Grue

Unlike English, many language do not distinguish between green and blue. Instead seeing them as two shades of one color. English speaking linguists refer to this singular color with the portmanteau grue.

Ao

Ao (青) is the Japanese word that refers to both green and blue... kind of.

In Detective Conan episode 254 (Honchou no Keiji Koimonogatari 4 Gouhen), policeman Takagi interviews an old man about a robbery suspect. The old man says the suspect was wearing ao, which confuses Takagi until Takagi realizes the old man was referring to a color that he would call midori (which is what English speakers would call green). Takagi notes that some older people call both ai (藍, blue) and midori (緑, green) ao, but younger people like himself mainly use ao to refer to bluer shades.

It seems like Japanese is losing its grue but in some situations colors have been grandfathered in. The traffic light that means go is always called ao, even though the same color might be called midori in other context. That being said, traffic lights in Japan are noticeably bluer than the ones in America.


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