Why Traffic Lights are "Blue" in Japan

The Complexity of Language and Linguistic Chance

Photo by Eliobed Suarez on Unsplash

What colors do you see in this traffic light? Red, Yellow, and . . . .?

In English, we would say the colors of a traffic light are red, yellow and green. However, Japanese describe the three colors as red, yellow, and blue. But why?

While the answer might not be what you were expecting, the story behind it offers a fasci…