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It's very cultural. For example, Japan used the same word for green and blue, so their green light on traffic lights is as blue as possible while conforming to

It's very cultural. For example, Japan used the same word for green and blue, so their green light on traffic lights is as blue as possible while conforming to international standards for the light to be "green". Also, there is a pretty well done video by Vox on how color names are influenced by culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
Thank gods at least red is red. In all rulebooks, lights are red-yellow-green, but in many places, I can see red-amber-turquoise. Now a sure way to get a traffic police officer livid is to call the yellow light “amber” or “orange”…
- pests 2y ago
  My friend got a "Running an Amber" ticket when we were teens outside metro Detroit, MI. I had never heard it called that color before but that small memory is always on my mind when the light changes as I'm crossing.
  - petercooper 2y ago
    In the UK, the yellow light is officially an "amber" light in terms of driver regulations and statutes, such that some anally retentive type is always bound to correct anyone who dares say "yellow".
- azepoi 2y ago
  It's orange in french
  - tzot 2y ago
    In Greek too.
dhosek 2y ago
The blue-green distinction is something that tends to come late in most or maybe all language families. Ancient Greek also used the same word for blue and green. As I recall, the first color words a language gains are black and white, followed by red. Blue-green is one of the last distinctions made.
numpad0 2y ago
I think this might be a bit overblown. "why do we call it blue signal?" is a common 3-5 years old question in Japan. Old Japanese traffic signals had blue tinted lenses, like ultramarine blue. Those lenses were used in conjunction with warm yellow incandescent lamps, technology available at the time. Deep blue + warm yellow = green. Over time the green color must have normalized, without laws and slogans not reflecting that. And nowadays they're green LEDs.
arrowsmith 2y ago
Not just Japanese - many languages use the same word for "green" and "blue". Linguists call it "grue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction... E.g. the Vietnamese word xanh means "grue", and to distinguish between green and blue you say "sky xanh" or "leaf xany".
petercooper 2y ago
This has begun to happen in the UK as well, and I'm struggling to get anyone else to see it. Traffic lights installed in the past couple of years seem to use a new style of LED that emits a turquoise light instead of green. I took a picture and looked at the RGB value and the G/B were equal. Everyone else I ask says they still look green. Here's an example: https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/04/22/00/21135757-1ac1c801-4dad-4ec5-ad95-5bdca59e701c.jpg https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/04/22/00/21135757-1ac1...

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago

Thank gods at least red is red. In all rulebooks, lights are red-yellow-green, but in many places, I can see red-amber-turquoise. Now a sure way to get a traffic police officer livid is to call the yellow light “amber” or “orange”…

pests 2y ago
My friend got a "Running an Amber" ticket when we were teens outside metro Detroit, MI. I had never heard it called that color before but that small memory is always on my mind when the light changes as I'm crossing.
- petercooper 2y ago
  In the UK, the yellow light is officially an "amber" light in terms of driver regulations and statutes, such that some anally retentive type is always bound to correct anyone who dares say "yellow".
azepoi 2y ago
It's orange in french
- tzot 2y ago
  In Greek too.

dhosek 2y ago

The blue-green distinction is something that tends to come late in most or maybe all language families. Ancient Greek also used the same word for blue and green. As I recall, the first color words a language gains are black and white, followed by red. Blue-green is one of the last distinctions made.

numpad0 2y ago

I think this might be a bit overblown. "why do we call it blue signal?" is a common 3-5 years old question in Japan. Old Japanese traffic signals had blue tinted lenses, like ultramarine blue. Those lenses were used in conjunction with warm yellow incandescent lamps, technology available at the time. Deep blue + warm yellow = green. Over time the green color must have normalized, without laws and slogans not reflecting that. And nowadays they're green LEDs.

arrowsmith 2y ago

Not just Japanese - many languages use the same word for "green" and "blue". Linguists call it "grue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction... E.g. the Vietnamese word xanh means "grue", and to distinguish between green and blue you say "sky xanh" or "leaf xany".

petercooper 2y ago

This has begun to happen in the UK as well, and I'm struggling to get anyone else to see it. Traffic lights installed in the past couple of years seem to use a new style of LED that emits a turquoise light instead of green. I took a picture and looked at the RGB value and the G/B were equal. Everyone else I ask says they still look green. Here's an example: https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/04/22/00/21135757-1ac1c801-4dad-4ec5-ad95-5bdca59e701c.jpg https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/04/22/00/21135757-1ac1...