, while ''duine dubh'' is someone with dark hair (or someone [[LivingShadow literally made out of darkness]]). The difference between the two is generally LostInTranslation, which has resulted in ''dubh'' Irish people being traditionally but confusingly referred to as the "Black Irish", and ethnically Black people wondering why they've suddenly become "blue" in Irish. Wikipedia features a nice graph [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colours_in_Irish.png here]]

* The point at which more finely differentiated color terms entering a language seems to correspond to the development of that culture's ability to produce pigments of those colors. Many hunter-gatherer cultures have rather limited color vocabulary (e.g. three colors: 'dark' (blacks), 'warm' (reds), and 'cold' (whites), corresponding to the earth-tone pigments available to them). Most bronze age languages (Mycaneian Greek, Zhou/Chou dynasty Chinese) did not have words distinguishing blue from green corresponding to a lack of technology to create pigments or dyes that were distinguishably either blue or green (an exception was Ancient Egyptian that, uniquely, had a word for blue and a blue pigment made from calcium copper silicate), by the Iron Age most languages had up to 6 distinct color terms including separate terms for blue and green.

* While the the color cyan obviously has its own name in English, its more commonly referred to as light blue in English and most languages. This is odd as, from a physical standpoint, cyan (midway between green and blue) is as distinct from true blue as magenta (midway between blue and red) is from blue.
* The reason why an orange-plumed bird or orange-furred or haired mammal is described as "red" is that the English language simply did not have a word for "orange" until comparatively recently. Anything of roughly the right hue was described as "red" as this was the only word English had. For example, robins are always described as having a red breast, despite the fact it's more of an orange or russety brown. The red fox, another orange-brown creature, is also seemingly assigned the wrong colour adjective, as are all "red-haired" people and "red tabby" cats. Our word "orange" was [[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=orange&allowed_in_frame=0 imported from French]] along with the fruit. The French likely removed the initial n because of confusion (''une narange'' - ''une arange'') and changed the initial to o by analogy with 'or' (gold). Anything of that particular colour stopped being "red" and became orange, instead. But older uses persisted.

** When experimental traffic signals which used an X as the "go" signal were tried out in London in 1967, the X was made white rather than green. Presumably both these measures were to assist colour-blind motorists; but they caused more confusion than they prevented.

* Heraldic tincture names (such as Azure for blue) are always spelled with a capital intital letter, so as to distinguish "Or" (the metal, usually looks yellow though it means "gold" in French) from "or" (the conjunction).

* In both Irish and in Scottish Gaelic, ''gorm'' is a range of colours including blue and some shades of green, while ''glas'' ranges between green and grey. However, the exact cut-off point varies, with grass usually being described as ''gorm'' in Gaelic and ''glas'' in Irish. Both languages make a distinction between [[GoodColorsEvilColors "warm" and "stark" colours]] as well, with ''gorm'' also including the warm uses of black (which in English might be described as brown-black or glossy black) in contrast to ''dubh'' covering the stark ones (i.e. pitch-black or ashen black). Thus ''duine gorm'' is someone with dark skin, while ''duine dubh'' is someone with dark hair (or someone [[LivingShadow literally made out of darkness]]). The difference between the two is generally LostInTranslation, which has resulted in ''dubh'' Irish people being traditionally but confusingly referred to as the "Black Irish", and ethnically black people wondering why they've suddenly become "blue" in Irish. Wikipedia features a nice graph [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colours_in_Irish.png here]]

