
According to Japanese Traffic Lights, Bleen Means Go - prismatic
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japan-green-traffic-lights-blue
======
gjm11
> _In that regard, blue—one of the four traditional colors originally
> established in the Japanese language along with red, black and
> white—historically encompassed items that other cultures would describe as
> green—creating the concept of “grue,” the portmanteau of blue and green
> first coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955._

Maybe this is mere pedantry, but Goodman's "grue" and "bleen" did _not_ mean
anything like "bluish-green" or "colour ambiguous between blue and green".

His definition was something like this: an object is grue if it is green and
it's not yet 2000-01-01, or if it's blue and it's 2000-01-01 or later; "bleen"
is the other way around. What's the point of these silly-sounding definitions?
Goodman was thinking about _empirical induction_ , the process where you see
lots of ravens, observe that they're all black, and decide "hmm, looks like
ravens are generally black". So, suppose it's the year 1990, and you've seen
lots of grass in the springtime and it's always been green. _It 's equally
true that it's always been grue_. So why is it that we're so confident in
concluding "grass is generally green" rather than "grass is generall grue"?

If this strikes you as interesting rather than stupid (reasonable people could
jump either way), see [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-
problem/#GruPar...](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-
problem/#GruParNewRidInd) for more.

... Hence an email-signature joke I've seen from time to time. "It is dark and
after the year 2000. If you proceed, you are likely to be eaten by a bleen."

~~~
lisper
Just for the record, Goodman's problem was solved by David Deutsch who
profoundly observed that languages are theories. The grue/bleen theory has
embedded within it the unmotivated (and false, though that's a detail)
hypothesis that there is something special about some particular date which
has been picked out of a hat and embedded into the theory in order to make
Goodman's pedantic point. It is this arbitrariness and lack of motivation that
invalidates the grue/bleen theory (which is actually a whole family of
theories parameterized by the magic date) from a scientific point of view.

There are examples of words that have times embedded in them that are actually
reflective of natural phenomena and hence constitute valid theories, like
"main-sequence" (with regard to stars).

~~~
theoh
Deutsch is a physicist. Unless you can provide evidence of prominent
philosophers applauding his contribution, it seems a bit glib to say he solved
the problem posed by Goodman.

It's their conversation, they get to decide what's admissable or satisfying as
an answer.

~~~
philsnow
> Deutsch is a physicist.

so was Einstein. physics, philosophy, math, and a lot of other fields reward
being able to find simplicity / symmetries. it's probably best to not discount
people or their theories just because of a label attached to them.

~~~
theoh
Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like
conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a
philosophical discussion, but it's unlikely to be well received. The HN crowd
probably has no difficulty seeing how this would be the case with e.g. (a
recent example discussed here) "trisectors". Well, philosophy has its cranky
outsiders too, up to and including Hawking (arrogantly?) declaring philosophy
obsolete.

------
seszett
By the way, the order of appearance of colour names in language might be more
or less fixed across languages:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate)

It's a quite interesting. Though it means that while the article says " _blue
-- one of the four traditional colors originally established in the Japanese
language along with red, black and white_ " (blue being equivalent to green
here), yellow probably existed already as well then.

Today in Western languages the same thing happens with blue and cyan. Italians
will think of cyan ( _azure_ ) as a colour while the French see it as a shade
of blue, for example.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Italians will think of cyan (azure) as a colour while the French see it as
> a shade of blue, for example._

Same in Russian - синий and голубой are usually translated as "blue" and
"light blue".

Weirdly, English doesn't seem to have any problem with red and pink; you'd
almost expect it to use "red" and "light red".

~~~
ajmurmann
As a German living in the US I'm sometimes uncertain how to properly
distinguish between the German colors "rosa" and "pink". German "pink" is
probably a little bit brighter than American "pink". The "rosa" is a very soft
pink. The best translation for "rosa" is probably "rose-colored". However, it
always feels off to me. In German "rosa" is a very common color whereas "rose-
colored" is more of a comparison than a real color name. I mean even
"periwinkle" has its own proper word. We don't call it "smurf-colored". It
always makes me feel like I'm missing a very important color word. It's
probably the only part of the English language that still makes me feel very
uncertain and like I'm missing some fundamental word.

Edit: so I just had a discussion with my American wife about it and according
to her "Rosa" is pink and German "pink" is hot pink. Now I think what might
make this confusing to me might just be the different meanings of the same
word "pink". Solved.

