Is the sky blue? No, really. Is it?

One of my first days working at a Japanese elementary school, a second grade girl approached me.

“Victoria-sensei! I drew this picture for you! It’s me and my friends outside at recess.”

“Wow, it’s great! So here’s you and here’s your friends, and there’s the playground, but what’s this red circle in the sky?”

“That’s the sun! You’re silly, Victoria-sensei. You don’t even know that that’s the sun!”

While I’m ashamed to say it now, I do have to admit that in that moment, my instinct was to judge that little girl. Drawing the sun as a red ball in the sky seemed ludicrous to me, because there was nothing red about the sun in my opinion, except for occasionally during sunsets. Suns were clearly yellow when up in the sky. After all, that’s how I’d drawn them on my own elementary school artwork, complete with sunglasses and a goofy smile (very realistic).

However, in that moment, I remembered a previous experience learning Japanese on exchange in Kyoto where our instructor had told us that green traffic lights were called “青信号” (‘ao shingo’ – blue signal light). When he said that, we had all looked at each other and giggled to ourselves. What were the Japanese thinking? Green lights were clearly green, not blue. There was just no mistaking the colours, and yet, the word was what it was. Our instructor, in his infinite wisdom, took the chance to humble us.

It turns out that the concept of the colour green is relatively new, stemming from the Heian period (794-1185 AD). Prior to that, it was classified with “青” (‘ao’ – blue), along with any other cool colours ranging from pale purple to green. Similarly, “赤” (‘aka’ – red) could be any colour from yellow to pink or fuchsia. As a result of this, words for various things can often still reflect this traditional language, such as “青野菜” (‘ao yasai’ – blue vegetables, or rather leafy vegetables like cabbage, spinach or parsley) and “青虫” (‘ao mushi’ – caterpillar). In fact, in ancient Japan, only four colours existed: “明” (‘mei’ – bright like a sunrise, often pertained to red), “暗” (‘an’ – dark like night, often pertained to black), “顕” (‘ken’ – clear, often pertained to white) and “漠” (‘baku’ – unclear, often pertained to any colours aside from red, black and white). It has only been quite recently that specific names for colours like “ねずみ色” (‘nezumi iro’ – ‘mouse colour’ – grey) and “緑色” (‘midori iro’ – ‘sprout colour’ – green) have come about. However, words for green traffic lights have stayed the same (in fact, some even say that traffic light makers have started to use bluer lightbulbs to match the word!) despite the addition of “緑色” to the daily lexicon, just as the image of the sun as red has.

However, this demonstrates how colour, something some of us might think to be a fairly universal concept, is in fact cultural and sociolinguistic in nature, as it can be tempting for those less aware of this to think that others, in this case Japanese people, are stupid for calling the sun red and green traffic lights blue. The humility that comes with considering the different ways that different people see the world around us is an important one to experience, as it allows us to open our minds to different ways of thinking and perception. My moment of snobbishness with the little girl is shameful to admit now, but it speaks to the way that I wasn’t ready at that moment to consider that anything outside of my Western world view was correct, despite this being nothing more than a denial of fascinating linguistic diversity.

I think I’ll still keep drawing my suns as yellow with shades, though. I just like how they look!

Questions!

1. Have you ever been in a situation where another language challenged your understanding of something basic, like colour?

2. What would be your reaction if someone whose first language was not English told you that the sky was actually purple rather than blue?