When going through how “black” and “white” were named in the previous part of this article, I pointed out how imperative it is that our color naming aligns itself with nature. But if how we name colors is reflective of what we see in nature, one must wonder why exactly red is named earlier than blue or green. Sure, red is very dominant in the order of the color spectrum as its short wavelength makes it the most readily perceived hue but blue is the color of the sky and the sea; it is with us everywhere. Red isn’t nearly as prevalent in nature as green is either so its status as the third color is, at first glance, somewhat unexpected. But here is where salience rears its head again. It is not just about how frequently a color appears in our daily lives but how important the things that are similarly colored are. One important red colored object is blood. Spilled blood is almost always a noteworthy sight as it signifies the possibility of nearby danger. Red is so intricately tied to blood that plenty of languages derive their term for the color from it. An example of this would be the word “ድሚ” in the Awngi language of the Awi Agaw people. “ድሚ” is used to refer to both red and blood and would technically disqualify the word as a basic color term if we went strictly according to B&K’s criteria. But, this word is monolexemic and is among the core vocabulary in Awngi so, according to the updated research conducted by Hardin and Maffi (“Color Categories in Thought and Language”), “ድሚ” qualifies. The same can be said for the Hadiyya word “kashara”, which is a word derived from a term for fire – the other most notable red thing in our day to day. The importance for naming red doesn’t end with blood and fire though; ripe produce is also often red or reddish. When a berry ripens, orange carotenoids and red anthocyanins replace the green chlorophyll, painting the fruit in bright warm colors that subsequently signal to nearby animals that it is ready to be eaten. As such, red is also associated with life. And not just plant life but human life too. In Amharic, red is one of four terms used to describe human skin tone. Of these four (“ቀይ”, “ቀይ ዳማ”, “ጠይም”, and “ጥቁር”), only red and black are basic color terms, the other two are used for skin tone alone. And this use of red for lighter skinned people always puzzled me. As a child, I could understand why black was used because my understanding of the color had already been informed by its association with darkness. But red confused me. People weren’t actually “ቀይ”. If anything, I thought it more apt to describe lighter skinned folk as “ቢጫ” (yellow). Now, I think the description of light skin people as red comes from a period in the Amharic language where “red” still covered all warm tones – including yellows, oranges, and pinks. Although this explanation is of my own formulation and, subsequently, isn’t backed by any formal research, I do think it is likely considering what we know about red as a major color term – mainly, its status as the most polylexic color term in many Ethiopian languages.

Once “red” has been established as a basic color term, either green or yellow follow. And at this stage, nature appears more frequently in our color vocabulary. The word for green in almost all Ethiopian languages seems to have a common ancestry in the Ethio-Semitic term “ħml”. This term has influenced the color lexicon in languages such as Ge’ez, Harari, Gafat, Argobba, Wolene, Sodo, etc. In Tigrinya for instance, this Ethio-Semitic term is the etymological root for the words “ሓምሊ” and “ሓምላይ” which translate to vegetable and green, respectively. In relation to flora, green is, as previously mentioned, related to unripe produce. In the Maale language, an Omotic language spoken in Ethiopia, one of the words for green is “ɓáɓi” which also refers to something that is ‘unripe’. Hence, it’s not surprising that in other languages – in English for example – the word green is synonymous with inexperience in its connotative use. An amateur in a field, a newbie to a profession, is often referred to as being “green”. This connotation of “green” is less prominent in Ethiopian languages though, as its symbolic interpretation is often that of peace and tranquility. It is a favored color in many different languages here, from Amharic to Majang. In Gedeo, a person whose skin is dewy from comfort and abundance is named “hanʤaʔɗe”, green-colored. We can contrast this with English, which alludes to a person looking nauseous, shocked, ill, or in fear when their pallor is being described as being green. Of course, the expression “green with envy” is similarly linked to this phenomenon as it suggests someone being so envious that the bile makes them look physically unwell. With this, we can see green’s more abstract connotations vary greatly from culture to culture but some universality can also be observed when we focus on its more salient association with nature.

Yellow, like green, was reported to be a Stage III color term according to B&K’s findings. And while this may hold true on a grander scale, yellow has a more unstable lexical representation in most Ethiopian languages. Most Ethiopian languages derive their word for the color from natural objects, primarily flowers (as is the case in Afaan Oromo and Wolayta). But, interestingly, the word for yellow here is also associated with a peculiar natural phenomenon – child diarrhea. Kulisi and Sinasha are examples of Ethiopian languages that name “yellow” after the watery stool. As all parents would know, yellow diarrhea in infants and toddlers is a normal occurrence. Food and fluids pass quickly through a child’s intestinal tract and so leads to less absorption of water and bile, leading to the yellow stool known as “toddler’s diarrhea”. It would follow that the frequency of this phenomenon, and the importance in distinguishing between the colors the diarrhea could take, led to the naming of the color term “yellow”. But besides flowers and diarrhea, yellow is also associated with mead and bananas. In its abstract connotations, yellow is viewed pretty favorably as it is associated with the Ethiopian New Year and the harvest that follows. The fact that yellow is also one of the colors in the Ethiopian national flag, symbolizing hope, justice, and equality, also add weight to yellow’s positive connotations. Internationally, however, yellow lends itself to more negative perceptions. In Arabic, the term “ورقة صفراء [waraqat safra]” translates to “yellow leaf” and is used to refer to elderly people who are close to dying. This euphemism likely came from the yellow leaves of trees in autumn, indicating that they are about to conclude their life cycle. In German, envy is represented by yellow, not green. But, even with all this in mind, yellow is still predominantly positive in its connotation for most parts of the world. It is associated with warmth and sunshine in most of the western world, while it implies wealth and status in the far east as well as most parts of Africa.

Once both yellow and green have appeared in a language’s vocabulary, blue is soon to follow. When blue does appear in a language, it’s etymological root comes from the sky and the sea. In Amharic, the word for blue is “ሰማያዊ”, directly translating to “of the sky”. Ethiopian languages derived from Ge’ez or influenced by Amharic such as Tigrigna, Harari, and Wolayta also have similar terms for blue. In the Afar language, the word for blue is interchangeably used to refer to the sky. Nevertheless, the link between blue and the sky is not just etymological, it is also psychological. Blue is almost always associated with tranquility – and no wonder. The unclouded sky is nature at its calmest. Of course, this connotation is not entirely universal. In Arabic, the term “عيون زرقاء [ʕuyounuh zurug]”, meaning “blue-eyed” is used to describe the worst of enemies and enviers. In English, “feeling blue” refers to being in a gloomy mood. These negative connotations probably arose from blue’s earlier grouping with “darkness” – navy blue is still sorted with black in various instances. But black isn’t the only color blue has been associated with. Before the fifth stage commences, blue is often enough grouped together with green; a phenomenon termed as “grue” by linguists. This holds true for most Bantu languages as well as plenty Ethiopian languages. Blue could be termed as “green” or “light green” or still indicate to some green colors even after differentiation. For instance, in Afaan Oromo, the term for blue is bulee and denotes both blue and green colors. Having said this, it’s important to note that the lack of lexical differentiation doesn’t mean that the speakers have trouble telling the colors apart. To illustrate, we can take Italian and Russian as examples. In both examples, there exists two separate terms for what English speakers call “blue” and “light blue”. Now, Anglophones have no trouble actually differentiating between the two on the color spectrum but they’re both under the umbrella of the same basic color term. This clarification is paramount to the maintenance of the idea that language doesn’t in fact conclusively impact perception.