Colours words in many languages

The most common colours terms across languages are black, white, red, yellow, blue and green, while brown, pink, orange, grey and purple are not quite so common. The colours represented by each word can vary in different languages, and some languages make distinctions between colours that others don't make. For example in Greek and Russian, there are separate words for light blue and dark blue, while other languages have separate words for dark red and light red, or if you prefer, red and pink.

Colour words in many languages

Colour words in individual languages

Colour words in various languages with notes on use, cultural significance, etc.

Afrikaans, Arabic, Breton, Chinese (Mandarin), Cornish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino / Tagalog, French, German, Hebrew, Icelandic, Igbo, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lombard, Manx, Marathi, Muscogee (Creek), Nepali. Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Tuvaluan, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa

Links

Lists of colours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colors

Research on colour words
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/colour_words.html

The colour of words
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/colour.htm

Colour idioms in different language
https://thecolorlanguageproject.wordpress.com/

French colours
http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/beginnersfrench/school/couleur/color.html

Japanese colours
http://nihongoup.com/blog/japanese-color-names/

Multilingual pages

Useful phrases | Silly phrases | Numbers | Numerals | Colours | Telling the time | Dates | Weather words | Family words | Terms of endearment | Language names | Country names | Idioms | Proverbs | Tongue twisters | Signs | Compass directions | UDHR | Tower of Babel | Songs | Omniglot | Seven dwarfs | Zodiac signs | Computer parts | Compass directions | Animal sounds

[top]


Green Web Hosting - Kualo

You can support this site by Buying Me A Coffee, and if you like what you see on this page, you can use the buttons below to share it with people you know.

 

Conversations - learn languages through stories

If you like this site and find it useful, you can support it by making a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or by contributing in other ways. Omniglot is how I make my living.

 

Note: all links on this site to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr are affiliate links. This means I earn a commission if you click on any of them and buy something. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site.

[top]

iVisa.com