However, these color terms are not universal. Ask a Russian, and they might say that pink is just light red. They might also say that sky blue is a completely different color to ocean blue (Not quite. If the pink is bright and pale, it would be referred as “pink”. Also, due to the fact that “sky-blue” is a slang term for a homosexual, Russians prefer using just the word blue nowadays). In the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosphere Sinosphere]] -- the regions that either speak one of the Chinese languages (such as China, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.), or have languages that incorporate massive amounts of Chinese-derived extended vocabulary and have historically made widespread use of Chinese written characters (such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam), these regions traditionally have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language the same word for both blue and green]], indicated with the Chinese character 青 (or its simplified glyph 靑).[[note]]This character is read as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''tsheng'', Mandarin ''qīng'', Vietnamese ''thanh'' (poetic) or ''xanh'' (daily usage), Korean 청 ''cheong'', indigenous Japanese あお ''ao'', さお ''sao'' and しい ''shii'', and Sino-Japanese せい ''sei'' and しょう ''shō''.[[/note]] Most natural and traditional uses of both blue and green are represented by this word, including the color of the sea, the color of forests, etc. In more recent centuries, there has arisen a greater need to distinguish the concepts that English-speakers would understand as blue and green. The newer compound Chinese character 綠 (Japanese simplified: 緑, Chinese simplified: 绿) came to use in Chinese, Japanese and Korean to specifically mean green as opposed to blue.[[note]]This character is as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''ljowk'', Mandarin ''jī'', ''jí'', ''lǜ'' and ''qī'', Vietnamese ''lục'', Korean 록 ''rok'' and 녹 ''nok'', indigenous Japanese みどり ''midori'', and Sino-Japanese りょく ''ryoku'' and ろく ''roku''.[[/note]] Meanwhile, in China, the character 藍 (simplified: 蓝)[[note]]Mandarin: ''lán'', initially used to refer to the indigo plant--as in the Xunzi quote "青、取之於藍，而青於藍／青、取之于蓝，而青于蓝" (lit. "blue [dye] is derived from the indigo plant, but is bluer [more vibrant/dark/pure] than the indigo plant", fig. "the student has {{surpassed the teacher}}", often simplified as the idiomatic phrase "青出於藍/青出于蓝")[[/note]], has been implemented to phase out the ambiguous 青 as the definitive character for blue.

** Taken up a level in the ''Manga/PokemonAdventures manga'', where the characters Green (based on the aforementioned rival) and Blue (based on an unused female character who would later inspire the remakes' female player character) have their names swapped in English translations. A source of much headache in the fandom, as one might imagine.

** Several orange Pokémon are affected by this as well, being listed in the Pokédex as either red or brown.

However, these color terms are not universal. Ask a Russian, and they might say that pink is just light red. They might also say that sky blue is a completely different color to ocean blue. In the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosphere Sinosphere]] -- the regions that either speak one of the Chinese languages (such as China, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.), or have languages that incorporate massive amounts of Chinese-derived extended vocabulary and have historically made widespread use of Chinese written characters (such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam), these regions traditionally have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language the same word for both blue and green]], indicated with the Chinese character 青 (or its simplified glyph 靑).[[note]]This character is read as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''tsheng'', Mandarin ''qīng'', Vietnamese ''thanh'' (poetic) or ''xanh'' (daily usage), Korean 청 ''cheong'', indigenous Japanese あお ''ao'', さお ''sao'' and しい ''shii'', and Sino-Japanese せい ''sei'' and しょう ''shō''.[[/note]] Most natural and traditional uses of both blue and green are represented by this word, including the color of the sea, the color of forests, etc. In more recent centuries, there has arisen a greater need to distinguish the concepts that English-speakers would understand as blue and green. The newer compound Chinese character 綠 (Japanese simplified: 緑, Chinese simplified: 绿) came to use in Chinese, Japanese and Korean to specifically mean green as opposed to blue.[[note]]This character is as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''ljowk'', Mandarin ''jī'', ''jí'', ''lǜ'' and ''qī'', Vietnamese ''lục'', Korean 록 ''rok'' and 녹 ''nok'', indigenous Japanese みどり ''midori'', and Sino-Japanese りょく ''ryoku'' and ろく ''roku''.[[/note]] Meanwhile, in China, the character 藍 (simplified: 蓝)[[note]]Mandarin: ''lán'', initially used to refer to the indigo plant--as in the Xunzi quote "青、取之於藍，而青於藍／青、取之于蓝，而青于蓝" (lit. "blue [dye] is derived from the indigo plant, but is bluer [more vibrant/dark/pure] than the indigo plant", fig. "the student has {{surpassed the teacher}}", often simplified as the idiomatic phrase "青出於藍/青出于蓝")[[/note]], has been implemented to phase out the ambiguous 青 as the definitive character for blue.

