Kanji study - colors

This time, I'll show you some kanji characters that are related to colors.

The kanji origins of colors

The origin of red 赤

It's a combination of the two pictographs.
The upper part indicates a person who is spreading his arms and legs, the origin of the kanji "大 big".
The bottom part stands for "火 fire".
The kanji "赤 red" comes from "big fire".

The origin of blue 青

It might sound strange, but this character consist of the kanji character "生 life" and "丼 water in a well".
(By the way, the kanji "丼" is usually used for "a bowl of rice" nowadays.)
So the bottom part is not "月 moon".

The origin of yellow 黄

There are 2 different theories to the origin of this character.
The first theory is from the shape of a torch.
According to another theory, it represents an arrow with fire.

The origin of black 黒

The upper part is a kiln.
The bottom part is fire.
When they made sumi ink, they put fire in a kiln to collect soot.
The shape of a kiln and fire became the kanji "黒 black".

The origin of white 白

As I introduced in this post, although there are some different theories, the origin of the kanji "白" is the shape of a skull.

The origin of green 緑

It's a combination of "糸 thread" and the old kanji "彔 peel".
The origin of the right part, "彔" is a peeled bamboo with a knife.
The color of a bamboo is green, so this kanji means green.

The origin of purple 紫

It's a combination of "糸 thread" and "此 here".
The character "此" also implies the meaning "between", so this kanji stands for the color between blue and red.
As seen above, some kanji characters that represent colors contain "糸 thread".
According to a researcher, it is because cloths can be dyed.

Kanji practice sheet

I prepared a practice sheet.
If you are interested, please download it.