Allow me to present this (admittedly stilted) study in blue:
“Did I tell you about my book project? The basic theme is blue-bloods vs blue-collars in blue states. I was writing a blue streak, but out of the blue, my publisher killed the deal. Now I’m in a blue funk.”
Call it monochromatic polysemy… one color, many meanings. It’s a fun game. You try it! Here’s your prompt: something about a red herring, red tape, seeing red, and a red flag that leads to someone getting caught red-handed.
My friend Alan Kennedy spent years collecting color idioms. Alan taught English as a second language in New York City. As you might imagine, his students spoke a fantastic variety of languages. This perch gave him the opportunity to do some nifty linguistic research. Since he had always been interested in color idioms, he issued a challenge to each class: “What are the color idioms in your native language?” My contribution to this effort was to help Alan set up a Google Form to handle the input for this query. Over time, this form captured more than 700 expressions from 50 different languages.
Want to see the data? Here you go: Color Idioms in Different Languages. This is original research. If you want to make use of it, please cite Alan Kennedy.
There’s a lot there. What are we to make of it? Armed with this information we can start to ask some interesting questions. One of the first is this: How consistent are color idioms across languages? A lot of these associations come as no surprise. Green means nature and gardening skill. White connotes purity, and black is widely used for illegal or underhanded activity. So there is clearly a lot of consistency. But which idiomatic categories show very little agreement on color associations?
One answer is strong emotion. Here the inconsistency actually stems from a consistent underlying phenomenon: the color of one’s face in response to emotion or illness. What’s surprising is how many colors can be called upon for this purpose. Consider rage. It’s no surprise that idiomatically we want to indicate the changing color of the face. But look at this. Every color in the rainbow can be associated with anger.
- French: être rouge de colère (to be red from anger)
- Dutch: zich groen en geel ergeren (to be irritated green and yellow)
- Bulgarian: Позеленях от яд (to turn green in anger)
- German: Sich grün und blau ärgern (become green and blue from anger)
- Portuguese: ficar roxo de raiva (to turn purple with rage)
- Romanian: a fi negru de supărare (to be black with anger)
- Polish: doprowadzić kogoś do białej gorączki (to lead someone into a white fever)
This is the inverse of our introductory study in blue. In the case of anger, one meaning begets many colors. And by the way, the word “livid” comes from the Latin for “purplish/bruise colored.” The only color in the spectrum missing here is orange. Let’s make the phrase “orange fury” a thing, just to fill things out.
Any emotion that drives blood into or out of the face is a natural fit for these kinds of color phrases. But what about concepts that cause no obvious discolorations? What color is associated with envy, cowardice, or erotic content? Given that there’s no obvious bodily coloring associated with, say, envy, it’s no surprise that its color associations are inconsistent. What’s more puzzling is why a color is associated with these things at all? We don’t associate emotions with noises, odors, musical notes, or dog breeds (“Garlicky with greed”, anyone?). What is it about color that paints it onto so many things? It seems gratuitous. A little what you might call purple, yes?
And if an association is indeed cryptic (why does optimism have a color?), it is perhaps all the more surprising that it should also be consistent. Dewy-eyed optimism is rose-colored across many cultures and languages. Why? Color me curious.
- English: seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.
- French: la vie en rose.
- Spanish: verlo todo de color de rosa.
- Italian: vedere tutto rosa.
- Romanian: a vedea lucrurile în roz.
- Dutch: Door een roze bril kijken
- Danish: At se på verden igennem rosenrøde briller.
- Finnish: katsella maailmaa ruusunpunaisten silmälasien läpi.
- Polish: nosić różowe okulary.
- Serbo-Croatian: ružičaste naočale.
- Turkish: dünyaya pembe gözlüklerle bakmak.
- Russian: смотреть на мир сквозь розовые очки.
- Greek: τα βλέπω όλα ρόδινα
Fascinating stuff, eh? How do you feel about Alan’s research into colorful language? Speaking for myself, I’m tickled pink.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 