# the colour white



## Qcumber

Do you know a language in which there are two (or more) terms for "white", and, if so, what shades of white do they express?
P.S. Please refrain from telling me "white" is not a colour, but the sum of all colours. Thank you, everybody knows this.


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## Frank06

In *Dutch* I cannot think of a synonym for 'wit' (white), although some meanings of the word 'blank' can come very close. These days, 'blank' en 'de blanke' is mainly used to refer to the 'colour' of the skin, but it can also mean 'white (and shining'), or 'light(ly??) coloured (and shining)'.
It's interesting that the old Germanic word popped up in French as 'blanc', meaning 'white', and that both 'blank' and 'black' are believed to go back to the same PIE root.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Chazzwozzer

There are two words for white in Turkish but they both express the simple white, not different shades. 

*beyaz *and *ak*


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## DrWatson

In Finnish one can say either *valkoinen *or *valkea*, but as you can see both words share the same root. They're synonyms, thus don't express different shades.


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## Etcetera

In Russian, we have only one word - белый.


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## Billopoulos

In Greek we use two words:

λευκό
άσπρο


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## Etcetera

Billopoulos said:


> In Greek we use two words:
> 
> λευκό
> άσπρο


Could you tell us what's the difference between these two words, please?


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## Marga H

In Polish white = *biały*
We also use *kremowy *.I think the word comes from French word_  la creme ._I'm not sure whether it is a new colour or a shade of white .


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## Etcetera

Marga H said:


> In Polish white = *biały*
> We also use *kremowy *.I think the word comes from French word_ la creme ._I'm not sure whether it is a new colour or a shade of white .


We, too, have the word кремовый in Russian, but it's a different colour...


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## Qcumber

To tell you the truth I started this thread because I found that Arabic has two terms for "white":
2abyaD [?abjad¿] أَبْيَضُ
2aHwarii [?aÉwarijj] أَحْوَرِيٌّ
The former is the common term. The latter is rare, and mainly refers to the colour of body parts.


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## mimi2

In Vietnamese:
- *trắng*
*- bạch*


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## Billopoulos

Etcetera said:


> Could you tell us what's the difference between these two words, please?


 
They both mean white, though the word άσπρο is more common, thus λευκό is also used regularly... I can't thing of any difference...


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## Tim~!

Qcumber said:


> The former is the common term. *The latter is rare, and mainly refers to the colour of body parts*.[/FONT]



Well, to be fair, that's not 'white', it's just that English uses an inaccurate word to describe body parts, which aren't actually white.  If you saw the same colour on a wallchart as caucasian skin colour, it wouldn't be labelled 'white' at all.  It would probably be something very specific, such as melba or ivory.

So it's not really that these languages can be said to have two words expressing white, more that English has the nuance of expressing white as white AND body parts that are caucasian as white too, whereas other languages think 'different colour, so needs a different word'.


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## Spectre scolaire

*To Billopoulos (#15):*

άσπρος and λευκός both mean “white” OK, but why would we be having two words for it if there were no difference between them?

In fact, άσπρος is the vernacular word and λευκός is an internal loan (from Classical Greek) introduced during the puristic movement intended to discard foreign words. άσπρος is ultimately a loanword from Latin asper, whereas λευκός goes back to time immemorial. λευκός is being used in all sort of new (and scientific) terminology most of which is taken from French, even English. There are numerous exemples of λευκός being used as an adj. where the usage of άσπρος is excluded. I will just mention a few exemples: 

λευκή ψήφος, “blank vote” - where the noun is equally a resurrected word belonging to a declension which _basically_ does not exist in the vernacular, i.e. fem. nouns in -ος.

λευκός οίκος, “The White House”. Ιt is “modern terminology”, probably a translation from French. You can’t say *άσπρο σπίτι!

εν λευκώ, cf. French “carte blanche” – with a dative construction that has been absent from Greek for the last 1000 years.

Not to mention “white” as a scientific concept.

One could perhaps say that άσπρος is the neutral term vs. λευκός as the specific.


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## MingRaymond

mimi2 said:


> In Vietnamese:
> - *trắng*
> *- bạch*


 
Is bạch from Chinese?

Ming


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## Qcumber

Cherine's explanation about the two Arabic term is here:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=380341


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## Qcumber

Tim~! said:


> Well, to be fair, that's not 'white', it's just that English uses an inaccurate word to describe body parts, which aren't actually white. If you saw the same colour on a wallchart as caucasian skin colour, it wouldn't be labelled 'white' at all. It would probably be something very specific, such as melba or ivory. [...]


The two Arabic terms are drawn from different roots, so they relate two two different concepts for whiteness (see Cherine's post). 
In English if you say "snow white", "ivory white", "marble white", etc. you still refer to a single basic concept "white". Ditto for the majority of languages.

From the responses I have got so far, it seems that having two basic words for "white" (even if one is rare) is not very common in world languages.


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## parakseno

In everyday Romanian there is basically only one word for white: "*alb*". There is also a somewhat poetic word "*dalb*" but you won't hear that very often.


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## robbie_SWE

parakseno said:


> In everyday Romanian there is basically only one word for white: "*alb*". There is also a somewhat poetic word "*dalb*" but you won't hear that very often.


