红 | hóng

In Mandarin Chinese, 红 (Pinyin: hóng 🔊) is an adjective for (colour) “red”. Another meaning is “popular” or “in vogue”.

红 is a simplified form of the traditional character 紅, which is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 糸 “silk” and phonetic 工 (gōng 🔊), “labour”, “work”. Something to do with (textile) workers’ movement and, by extension, revolution, communism? Not exactly (although 红 grew to represent all that too). Lawrence J. Howell explains in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

彔 thread + 工 here an abbreviated form of 汞 (gǒng) mercury → fabric/textiles dyed a deep red (compare 絳) → crimson; rouge → lipstick.

I presume that “mercury” here refers to cinnabar (mercury sulphide), a historic source for the red pigment vermilion. According to Wikipedia, in China cinnabar has been used for its colour since as early as the Yangshao culture (around 5000 BC to 3000 BC).

Interesting compounds of 红 include

• 口 + 红 = 口红 (kǒuhóng): lipstick
• 月 + 月 + 红 = 月月红 (yuèyuèhóng): China rose (Rosa chinensis)
• 红 + 人 = 红人 (hóngrén): favourite; pet; rising star; celebrity
• 红 + 花 = 红花 (hónghuā): safflower (Carthamus tinctorius)
• 红 + 茶 = 红茶 (hóngchá): black tea

Wait a minute, I hear you saying, didn’t you just tell us that “black” is 黑? Yes, I did, and yes, you read that right: what in Europe we call “black tea” (because of the colour of the tea leaves), Chinese call 红茶, i.e. “red tea” (referring to the colour of the liquid). Conversely, what Chinese call 黑茶 (hēichá), literally “black tea”, means fermented tea such as Pu-erh, which in Europe is known as “red tea”, té rojo etc. I hope everything is red black clear now.

Incidentally, the symbols above were created using Pu-erh tea because I’ve already used the leaves of 红茶 to create the hanzi 乌 and 烏. So there.

More photos related to safflower, tea and colour red @ Shutterstock.

绿 | lǜ

In Mandarin Chinese, 绿 (Pinyin: lǜ 🔊) means “green”. Compounds of 绿 include

• 绿 + 阴 = 绿阴 (lǜyīn): shade of a tree
• 绿 + 卡 = 绿卡 (lǜkǎ): green card
• 绿 + 茶 = 绿茶 (lǜchá): green tea

Incidentally, the symbols for this entry were created using green leaf tea.

绿 is a simplified form of the traditional character 綠, which is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 糸 “silk” and phonetic 彔 (lù 🔊). But what does silk have to do with colour green? Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

As per 彔 (pare/strip bamboo) + 糸 thread → threads dyed the vivid color of bamboo freshly stripped of its bark → green → light green.

In Japanese, 綠 is pronounced midori. Apart from meaning colour green, Midori is a popular female given name.

More photos related to tea and colour green @ Shutterstock.

乌 | wū

In Mandarin Chinese, 乌 (Pinyin: wū 🔊 or wù 🔊) is either a noun meaning “crow”, “raven”, or “rook”, or an adjective for colour “black”. It looks like this latter meaning arose as a short for 乌黑, “black as a crow” (or a raven, or a rook, in Chinese it’s all the same).

乌 is a simplified form of the traditional character 烏, which evolved from a pictogram of a bird, just like 马 (remember it?) is a simplified form of 馬. Now to remember the difference between a crow and a horse...

Compounds of 乌 include

• 乌 + 木 = 乌木 (wūmù): ebony
• 乌 + 金 = 乌金 (wūjīn): “black gold”: ink or coal
• 乌 + 龙 + 茶 = 乌龙茶 (wūlóngchá): oolong tea (literally, “black dragon tea”)

Incidentally, the symbols above were created using black leaf tea.

More photos related to crows, tea and colour black @ Shutterstock.

黑 | hēi

In Mandarin Chinese, 黑 (Pinyin: hēi 🔊 or hè) means “black”, “dark”, and, by extension, “night”, “secret”, “illegal”, “evil” and so on. It also means “to hack” (in computing), from 黑客 (hēikè), a phonetic rendering of English hacker.

Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

The relevant bronzeware inscription form is 火 fire + an element combining a chimney along with specks representing soot → black/dark (soot).

However, Wiktionary calls the above interpretation “erroneous” and says that 黑 is a pictogram of a person (人) with a tattooed face,

depicting penal tattooing (墨), one of the five punishments of ancient China.

No, I don’t like this explanation at all. (Mind you, that was the least harsh punishment!)

More photos related to sesame, tattoos and colour black @ Shutterstock.

荞 | qiáo

In Mandarin Chinese, 荞 (Pinyin: qiáo 🔊) is a word for buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum). According to Wikipedia, the world production of this important crop is led by Russia (49% of the world total) and China (28%).

荞 is a simplified form of the traditional character 蕎, which is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 喬 (qiáo) and our old friend 艹 “grass”. The simplified version of 喬 is 乔.

More photos related to buckwheat, grains and noodles @ Shutterstock.