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My biggest confusion learning Chinese when I was growing up was the concept of "orange". I believe orange only became part of the common vernacular fairly recen

My biggest confusion learning Chinese when I was growing up was the concept of "orange". I believe orange only became part of the common vernacular fairly recently. But since Chinese words are just a combination of other words, the words for obviously orange things were using red/yellow. Now in modern usage, the color orange is named after the fruit, but the name of the orange fruit differs by region. Some places refer to oranges as tangerines, with no differentiation between oranges/tangerines, so the word for orange is actually tangerine in those regions. There's a good write up of other colors here: https://everything2.com/title/Chinese+colors https://everything2.com/title/Chinese+colors

frobozz 7y ago
The same is true of English. Hence people with orange hair being called redheads, and the orange-breasted Robin is called "redbreast"
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Now in modern usage, the color orange is named after the fruit This is also true in European languages. (Including English.)
- RmDen 7y ago
  Interestingly in dutch oranje is the color but sinaasappel is the name of fruit in dutch.
  - arexxbifs 7y ago
    There are many various descriptors for red, orange and yellow. In Italian an egg yolk is called "rosso" (red), whereas in Swedish it's called "gula" (yellow). As a side note, Orange (the fruit) is called "Apelsin" in Sweden - meaning "Apple from China", just as in Dutch. Red onions would nowadays be categorized as mostly purple, etc.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > In Italian an egg yolk is called "rosso" (red), whereas in Swedish it's called "gula" (yellow). In this case, it's possible that the different conventions for what color to call an egg yolk originated from egg yolks that were different colors. Crack an egg in China and you'll get something that is obviously different -- and much redder -- than what you'd get from an egg in the US. This freaked me out enough that I exclusively purchased high-end eggs from City Shop, which were a reassuring yellow.
kazinator 7y ago
In Japanese, the orange-like fruit 橙 is "daidai" and 橙色 is "daidaiiro".

frobozz 7y ago

The same is true of English. Hence people with orange hair being called redheads, and the orange-breasted Robin is called "redbreast"

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> Now in modern usage, the color orange is named after the fruit This is also true in European languages. (Including English.)

RmDen 7y ago
Interestingly in dutch oranje is the color but sinaasappel is the name of fruit in dutch.
- arexxbifs 7y ago
  There are many various descriptors for red, orange and yellow. In Italian an egg yolk is called "rosso" (red), whereas in Swedish it's called "gula" (yellow). As a side note, Orange (the fruit) is called "Apelsin" in Sweden - meaning "Apple from China", just as in Dutch. Red onions would nowadays be categorized as mostly purple, etc.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > In Italian an egg yolk is called "rosso" (red), whereas in Swedish it's called "gula" (yellow). In this case, it's possible that the different conventions for what color to call an egg yolk originated from egg yolks that were different colors. Crack an egg in China and you'll get something that is obviously different -- and much redder -- than what you'd get from an egg in the US. This freaked me out enough that I exclusively purchased high-end eggs from City Shop, which were a reassuring yellow.

kazinator 7y ago

In Japanese, the orange-like fruit 橙 is "daidai" and 橙色 is "daidaiiro".