10 Words Used for Blue in Different Languages

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By Alexander Hamilton

This article provides ten different words that describe the color blue in different languages. Without sight, life would be incomplete.

Colour and sight has a close relation. Historically, color has been of far less significance to people than it is today. Color is described in many strange ways in Greek texts. For example, blue is never mentioned.

Blue in 10 Other Languages

The below are 10 words of other languages for blue. English speakers may find some tough words to learn for blue in different languages.

  1. Blue in Albanina

Blue is called “blu” by Albanian speakers. Simply remove the letter “e” and you get the Albanian word for blue.

  1. Blue in Bulgarian

Blue, in Bulgarian, is called “син” This word sounds similar to “sin.”

  1. Blue in Dutch

The Dutch word for Blue is “Blauw”, which sounds like “Blaoo”.

  1. Blue in French

The French language uses two words to describe the color blue. In the first one, the name used for color is “Bleue” and in the second name, it is “bleu”. The sounds of both words are like “ Blu”

  1. Blue in Vietnamese

Writing and speaking words can be tough in some languages, like Vietnamese and Igbo. The English word blue can be difficult to pronounce in Vietnamese.

There is a Vietnamese word that is called “màu xanh dương”. As you can see, it is a long word for just blue and its sound is also difficult. Google sounds to me like “mou zang zua” when I listen to it.

There are many words used for blue in different languages that are difficult to write and say, however, in this article we only mention 10 words for blue.

  1. Blue in Italian

The Italian word used for blue is “Blu” which sounds like blue in English.

  1. Blue in Portuguese

The word for blue color is completely different when written and spoken in Portuguese. In written form, the word for blue is “azul” and its sound is like “aazu”. So we have noted that in sound, the letter “l” is silent.

  1. Blue in Russian

Similarly, the word for blue in Russian is totally different from Portuguese. In Russian, the word “синий” is used for blue. To say blue in Russian, you must say “siniy”.

There are at least half a dozen words in Russian for the cyan portion of the subtractive color model. The most popular among them has long been golubói (“light blue”). That is hard to explain: Plain blue in Russian has no special cultural or political meaning.

  1. Blue in Hindi

The word blue in Hindi is “नीला” and the sound is similar to “neela”. It is important to note that many Hindi and Urdu words sound the same but are written differently. For example, the word blue sounds the same in both languages.

  1. Blue in Persian

The Persian word for blue is “آبی” and it sounds like “aabi.”

Let’s talk about color now.

History of Blue Color

According to historians who studied the history of blue, the word “blue” did not exist in ancient times. Shades of this color are barely distinguishable from white, light, and dark.

It was simply too unimportant to have a word that described it. In English language, blue took a backseat to other colors over time.

White and black are the first colour words in English. Then red, a color associated with wine and blood, followed by yellow and then green. Finally, blue appeared.

Humans began to perceive blue as a color when they began to manufacture blue pigments. Since blue is virtually nonexistent in nature, there are no blue shades in cave paintings from 20,000 years ago.

Around 6,000 years ago, humans developed blue pigments. Lapis, a semiprecious stone from Afghanistan, was valued by ancient Egyptians. The blue hue of this mineral made it highly prized.

Calcium and limestone are combined with the lapis gemstone to make the pigments. During this time, the word “blue” became synonymous with Egypt. In time, the Egyptians passed blue dye to the Persians, Mesoamericans, and Romans.

Because these dyes were expensive, only a royalty could afford them. After many centuries, despite its rarity, blue became popular enough to gain its own name in many languages.

Learn more about the color red here.