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I wonder if, like in English, the words for colours (red, yellow, green) just formed arbitrarily in Chinese? Or is there a story behind choosing 红色 for red, 蓝色 for blue, etc.?

It’s also interesting how they add the character 色 after each colour. Does this mean that 红，蓝，绿 represent something else as standalone characters?

It becomes more interesting when we think of compound colours like 粉红色，咖啡色. Surely they came much later than primary colours?

blackgreen
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udidosa
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  • much more information on web, user suggestion: search web using e.g. 汉语颜色名称来源, https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E9%A2%9C%E8%89%B2%E5%90%8D%E7%A7%B0%E6%9D%A5%E6%BA%90&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002 – user6065 Feb 24 '18 at 01:44

1 Answers1

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Colours are an abstract concept, and ancient Chinese largely used words for objects with the colour to describe the colour itself.

  • 紅, 綠 originally referred to silks dyed in those colours, hence the use of the 糸 semantic component;
  • 藍 originally referred to a plant used to make blue dye, hence the use of the 艹 semantic component;
  • 黑 originally referred to a punishment called 黥面, in which a criminal had the name of their crime tattooed on their face in black, and was originally a pictogram depicting this;
  • 青 originally referred to the colour of grass/plants, and the top was originally 屮 or 生, indicating this meaning;
  • 赤 originally depicted a person (大) being scorched (火) maybe as a form of punishment, indicating the colour of burnt skin.

Sometimes characters were used as a phonetic loan for colours, and had no connection to the original meaning, e.g. 黃, 白. 粉紅 and 咖啡, as you've pointed out, are modern terms, but they reflect the same idea of using things that have the colour as a word for the colour itself.

Although it did appear with the meaning colour, the use of 色 was unnecessary in ancient texts. However, in a general trend of words evolving from single syllables to double syllables, 色 came to be used in conjunction with the above characters to form a combined meaning of X (colour).

dROOOze
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  • 赤 originally was a pictograph depicted 'bare' (土 being scorched by fire 火) ; 赤手= bare hand, 赤貧 = extreme poverty , describing a person so poor that he is almost naked (bare) without any belonging – Tang Ho Feb 24 '18 at 05:27
  • @TangHo see 赤, 土, 大. – dROOOze Feb 24 '18 at 05:31
  • 南方色也。从大从火。凡赤之屬皆从赤。烾，古文从[炎]、[土]。昌石切-- 赤 does has the meaning of 'bare' that's not related to color – Tang Ho Feb 24 '18 at 05:36
  • May be 赤 is older than 烾, In any case, 赤 acquired the meaning of 'bare' as time passed is evidenced in its modern usage. – Tang Ho Feb 24 '18 at 05:50
  • @TangHo see the 傳抄古文字 section, note that all the records of 烾 at the bottom of that page (相關索引) are from Warring States literature. 从大从火 was first attested in oracle bone. At this stage, 說文's claim that 烾 is older than 赤 lacks evidence. You raise an interesting point as to how 赤 gained the meaning 'bare', that requires investigation - but trying to figure it out based on 烾 is incorrect I think, as it's not shown that 烾 is older than 赤. (reposted comment, sorry link was incorrect) – dROOOze Feb 24 '18 at 05:50
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    It is possible that 大 and 火 (big fire) was the origin of 赤, However, later people looked at 赤 and reinterpreted it as 土 under 火 that depicted 'scorched earth' and used it to express the 'bare' meaning. made 赤 a synonym of 烾. All that are not related to color – Tang Ho Feb 24 '18 at 06:07
  • @TangHo that is entirely possible and a reasonable explanation. I would hesitate to translate 大 as 'big', though, fire isn't really 赤 coloured, it's more like bright yellow and gives off a whole load of light. Interpreting 大 as 'person' is much better, and it serves as the shape of a person in old characters like 天 and 美. – dROOOze Feb 24 '18 at 06:12
  • I'd argue the color of fire depend on the temperature, red fire is hotter than orange and yellow. Blue is hottest but in ancient time, people had not have the mean to produce fire hot enough to seem blue. So red colored fire is the hottest in ancient time – Tang Ho Feb 24 '18 at 06:21