In many languages blue and green are considered to be
different shades of the same color. In English, that color is referred to as
'grue'
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.
Many languages, however, do not differentiate between certain
colors on the visible spectrum and they therefore do not have separate terms
for blue and green. Instead, they use one term to cover the description of both
these colors. In English linguistic terms, this cover description is referred
to as 'grue'.
For example, in Vietnamese the word to describe the color of
both tree leaves and the sky is 'xanh'. To distinguish, they use xanh l cy
("leaf grue") for green and xanh dương
("ocean grue") for blue.
In the Thai language 'khiaw' means green, but when referring
to the sky or the ocean, it means blue. In Chinese has 'qīng' can refer to
green, blue and sometimes even black! The Korean 'pureuda' can mean either
green or blue. Many African languages also utilize the same word to describe
both colors.
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