hijo which means green, could also mean the blue-green color of clear water. Biru and ijo in Modern Javanese are cognates of Malay/Indonesian biru and hijau which both have the same meaning. Dravidian Kannada The Kannada language distinguishes between blue (neeli - ನೀಲಿ), green (hasiru - ಹಸಿರು) and yellow (haladi - ಹಳದಿ). The prefix kadu (ಕಡು) would indicate darker colors while the prefix tili (ತಿಳಿ) would indicate light colors. Thus kaduneeli (ಕಡುನೀಲಿ) would mean dark/deep blue, while tilineeli (ತಿಳಿನೀಲಿ) would mean light blue. Tamil The Tamil language distinguishes between the colors green (paccai), blue (neelam) and black (karuppu). The prefix karu- would indicate dark colors while the suffix iḷam would indicate light colors. Thus karumpaccai would be dark green. Telugu The Telugu language uses a single word, pacca, for green and yellow. To differentiate between the two shades, another word is prefixed in some cases. For example, green will be called ākupacca "leaf-pacca" and yellow pasupupacca "turmeric-pacca". Malayalam In Malayalam there are distinct words for blue (neela - നീല), green (pachcha - പച്ച) and yellow (manja - മഞ്ഞ). East Asian languages Chinese The modern Chinese language has the blue–green distinction (藍 lán for blue and 綠 lǜ for green); however, another word that predates the modern vernacular, qīng (), is also used. The character depicts the budding of a young plant and it could be understood as "verdant", but the word is used to describe colors ranging from light and yellowish green through deep blue all the way to black, as in xuánqīng (). For example, the flag of the Republic of China is referred to as qīng tiān, bái rì, mǎn dì hóng ("Blue Sky, White Sun, and a Wholly Red Earth"—「」); whereas qīngcài () is the Chinese word for "green vegetable," referring to bok choy. Qīng 靑, was the traditional designation of both blue and green for much of the history of the Chinese language, while 藍 lán ('blue') originally referred to the indigo plant. However, the character 綠 lǜ ('green'), as a particular 'shade' of qīng applied to cloth and clothing, has been attested since the Book of Odes (1000 to 600 B.C.) (e.g., the title of Ode 27 《邶風·綠衣》 'Green Upper Garment' in the Airs of Bei). After the discarding of Classical Chinese in favor of modern Vernacular Chinese, the modern terms for blue and green are now more commonly used than qīng as standalone color