*** The [[TurtlePower Kojin]] beast tribe, native to the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Japan-analogous Far East]], are split into two factions, the Kojin of the Blue and the Kojin of the Red. The Kojin of the Blue are in fact green.

* The first Franchise/{{Pokemon}} games released were ''Red (赤)'' and ''Green (緑)'', followed by a third version, ''Blue (青)'', containing slight improvements and glitch fixes. For the international release, ''Red'' and ''Green'' were combined with ''Blue'''s graphics and game engine and released as ''Red'' and ''Blue''.[[note]]A subtle irony in that green and blue are clearly distinguished in Japan but "combined" for Western audiences.[[/note]] The remakes are known as ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'' worldwide, however.
** This extends to the name of the player’s rival, known as "Green" in Japan (which ties in with his family’s plant themed names, the fact that green and red are complementary colors, and the green rug in his bedroom) and "Blue" internationally.

* The Orange Star army of ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'' has red to orange units depending on the game and pink fatigues (they're called the Red Star army in Japan, but --[[RedsWithRockets for some reason]]-- this got changed for Western markets).

* The point at which more finely differentiated color terms entering a language seems to correspond to the development of that culture's ability to produce pigments of those colors. Many hunter-gatherer cultures have rather limited color vocabulary (e.g. three colors: 'dark' (blacks), 'warm' (reds), and 'cold' (whites), corresponding to the earth-tone pigments available to them). Most bronze age languages (Mycaneian Greek, Chou dynasty Chinese) did not have words distinguishing blue from green corresponding to a lack of technology to create pigments or dyes that were distinguishably either blue or green (an exception was Ancient Egyptian that, uniquely, had a word for blue and a blue pigment made from calcium copper silicate), by the Iron Age most languages had up to 6 distinct color terms including separate terms for blue and green.

* Chinese poems are just… complicated. One verse of a poem (Remembering Jiangnan by Bai Juyi) uses lù and lán, the latter to mean a grass named lán grass that is used to stract green pigment.

** It should be noted that the color of iron, sheep and clouds were all likened to each other (gray, that is, not white) but the word used in ancient greek was the word ''ιοδνεφής'' that in later greek came to mean 'purple' or 'violet'.

Recent advances in neuropsychological and archeological research suggest that the conception of colors in different civilizations depended on how reliably each civilization could produce dyes of that color on demand. In most cultures, the technology for manufacturing blue dyes was most difficult and came last and contributed to the conflation between blue and green. [[http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/ for more details, listen to this audio clip.]]

However, these color terms are not universal. Ask a Russian, and they might say that pink is just light red. They might also say that sky blue is a completely different color to ocean blue. In the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosphere Sinosphere]] -- the regions that either speak one of the Chinese languages (such as China, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.), or have languages that incorporate massive amounts of Chinese-derived extended vocabulary and have historically made widespread use of Chinese written characters (such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam), these regions traditionally have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language the same word for both blue and green]], indicated with the Chinese character 青 (or its simplified glyph 靑).[[note]]This character is read as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''tsheng'', Mandarin ''qīng'', Vietnamese ''thanh'' (poetic) or ''xanh'' (daily usage), Korean 청 ''cheong'', indigenous Japanese あお ''ao'', さお ''sao'' and しい ''shii'', and Sino-Japanese せい ''sei'' and しょう ''shō''.[[/note]] Most natural and traditional uses of both blue and green are represented by this word, including the color of the sea, the color of forests, etc. In more recent centuries, there has arisen a greater need to distinguish the concepts that English-speakers would understand as blue and green. The newer compound Chinese character 綠 (Japanese simplified: 緑, Chinese simplified: 绿) came to use in Chinese, Japanese and Korean to specifically mean green as opposed to blue.[[note]]This character is as reconstructed Middle Chinese ''ljowk'', Mandarin ''jī'', ''jí'', ''lǜ'' and ''qī'', Vietnamese ''lục'', Korean 록 ''rok'' and 녹 ''nok'', indigenous Japanese みどり ''midori'', and Sino-Japanese りょく ''ryoku'' and ろく ''roku''.[[/note]] Meanwhile, in China, the character 藍 (simplified: 蓝), [[note]]Mandarin: ''lán''[[/note]] has been implemented to phase out the ambiguous 青 as the definitive character for blue.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', a can of hot chocolate powder in Undyne's house is described as a 'green cylinder' despite clearly being blue on-screen. Since the game was written by an American and pays homage to ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' and other '90s [=JRPGs=], it's likely a nod to this trope.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', a can of hot chocolate powder in Undyne's house is described as a 'green cylinder' despite being clearly blue on-screen. Since the game was written by an American (but homaging Japanese console [=RPGs=]), it's likely a homage to this trope.

