Red may usually indicate heat or anger, and blue may mean icy or cold. But what of green, purple, orange? Through the modern era, those with the time to ponder such things have argued over whether there is such a thing as a universal language of colour.
By 1969, experts in the field such as the anthropologist Brent Berlin and linguist Paul Kay, working together, had studied isolated communities (such as the indigenous Mayan tribes of Mexico) extensively enough to feel confident in claiming that there was a strong distinction between the colour idioms of various languages.
Every language had worked out its own system, in ways that would appear totally arbitrary to other cultures, they said. They were right, of course.
We know now that language is not only shaped dramatically by worldview, it can shape that view as well. (That’s called linguistic relativity.)
What are the most intriguing ways in which such variations have affected how we view the different hues?
Let’s start with green. In English and Polish, the shade has become synonymous with envy. Both languages have numerous terms for the green-eyed monster. But in Danish the green-eyed monster is a rather different beast. “Skide gronne grise” is literally “to defecate green pigs”, and it means someone is very nervous. Meanwhile, in the same language, perhaps drawn from their very long winters and very brief spring, green is also the colour of optimism. Stay hopeful even when it looks bleak, a Danish saying goes. Literally, what it says is: Hope is light green.
Yellow is not a good shade to turn, in any language. In Portuguese, “sorriso amarelo” or the “yellow smile” indicates a forced, insincere countenance. In Romanian, a coward or guilty person is said to turn yellow with fear. English has yellow-bellied, for cowardly; drawn from the fact that animals that cower and surrender tend to expose their yellowish bellies as they do so.
Purple, the colour of rage in English and Portuguese, is seen in Spanish as a different kind of excess. “Ponerse morado” is to be full (or purple) with food.
White has connotations of purity in English and French. But of cowardice too. Lily-livered comes from the idea of a liver so blanched that it has turned white, suggesting that its owner is a weak, bloodless coward.
In Spanish, there is a rather more enticing association. “Poner la mente en blanco” is Spanish for “clear your mind of thoughts”. Literally: Turn your mind to white. (An attractive proposition, in our current world.) In German, meanwhile there is a rather dark connotation to a phrase involving white. To be innocent is to have a white vest (as opposed to... what? Quite grim.)
Pink has perhaps the most optimistic tones. “Sväva på rosa moln” is Swedish for “to float on pink clouds”. Or, to be in love. “Letteratura rosa” is Italian for “pink literature” and is the term for romantic fiction. But perhaps my favourite is the French “voir des éléphants roses”: literally, “to see pink elephants”, or to be high and hallucinate.
For each man a colour, as they say in Korean. A term, incidentally, that means “to each their own”.
(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo. The views expressed are personal)
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