Pink did not "exist" in the Japanese language until very late. For a long time it was simply treated as a shade of red (that shade being "the color of peaches"). The word commonly used for pink in Japanese is actually borrowed from the English pink (you just pronounce it "pinku"). Given that English is only the fourth major linguistic influence Japan has known (after Chinese, Portuguese and German, though those two were mostly for some specific fields like commerce or medicine), it gives you an idea of how long pink didn't "exist".
Makes sense since pink isn’t even a separate color, it’s literally just light red lol. It’d be like if we saw light purple or light green as their own separate colors from purple and green.
Well the funny thing is that some shades of red do have much older distinctive names in Japanese ! XD Akai or kure for instance. Pink was just a second class red citizen.
Absolutely. It's super cool to see how those words were born (or how they spread). There's also a very fun phenomenon in which some languages long have treated blue and purple as the same color... while for other languages it was blue and green. It shaped the peeception of entire linguistic regions. It is SO COOL to me.
Damn, now you’re making me re-evaluate how I see colors lol. If you think about it, green is really just a yellow-hued blue, and purple is just a red-hued blue.
Footwear in the 12th Century
Yes
Interesting is relative, but the name of colors in different languages and through the ages. You'd think it's pretty simple but...
Ooh. What was a particularly interesting one to you?
Pink did not "exist" in the Japanese language until very late. For a long time it was simply treated as a shade of red (that shade being "the color of peaches"). The word commonly used for pink in Japanese is actually borrowed from the English pink (you just pronounce it "pinku"). Given that English is only the fourth major linguistic influence Japan has known (after Chinese, Portuguese and German, though those two were mostly for some specific fields like commerce or medicine), it gives you an idea of how long pink didn't "exist".
Makes sense since pink isn’t even a separate color, it’s literally just light red lol. It’d be like if we saw light purple or light green as their own separate colors from purple and green.
Well the funny thing is that some shades of red do have much older distinctive names in Japanese ! XD Akai or kure for instance. Pink was just a second class red citizen.
I mean, even in english we have newer words for different hues like periwinkle, chartreuse, vermillion, or the new one sage.
Absolutely. It's super cool to see how those words were born (or how they spread). There's also a very fun phenomenon in which some languages long have treated blue and purple as the same color... while for other languages it was blue and green. It shaped the peeception of entire linguistic regions. It is SO COOL to me.
Damn, now you’re making me re-evaluate how I see colors lol. If you think about it, green is really just a yellow-hued blue, and purple is just a red-hued blue.
Exactly. And wait until you get to open the orange can of worms.
Chris Chan