* In ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'', nearly every member of the Joestar family is depicted with blue or greenish-blue eyes, though this is more noticeable in the anime where they're often differing shades. Joseph, for example, has turquoise blue eyes in Part 2, while his older self in Part 3 is shown with teal or aqua green eyes. His grandson, Jotaro, is sometimes depicted with either color.

* Chinese poems are just… complicated. One verse of a poem (Remembring Jiangnan by Bai Juyi) uses lù and lán, the latter to mean a grass named lán grass that is used to stract green pigment.

* ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' / ''Franchise/PowerRangers''

* [[Series/TakeshisCastle Count Takeshi's]] Emerald Guard wore jumpsuits that were far closer to blue in color than any shade of green usually associated with the name "emerald".

* Misty's eye color is very inconsistent in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime. Sometimes she has blue eyes and other times they're green. Since the switch to digital she's ''usually'' been a SignificantGreenEyedRedhead though.

* In both Irish and in Scottish Gaelic, ''gorm'' is a range of colours including blue and some shades of green, while ''glas'' ranges between green and grey. However, the exact cut-off point varies, with grass usually being described as ''gorm'' in Gaelic and ''glas'' in Irish. Both languages make a distinction between [[GoodColorsEvilColors "warm" and "stark" colours]] as well, with ''gorm'' also including the warm uses of black (which in English might be described as brown-black or glossy black) in contrast to ''dubh'' covering the stark ones (i.e. pitch-black or ashen black). Thus ''duine gorm'' is someone with dark skin, while ''duine dubh'' is someone with dark hair (or someone [[LivingShadow literally made out of darkness]]). The difference between the two is generally LostInTranslation, which has resulted in ''dubh'' Irish people being traditionally but confusingly referred to as the "Black Irish". Wikipedia features a nice graph [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colours_in_Irish.png here]]

* ''Franchise/PrettyCure'' has traditionally been shy to include {{Magical Girl}}s with green as a primary color. The lead protagonists are typically [[PinkHeroine pink]] and blue, followed by yellow, purple, and red. ''Anime/StarTwinklePrettyCure'' subverts this, though, with the counterpart to the pink Cure Star being the ''turquoise'' Cure Milky. Her ColorCodedForYourConvenience scenes can skew that shade into blue or green depending on what's required, and her transformation sequence prominently features both colors. When the predominantly blue Cure Cosmo is introduced later on, Milky's theme color leans more concretely toward green.

* The point at which more finely differentiated color terms entering a language seems to correspond to the development of that culture's ability to produce pigments of those colors. Many hunter-gatherer cultures have rather limited color vocabulary (e.g. three colors: 'dark' (blacks), 'warm' (reds), and 'cold' (whites), corresponding to the earth-tone pigments available to them. Most bronze age languages (Mycaneian Greek, Chou dynasty Chinese) did not have words distinguishing blue from green corresponding to a lack of technology to create pigments or dyes that were distinguishably either blue or green (an exception was Ancient Egyptian that, uniquely, had a word for blue and a blue pigment made from calcium copper silicate), by the Iron Age most languages had up to 6 distinct color terms including separate terms for blue and green.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': Detective Takagi has been given several contradictory witness statements about a robber in the case ''Sato's Omiai''. Some of his confusion is cleared up when he realizes that an elderly witness used the old word for "green" (あお ''ao'') instead of the new word (みどり ''midori''), and that therefore the witness had said that the robber was wearing green, not blue (as he'd originally thought).

