How indistinguishable is blue from green really?


青 _ao_ seems to be used very much interchangeably for both _blue_ and _green_.
Why is that so, and how does 緑 _midori_ play into this?




Beside some of the historical examples mentioned by Derek, there is also an
inherent nuance that separates 青 from 'blue', as it is commonly understood in
Western culture (and similarly, albeit less strongly, for 緑 and 'green'). This
is not unique to Japanese-English and probably applicable to any pairs of
sufficiently separate cultures: [colours are, for a large part, an artificial
construct](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2723520)
and there is only limited reasons two people should pick the same arbitrary
frontier along the green-blue continuum (or red-orange, or yellow-green etc).
I recommend digging in [Google Scholar](http://scholar.google.com) for more on
that, but it's worth mentioning that there is much debate on what the [causes
and extent of these differences between cultures
are](http://www.springerlink.com/content/r4w7577rx7qk617w/).

Anyway, back to 青/緑: leaving aside the fact that the past 100 years of
intermingling with Western culture have no doubt influenced the native
Japanese perception of these colours, there is still a real difference between
the range of what a Japanese will call 青い and a Westerner call 'blue' (talking
about pure colours here, not objects' traditional colours, which might be tied
to historical reasons). 'Blue' for 青 and 'green' for 緑 are just approximations
(as are probably most other native colour translations).

A diagram might be the easiest way to put it. Assuming that horizontal line
represents the true continuum of hues from blue to green, and the vertical
bars, the separation between the two colours in Japanese and English
respectively, you'd have:

[code]

        青い        | 　緑
    ーーーーーーーーーーーーー
      Blue　　|　　Green
    
[/code]

As a result, when talking about something on the far left (say, the sky) or
the far right (say, fresh verdure), both English and Japanese words agree
quite well. If you pick things that are in that middle area where the
definitions do not match, you get these quizzical looks and people arguing
"what do you mean green? it's obviously blue!" etc.

Sorry for the longwinded answer to what is a fairly basic/obvious point... ;-)




Beside some of the historical examples mentioned by Derek, there is also an
inherent nuance that separates 青 from 'blue', as it is commonly understood in
Western culture (and similarly, albeit less strongly, for 緑 and 'green'). This
is not unique to Japanese-English and probably applicable to any pairs of
sufficiently separate cultures: [colours are, for a large part, an artificial
construct](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2723520)
and there is only limited reasons two people should pick the same arbitrary
frontier along the green-blue continuum (or red-orange, or yellow-green etc).
I recommend digging in [Google Scholar](http://scholar.google.com) for more on
that, but it's worth mentioning that there is much debate on what the [causes
and extent of these differences between cultures
are](http://www.springerlink.com/content/r4w7577rx7qk617w/).

Anyway, back to 青/緑: leaving aside the fact that the past 100 years of
intermingling with Western culture have no doubt influenced the native
Japanese perception of these colours, there is still a real difference between
the range of what a Japanese will call 青い and a Westerner call 'blue' (talking
about pure colours here, not objects' traditional colours, which might be tied
to historical reasons). 'Blue' for 青 and 'green' for 緑 are just approximations
(as are probably most other native colour translations).

A diagram might be the easiest way to put it. Assuming that horizontal line
represents the true continuum of hues from blue to green, and the vertical
bars, the separation between the two colours in Japanese and English
respectively, you'd have:

[code]

        青い        | 　緑
    ーーーーーーーーーーーーー
      Blue　　|　　Green
    
[/code]

As a result, when talking about something on the far left (say, the sky) or
the far right (say, fresh verdure), both English and Japanese words agree
quite well. If you pick things that are in that middle area where the
definitions do not match, you get these quizzical looks and people arguing
"what do you mean green? it's obviously blue!" etc.

Sorry for the longwinded answer to what is a fairly basic/obvious point... ;-)

