A Short Rant About Koreans and Their Colours

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Something that can really irritate me about some Koreans (and "some" here refers to a rather large portion of the population) is their idea about colours and that the Korean language is so much better because they have so many more different words for different colours than English does. This either drives me up the walls or make me want to puke. Whenever the topic of colours come up, Koreans tell me how limited the English language is compared to Korean that has such a big lexis of colour related words. Koreans seem to think that the spectrum of colours in English is limited to Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple / Violet, Brown and shades of light or dark (e.g. light red, dark blue, etc.). All this illustrates to me is an ignorance of English and a limited vocabulary.

I get angry at this because it has happened enough times now that I have to accept that Koreans have been indoctrinated to think that English (and other languages?) is limited in colour vocabulary and so Korean is vastly superior. Then I start to name them some colours in English: lime, azure, teal, crimson, tan, olive, khaki, periwinkle, maroon, amethyst, turquoise, sage, sapphire, jade, ivory, clover, saffron, cream, amber, eggshell, terracotta, denim, mustard, bronze, auburn, chestnut, plum, sienna, coral, aqua, aquamarine, indigo, navy, salmon, garnet, burgundy, apricot, cerise, magenta, beige, pearl, ruby, chocolate . . . these examples do not even include the noun phrase colours (i.e. modifier adjective-noun colour combinations) like: light green, dark green, military green, forest green, fern green, sea green, spring green, yellow-green, pine green, pale green, sap green, neon green, Islamic green, Irish green, atomic green, moss green, bottle green, puke green, blue-green, lime-green (which is different from just lime), kelp green and the list goes on. (Afrikaans: En laat ons nie vergeet van Afrikaans se kakgroen en kapoen nie!)

So don't come and tell me that Korean has more greens (noksaekeui 녹색의, chorokbiteui 초록빛의, pulbiteui 풀빛의) than English.

The first couple of times I told Koreans I plan to translate Korean poetry into Afrikaans and English they told me it would be impossible because English does not have enough colour words. Nonsense. Yes, in some cases it is impossible to do direct translations but it is hardly because of a limit in vocabulary; rather it is because of the differences in thinking. (Koreans have a high context culture, while Afrikaans is used by more low context cultures, and this is reflected in the respective languages.)

And did I mention that only Korea has four seasons? I kid you not!