* In both Irish and in Scottish Gaelic, ''gorm'' is a range of colours including blue and some shades of green, while ''glas'' ranges between green and grey. However, the exact cut-off point varies, with grass usually being described as ''gorm'' in Gaelic and ''glas'' in Irish. Both languages make a distinction between [[GoodColorsEvilColors "warm" and "stark" colours]] as well, with ''gorm'' also including the warm uses of black (which in English might be described as brown-black or glossy black) in contrast to ''dubh'' covering the stark ones (i.e. pitch-black or ashen black). Thus ''duine gorm'' is someone with dark skin, while ''duine dubh'' is someone with dark hair (or someone [[LivingShadow literally made out of darkness]]). The difference between the two is generally LostInTranslation, which has resulted in ''dubh'' Irish people being confusingly referred to as "Black Irish".

The Sinosphere is not the only place where languages often muddle the distinction between green and blue. This has also been observed in the modern Celtic languages ([[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Irish]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} Welsh]], etc.), where there is not only some muddling between green and blue, but also between those two and ''grey''[[note]] In Irish, ''glas'' covers a spectrum from natural greens to blue-greys - both the sea and grass can be ''glas''. But on either end of that spectrum you have ''uaine'' - bright, vivid, non-natural green - and ''liath'', the grey of rocks and stones. (And just to make it slightly more confusing, a grey-haired man is ''liath'', but a grey-haired animal is ''glas''.) In contrast, Welsh shifted the word ''glas'' all the way over to '''blues''' rather than to greens, which are ''gwyrdd''. And finally, both Irish and Scots Gaelic share the word ''gorm'' which initially covered blue/green, but the Irish shifted it exclusively to blue, and the Scots kept the green. So Scottish grass can be ''gorm'', but not Irish grass.[[/note]] South Slavic languages call blond hair blue; in this case, blue originally meant "fair", Similarly, older UsefulNotes/{{Ital|y}}ians lump orange in with red. Indeed, before about 1500, orange in virtually every European language, including English, was lumped in with either red (as with "red" hair, robin "redbreast"), or yellow/gold; the colour orange is actually named after the fruit, not vice versa. You can see this clearly in Spanish: the word for the fruit (''naranja'') is the root of the word for the color (''anaranjado''). Even in the Mediterranean, "blue" was historically not considered an individual color for centuries: texts like ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', for instance, describe the ocean as being the color of wine, which inevitably befuddles English-speakers used to associating that description with a dark reddish-purple.

The Sinosphere is not the only place where languages often muddle the distinction between green and blue. This has also been observed in the modern Celtic languages ([[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Irish]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} Welsh]], etc.), where there is not only some muddling between green and blue, but also between green and ''gray''. South Slavic languages call blond hair blue; in this case, blue originally meant "fair", Similarly, older UsefulNotes/{{Ital|y}}ians lump orange in with red. Before about 1500, orange ''in English'' was lumped in with either red (as with "red" hair, robin "redbreast"), or yellow/gold; the colour orange is actually named after the fruit. You can see this in Spanish, too: the word for the fruit (''naranja'') is the root of the word for the color (''anaranjado''). Even in the Mediterranean, "blue" was historically not considered an individual color for centuries: texts like ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', for instance, describe the ocean as being the color of wine, which inevitably befuddles English-speakers used to associating that description with a dark reddish-purple.

* This causes a line to come across very strangely in the English dub of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006''. See, the word for blue/green in Japanese has connotations similar to the words "green" or "greenhorn" in English: someone who is a bit naïve and new to their position. When Mephiles describes the Iblis Trigger as a "blue hedgehog," Blaze's response is to look at Silver and mumble "blue hedgehog...?" In other words, the game isn't necessarily implying she knows Sonic: she's calling Silver a greenhorn after Mephiles mentioned a "green hedgehog". In fairness, the blue/green distinction in English makes this line fairly untranslatable in the context of the ''Sonic'' series (English speakers don't see Sonic as green, they see him as blue, so the wordplay doesn't work) without a lot more work that [[ChristmasRushed the game absolutely did not have time for]].

* Angela and Tata from ''Franchise/{{Jewelpet}}'' have respectively blue and turquoise eyes, but belong to the Magical Green class (the attribution of these classes depends entirely on eye color).