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> others have a default aquamarine and specifying "blue" or "green" is kind of like when we specify "navy blue" or "sky blue" One specific example: the Vietnam
by hihihihi1234 5y ago
> others have a default aquamarine and specifying "blue" or "green" is kind of like when we specify "navy blue" or "sky blue"
One specific example: the Vietnamese word "xanh" means "blue or green". If you want to be specific, you say (the equivalent of) "sky xanh" or "leaf xanh".
- dustintrex 5y agoThis comes from Chinese, where 青 can be both green or blue. Modern Chinese uses 绿 and 蓝 instead to distinguish the two, but Japan continues to use 青 ambiguously: eg aoshingō "blue traffic light" for what we would call a green light. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92
- fenomas 5y agoAo isn't ambiguous in modern Japanese. It appears in various set phrases for things that aren't blue, but when used on its own to describe the color of something it just means blue.
- hihihihi1234 5y agoI'm not sure the Vietnamese word comes from Chinese, even if the meaning is the same. Your link says that the Vietnamese word that's a cognate of the Chinese one is thanh not xanh. Vietnamese is from a completely different language family to Chinese, although it's been influenced by Chinese over the centuries.
- dustintrex 5y agoXanh is also a cognate of the same character: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xanh https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xanh
- hihihihi1234 5y agoI stand corrected.