{"id":139130,"date":"2019-06-09T01:21:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=139130"},"modified":"2019-06-09T01:21:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:21:33","slug":"red-light-blue-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/09\/red-light-blue-light.html","title":{"rendered":"Red light! Blue light!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In Japan, the “green lights” are colored … well, pretty much blue. The reason has to do with a challenge to the idea that language about so many things — in this case, color differentiation — is some sort of universal constant.<\/p>\n

Different languages refer to colors\u00a0very differently<\/a>. For instance, some languages, like\u00a0Russian<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Japanese<\/a>, have different words for light blue and dark blue, treating them as two distinct colors. And some languages lump colors English speakers see as distinct together under the same umbrella, using the\u00a0same word<\/a>\u00a0for green and blue, for instance. Again, Japanese is one of those languages. While there are now separate terms for blue and green, in\u00a0Old Japanese<\/a>, the word\u00a0ao<\/em>\u00a0was used for both colors\u2014what English-speaking scholars label\u00a0grue<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The result? Though Japan adheres to international standards for green traffic signals, they use a very bluish shade of green in the signals themselves, to align with their own linguistic heritage.<\/p>\n

Do you want to know more?\u00a0<\/em>Why Does Japan Have Blue Traffic Lights Instead of Green? | Mental Floss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We assume everyone groups colors the same way as we do. We assume wrongly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,717,24],"tags":[1868,1313],"class_list":["post-139130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-traveling","category-writing-and-language","tag-color","tag-japan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/japan-traffic-signal.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":305,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/06\/flagging_intere.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":0},"title":"Flagging interest","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-May-03 9:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"Some Italians are outraged over the ... well, not new, but revised colors being used in the Italian flag. The row began when observers spotted that a new Italian flag...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"She's a grand old flag?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsimg.bbc.co.uk\/media\/images\/39149000\/jpg\/_39149949_italyflagafp203ups.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4226,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/10\/13\/tradition_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":1},"title":"Tradition!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Oct-03 8:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to get up and dance, folks! Crayola was looking at retiring several colors this year, as part of their centennial celebration. After selecting five that \"it considered redundant or...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1281,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/02\/01\/purple_pink_or.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":2},"title":"Purple, Pink or Aqua","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Feb-02 9:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The maker of M&Ms is polling the world to see whether the new color to be added should be purple, pink, or aqua. Of course, all of those colors (21...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8541,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/17\/autumn.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":3},"title":"Autumn","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Oct-05 11:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Fall in Denver -- blue skies and yellow leaves. UPDATE: Well, not very yellow. My Treo's camera is not ... um ... very good with color tones. This tree was...","rel":"","context":"In "Weather (mine)"","block_context":{"text":"Weather (mine)","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/weather-and-seasons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/83539a3ea6.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":38736,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/09\/blue-light-red-light.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":4},"title":"Blue Light \/ Red Light","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Sep-13 1:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I tend to stay away pop medicine. \u00a0I get very earnest medical \/ health suggestions from a ton of folks at the office, for example, much of which pegs my BS-meter.On the other hand, in this week's IT Safety email, there was a comment about avoiding light, esp. blue light,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2096,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/12\/color_commentar.html","url_meta":{"origin":139130,"position":5},"title":"Color commentary","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Mar-02 6:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. Color-coded terrorism alerts. I'm reminded of the big, colorful displays at the entrance of National Forests, showing the fire risk. Actually, not a bad idea, to be honest ......","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139135,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139130\/revisions\/139135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}