In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, there are four words for color-You, White, Red and Yellow. Shuo Wen Jie Zi received 75 words expressing color meaning, and later generations added some more. According to the radicals, these Chinese characters can be divided into four parts: Chinese characters, Dan characters, Qing characters, Chinese characters, scarlet letters, white characters, wooden characters, yellow characters, black characters, clothes characters, feather characters and jade characters. Here are some examples:
Red. Shuowen: "Silk is red and white." The original meaning refers to light red silk, and later generations often refer to red silk. In the Tang Dynasty, Yang wrote in "Wedding Banquet for Prostitutes": "A song sings high and a horse is popular, and the second lady thanks her wife." In which "red" refers to red silk. The most common meanings of "red" are pink, pink and red like blood.
Green. Shuowen: "Silk is green and yellow." The original meaning refers to the silk dyed by the mixture of blue dye and yellow dye, and later refers to the color like grass and leaves when it is in full bloom.
Purple. Shuowen: "Silk is green and red." The original meaning refers to cyan silk, and later refers to cyan silk.
Sue. Shuowen: "Bai Ye." The original meaning refers to the raw silk of the primary color, and then refers to white.
Daniel's Shuo Wen: "Dan, Ba and Yue are also red stones." Originally it refers to a natural compound of mercury and sulfur, and later it refers to scarlet.
Green. Shuowen: "Green, oriental color is also." Qingyuan refers to indigo, which is one of the most commonly used dyes in ancient times. Later, it refers to blue or dark green, and also refers to black.
Blue. Shuowen: "Dye grass." The original meaning of blue is Polygonum blue, one of the most important grass dyes in ancient times. Later extension refers to color.
Bibi Shuowen: "Jade is beautiful." Originally refers to a kind of turquoise jade, and later extended to turquoise.
White. Shuowen: "Western color is also." The original meaning of white refers to the white of sunshine, which was later extended to white.
Black. Shuowen: "The color of fire is also smoked." Refers to the color of fire smoke.
Zhu. Shuowen: "Zhu, mahogany, pine and cypress." The original meaning is a kind of wood, and later it refers to vermilion.
Yellow. Shuowen: "Yellow is also the color of the earth." The original meaning is the color of the earth. In ancient times, it was a noble color. The emperor wore yellow robes and the palace used golden glazed tiles.
Cui. Shuowen: "Cui, Qingyu sparrow also." Originally meant to refer to birds, but later extended to colors.
From the original meaning and extended meaning of these words, we can see the keen observation and great creativity of the ancients.
Differences of Color Words in Ancient Chinese
1, the difference between "crimson, scarlet, red, red, red"
"Crimson, Zhu, Chi, Dan and Hong" all stand for red. According to their different degrees from deep to shallow, "crimson" is the deepest, and Shuowen: "crimson, big red." The original meaning is "crimson". The degree of "Zhu" is second, and Shuowen: "Zhu, red heart wood, pine and cypress." Originally meant "red heart wood", it was later used to refer to "scarlet". The original meaning of "red" is "the color of fire", which is red. The original meaning of "Dan" is "cinnabar, cinnabar", and later it means "red, red". The degree of "red" is the shallowest. Shuowen: "Red, silk is red and white." The original meaning is: "pink." Later, there was no difference between "red" and "red".
2. The difference between "green, pale, blue, green and blue"
The five words "cyan, pale, blue, cyan and blue" are adjectives in modern Chinese, indicating color. But there are differences in ancient Chinese. In ancient and modern times, "blue" means "blue", the original meaning of "pale" means "grass color", which means "deep blue" or "dark green", and the original meaning of "aquamarine" means "light blue" or "light green". These three words are originally different, and sometimes they can be mixed. If the sky is also called heaven, the grass is also called green grass, and the moss is also called moss. The meanings of "green" and "cyan" are very different and rarely confused. In ancient Chinese, "blue" only means "Polygonum cymosum", which is a noun, and then it means "blue".