~~~
delecti
It sounds like you're describing magenta. It's a more saturated pink.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta)

------
idiocratic
I think this is the same reason a green build is in fact a blue one in Jenkins
by default. It was developed by a Japanese programmer.

~~~
asymmetric
Correct, here's an official explanation[0].

[0]: [https://jenkins.io/blog/2012/03/13/why-does-jenkins-have-
blu...](https://jenkins.io/blog/2012/03/13/why-does-jenkins-have-blue-balls/)

~~~
pluma
Interesting. I misremembered the Jenkins traffic light originally using green
(I probably got confused by a plugin which changes the color) and was
convinced it was a weird accessibility change.

For the record: I'm green-blind and I always found the Jenkins colors
confusing because red is too pale and light to provide good contrast with the
blue. Hence I always assumed it was just a poorly executed accessibility fix.

------
Shywim
_Whereas in English a rookie employee might be referred to as being “green,”
in Japanese they are aonisai, meaning a “blue two-year old.”_

Just wanted to point out that in french we refer to a rookie as a "bleu" (so,
blue) and, as far as I know, we don't have the same history as Japan for
colors.

~~~
eloisant
In France it comes from the military, during the revolution conscripts
soldiers were wearing blue, while professional royal soldiers were in white.

In Japan it's probably like in English, a reference to fruits that are not
ripe yet (=> ao ringo).

~~~
luxpir
A Japanese friend tells me the blue is in reference to the 'Mongolian blue
spot'[0] that most Asian, Pacific, Native and African American babies tend to
have....

Basically bodies with lots of melanin in them; it's a cluster of melanin at
the lower back, sometimes mistaken for a bruise by carers unfamiliar with the
phenomenon.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot)

EDIT: Oh, it's mentioned in the wiki article:

> The Mongolian spot is referred to in the Japanese idiom shiri ga aoi (尻が青い),
> meaning "to have a blue butt", which is a reference to immaturity or
> inexperience.

~~~
fenomas
This explanation can be found on blogs and whatnot, but dictionaries and
etymology sites don't seem to hold with it.

------
baldfat
Referencing an old RadioLab podcast "Why isn't the Sky Blue."
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-
blue/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/)

That podcast states that Homer never used the color blue. As somewhat of a
dead language linguist that still sits in the back of my head all the time. I
am not 100% sold nor 50% sold on the idea that colors are seen only when they
are defined BUT....

This article states -

> In that regard, blue—one of the four traditional colors originally
> established in the Japanese language along with red, black and
> white—historically encompassed items that other cultures would describe as
> green—creating the concept of “grue,” the portmanteau of blue and green
> first coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955. Indeed, a distinct word
> for green is a relatively recent development in Japanese, only coming into
> existence in the late Heian Period (794-1185)

~~~
jccalhoun
As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't
defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. A similar
example might be cars. I have a 2009 Honda Fit (Jazz in some parts of the
world). To most people, a Fit is a Fit but because I have one, I can tell the
difference between the first second and third generation just by glancing at
them. If I point out the differences, someone will see them but they don't
seem them instantly like I do.

~~~
Sangermaine
>As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they
aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them.

No, this is also wrong and implies some kind of superiority. It's not that
other cultures that describe colors differently haven't learned to distinguish
between them, it's that they categorize them in different ways. Our terms for
colors are not fixed features of the universe, and different peoples will
categorize the visible light spectrum differently. No one way is more sensible
or right than the other. The historical Japanese word "ao" described a
spectrum of colors that covers that part of the visible light spectrum that we
in English divide into two categories (blue and green). This isn't an
inability to distinguish, it's a different way of thinking.

It's not about seeing or not seeing, it's that they're not organizing what
they see in the same way you or I do.

