Did you know that in Japan, the Japanese people call the green signal blue? The Japanese word for green is midori (緑) and blue is aoi (青い) and that's how they refer to green signals, why? I have always heard discussions regarding blue and green, and indeed some traffic signals in Japan appear blue. The reality is that there are many curiosities regarding this topic, which we will explore in this article.
We all know that the primary colors are blue, yellow, and red. In the past in Japan, things were also the same way; they defined colors as follows:
- Black - kuroi - 黒い - Dark colors in general;
- White - shiroi - 白い - Light colors in general;
- Red - red - 赤い - Bright colors in general;
- Blue 青い - aoi - Bright and colorful colors in general;
So much so that it is just these four colors that are adjectives in the い (i) form. The other colors, even the yellow primary are spelled differently:
- 黄色 - kiiro - Yellow;
- 緑 - midori - Green;
- ピンク - pinku - Pink;
Basically, in the past, there was no green, so it was called blue. Why nowadays green things end up being called blue? Let's take the ocean as an example; up close it is green, from far away it is blue. Many also confuse green cars with blue.
The word green entered Japan in the Heian Period (794 - 1185)
The traffic light is not the only blue one
The truth is that the ideogram for blue (青) cannot be literally translated as blue, because it represents light colors in itself and is present in several words that should be green like:
- 青葉 - aoba - Fresh leaves (blue leaf?);
- 青芝 - aoshi - Turfgrass (rarely used);
- 青りんご - aoringo - Green apple (blue apple?);
- 青山 - Aoyama - District in Tokyo (blue mountain)
- 青二才 - aonisai - Newbie (Wouldn't an unripe one be green?);
- 青春 - seishun - Youth;
- 青年 - seinen - Youth;
Many of the words and concepts that we have listed are now associated in the West with being colored green. With the introduction of green into the Japanese language, these words that are left are just relics that have not died. In every language there are words that don't make sense but we keep using them.
However, traffic lights arrived in Japan even after blue and green existed. The reality is that it was even defined as green signal (緑信号). However, the Japanese realized that the traffic lights had more of a blue tone, so society began to associate the green signal with blue, which resulted in this pattern of calling the green signal blue. Even when the Japanese government was forced to maintain a greener standard, it agreed that the signal would continue to be called blue (青信号).
