[iopq]

In China, for example, the word for green 綠 is used for the light

綠 is used in Japanese for the color of green tea, but they use 青 for the green light

There's also 翠 in Japanese to mean a bright green, which in Chinese also has a blue connotation (based on the color of the kingfisher who dives 淬 to catch fish)

[the_mitsuhiko]

I'm not doubting that multiple languages have that aspect to it, but as far as I know that does not result in blue traffic lights. I have not heard of an instance of a blue traffic light in China to go with your Chinese example.

[hnfong]

This discussion is weird, because the Kanji 青 in Japanese was borrowed from classical Chinese (presumably during the Tang dynasty around the 7th to 9th century).

So using Chinese as an example of "another language" having green-blue confusion isn't very meaningful since modern Chinese aka Mandarin also inherits pretty much the same 青 albeit popular usage differs somewhat.

Yet the fact that there's no blue traffic light in China just hinges on the fact that people don't commonly refer to the "green" in traffic lights as 青 in China (but you could). The word 青 is used to refer to a broad spectrum of green and blue in different contexts, just happens people generally refer to the traffic lights as "綠" instead. And since there's no ambiguity to "綠" there's no confusion of whether the traffic lights should be "green" or "blue", and thus you don't see blue traffic in China (hopefully).

[fenomas]

The word "ao" in Old Japanese already had the blue/green confusion before the character 青 was borrowed to write it, so if classical Chinese did as well I guess that would be two such languages.

[thaumasiotes]

> The word "ao" in Old Japanese already had the blue/green confusion before the character 青 was borrowed to write it

What would the evidence for this be? It's clear that the word "ao" does not derive from the Chinese pronunciation of 青. But its meaning could easily have shifted under the influence of the spelling. Do we have a source that writes the word without spelling it 青?

[fenomas]

This? https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/青#やまと言葉の「あお」

[iopq]

Because they use 绿, not 青 so it would not result in blue lights

But in Korea they have the same confusion:

https://www.dreamstime.com/traffic-lights-road-blue-speed-li...

[the_mitsuhiko]

To the best of my knowledge it's different in Korea. As far as I know the call it blue lights but they are green.

[iopq]

They are not blue, but because the word for blue is also ambiguous they are more like a teal color