Of green sky and blue oceans

[ljwrites]

This article about different perceptions of color by culture, jumping off from the Homeric texts that describe wine-dark seas and cornflower hair, got me thinking about the language and perceptions of color in Korean culture that I had almost given up on expressing in English. Korea has no native word for "green," you see, but rather uses "blue" to describe the sky, the forests, and the ocean alike. We had to borrow the Chinese word for green in order to separate it out linguistically, so it felt weird to have Korean characters who don't even know Chinese to think of and use the word "green." On the other hand, I thought, it would feel odd for English-language readers to see forests and leaves described as "blue." For that matter, Koreans call hair with a slight brown/yellowish sheen "yellow" which would call to mind blond hair for many English speakers but is actually still dark brown hair. But hey, if Homer can get away with wine-colored seas, why can't I ha ve blue forests and brown yellow hair, right?