~~~
fenomas
Keep in mind, just because historical Japanese (or anybody) didn't have a name
for a given color doesn't mean they couldn't talk about it. There's no reason
they couldn't have talked about specific things as being the color of leaves,
the sky, oceans, and so forth.

All that's being talked about here is how societies decide to group up or
split apart general categories of colors, not whether their language allows
them to talk about specific things of various colors.

~~~
Sangermaine
You've just restated what I wrote.

~~~
fenomas
I disagree. Note that it wasn't a counter-argument, just added comment.

Incidentally if you're interested, the historical "ao" didn't really refer to
a specific band of the the visible light spectrum as you suggest, it could
mean any pale or ill-defined color, with "red" being used for any strong vivid
color. Per wikipedia, anyway.

------
JshWright
Tom Scott has a great quick explainer on this linguistic quirk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtnD4jmCDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtnD4jmCDQ)

------
maaark
It's worth noting that it would also help any red/green colorblind drivers.

Red/Yellow/Blue is a better choice, international standards be damned.

~~~
pja
UK traffic lights changed the green colour to something closer to cyan at some
point for exactly this reason. (This might be an EU wide thing.)

~~~
def0wt
Yes, I've seen cyan led traffic lights in Spain and France. I think that's the
new norm when led lights are introduced. I'd say it's for colorblindness sake
mostly. They look exactly like the Japanese lights in the article.

There are also some other strange norms in Europe, as the "orange" yellow:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#European_standar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#European_standard)

~~~
Tijdreiziger
'Strange' depends on your frame of reference. In my (European) country, you
would be ridiculed for suggesting that the middle colour on traffic lights
should be yellow instead of orange.

------
im3w1l
And germanic languages instead didn't make a such a clear distincion between
blue and black in past. Pretty interesting stuff.

~~~
selimthegrim
[https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/even-
rac...](https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/even-racists-got-
the-blues/)

~~~
dzdt
This link is inserted completely randomly in the discussion tree, but it made
my morning.

~~~
taejo
Not entirely random, since it's about a language (albeit non-Germanic)
unifying blue and black.

------
clarkevans
In Mesoamerica, _yax_ refers to colours on blue-green spectrum including
malachite greens, and azurite or indigo blues [1]. These ancient people used
pigments of varied saturations and hues in their paintings.

[1] Veiled Brightness : A History of Ancient Maya Color; Stephen Houston, et
al.

------
godzilla82
>the country faced pressure to comply with international traffic customs
regarding traffic lights.

It seems weird that a country would face such pressures. Is there a UN body
that enforces such rules?

~~~
kgwgk
Japan (like many other countries) has not signed the 1968 conventions on road
traffic and road signs and signals.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Sign...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals)
[http://www.iard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/United-
Nation...](http://www.iard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/United-Nations-Road-
Safety-Conventions-Presentation.pdf)

------
hkmurakami
Now I'm curious how blue the original lights were, since the current ones are
pretty green, though not as green as in the west.

~~~
whytaka
I think in the past the Japanese simply didn't make much of a distinction
between blue and green and the traffic lights are an artifact of that.

~~~
ekianjo
I don't think that's the case. Several cultures (not just Japan by the way)
don't really have different wordings for blue and green until recent History
but this has nothing to do with them not being able to do make such
distinction in practice.

~~~
Accacin
As far as my basic Mandarain knowledge goes it was like this in Mandarin too
(qīng) but I know there's seperate words for blue and green in Mandarin now.

------
kazinator
It would have been worth mentioning that the English language fills the gap
for unambiguously expressing the blue color.

The word "buruu" (ブルー) is gainfully employed in everyday Japanese.

Other interesting things:

because unripe fruits and such are green, the word "ao" also means unripe.
"mada ao da!" \--- it's not ripe. By further metaphor, anything that is young
or immature, even if not a plant.

"aokusai" (青くさい) --- unpleasant (to the speaker) smell of plant origin; also
means inexperienced or immature, like "greenhorn".

"aosameru" (青褪める) --- to grow pale.

"ao" also refers to the appearance of stubble on a man's chin and face.

