In japanese, 緑 (midori) means green
and 青い(aoi) means blue.
But vegetables are called ao-mono (lit. blue things) and the traffic light
colors are: aka (red), kiiro
(yellow) and …ao (blue).
The reason is that in ancient Japan, there were only
four words to describe colors: aka (red), kuro (black), shiro (white) and ao
(blue). There was no word for green until the Heian period (794-1192). Every
shade between blue and green was called blue until the first crayons were
imported to Japan in 1917, and there was a green (midori) crayon inside.
The idea of distinguishing green from blue was first introduced in the teaching
guidelines for first graders in 1951, and people started to use the word midori.
That is why many Japanese proverbs and phrases in
daily life have the word ao more than midori.
Source: Pera Pera Penguin by Hitomi Hirayama
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