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.

黄 | huáng

In Mandarin Chinese, 黄 (Pinyin: huáng 🔊) is an adjective meaning “yellow”. You must have heard this word as a part of 黄河 (黃河, Huáng Hé 🔊), the Yellow River. 黄 also can mean “pornographic”.

黄 is a simplified form of 黃. According to Wiktionary, 黃 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 炗 (guāng) and semantic 田 “field”, yellow (supposedly) being the colour of earth.

More photos related to colour yellow and chanterelle mushrooms @ Shutterstock.

白 | bái

In Mandarin Chinese, 白 (Pinyin: bái 🔊) means “white”, “clear”, “pure”, “bright” and a number of other meanings which at some point probably were related to colour white: “spoken language”, “free of charge”, “in vain” or “funeral”.

Does it look and sound familiar? This is because we’ve already came across 百 (bǎi), “hundred”. You may also recall that the shape of 百 is a combination of 一 and 白.

While 白 looks like a modification of 日, “sun” or “day”, Uncle Hanzi links 白 with the moon. However, Wiktionary says its original meaning was “acorn”:

The character acquired its current meaning of white from the color of the acorn’s flesh. The original meaning has been lost.

More photos related to acorns, colour white and sea glass @ Shutterstock.