 
What about "*coliliu*" Parakseno? Since I no longer live in Romania, I don't know if this word is used. 

  robbie


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## mimi2

MingRaymond said:


> Is bạch from Chinese?
> 
> Ming


Hi,
I am not sure "bạch" is from Chinese but I think so. 
There are some Vietnamese words which can't be changed "bạch" to "trắng".
For example: 
" *Bạch Tuyết*"
"Bạch" = white
"Tuyết" = snow
We can't read "*Trắng Tuyết*" 
However it can be " *Tuyết trắng*" but there is a slight difference between the two words in meaning. 
Very interesting.


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## panjabigator

Panjabi has several:

/chiTTaa/
/safed/
/gora/--used for skin color

The first two can be used for anything.  I don't think the first one is used for clothing however.


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## Outsider

In Portuguese there are at least two words, but they don't have different meanings:

branco --> The normal word for "white", used also for skin colour;
alvo --> a learned loan from Latin, sometimes used in formal texts.


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## Maja

In Serbian only one word: *belo* n. (beo m. / bela f.). 
But you can add an adj to describe nuances like: prljavo belo (grayish white), mlečno belo (milky white), krem  belo (creamy white) etc.


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## parakseno

robbie_SWE said:


> What about "*coliliu*" Parakseno? Since I no longer live in Romania, I don't know if this word is used.
> 
> robbie



It's even more rarely used than "dalb", but thanks for mentioning that too. (One might encounter this word in literary works, but in everyday language... I haven't heard anyone use it yet).


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## Qcumber

Now that I think of it, I eliminated silver = white in heraldry.


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## Luchie

Norwegian only has one for white "Hvit" pronounced Veet


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## Hakro

DrWatson said:


> In Finnish one can say either *valkoinen *or *valkea*, but as you can see both words share the same root. They're synonyms, thus don't express different shades.


This is perfectly right, but it might be interesting to know that *valkea* also means "fire"; *valkoinen* doesn't have this second meaning.


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## daoxunchang

Chinese：白white
灰白grey/hoariness,乳白milky white, 惨白ghastly white, 雪白snowy white, 花白hoariness, paleness苍白, pure white洁白, complete white纯白


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## linguist786

panjabigator said:


> Panjabi has several:
> 
> /chiTTaa/
> /safed/
> /gora/--used for skin color
> 
> The first two can be used for anything. I don't think the first one is used for clothing however.


/safayd/ is Gujarati too. The word corresponding to /gora/ in Gujarati is /dhoraa/, We don't have /chiTTaa/ though (I knew that word actually because of the Punjabi-speaking customers who come shopping in my dad's fabric shop )


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## Vagabond

Spectre scolaire said:


> *To Billopoulos (#15):*
> 
> άσπρος and λευκός both mean “white” OK, but why would we be having two words for it if there were no difference between them?
> 
> In fact, άσπρος is the vernacular word and λευκός is an internal loan (from Classical Greek) introduced during the puristic movement intended to discard foreign words. άσπρος is ultimately a loanword from Latin asper, whereas λευκός goes back to time immemorial. λευκός is being used in all sort of new (and scientific) terminology most of which is taken from French, even English. There are numerous exemples of λευκός being used as an adj. where the usage of άσπρος is excluded. I will just mention a few exemples:
> 
> λευκή ψήφος, “blank vote” - where the noun is equally a resurrected word belonging to a declension which _basically_ does not exist in the vernacular, i.e. fem. nouns in -ος.
> 
> λευκός οίκος, “The White House”. Ιt is “modern terminology”, probably a translation from French. You can’t say *άσπρο σπίτι!
> 
> εν λευκώ, cf. French “carte blanche” – with a dative construction that has been absent from Greek for the last 1000 years.
> 
> Not to mention “white” as a scientific concept.
> 
> One could perhaps say that άσπρος is the neutral term vs. λευκός as the specific.


Yes okay. I think however that Billopoulos meant the two words do not describe different shades of white, and in that they are completely synonymous. And he is right, άσπρο and λευκό describe "white" as a colour in general. And really, you are wrong if you meant that λευκό is only used in loan expressions. What happens is that λευκό is more likely to be used in official documents or settings, and you are correct on that.

But when it comes to talking about actual colours, as the OP implies, those two words are used interchangeably and mean the exact same colour "white".


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## Qcumber

daoxunchang said:


> Chinese：白white
> 灰白grey/hoariness,乳白milky white, 惨白ghastly white, 雪白snowy white, 花白hoariness, paleness苍白, pure white洁白, complete white纯白


Interesting because these are all derived from bái 白 "white", so there is only one basic term in Chinese to refer to the colour "white".


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## JanWillem

Frank06 said:


> It's interesting that (..) both 'blank' and 'black' are believed to go back to the same PIE root.


Concerning this origin of words; what about 'bleek'? (pale)
I do think that "wit" is the only word for the colour white, blank and bleek occasionally refer to something that is white but aren't the ultimate words for it, I'd say.


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## jonquiliser

Swedish:

vit (vitt, vita) - white, as in any white

then you can use:
pärlvit 'pearl white'
kritvit 'chalk white'
benvit 'bone white'
snövit (don't mix up with the fairy tale character!) 'snow white'
blekvit 'pale white'

I imagine you can make up more as much as your creativity allows you! THese anyway are fairly common. There is also:

gulvit (which perhaps isn't really a shade of white, but a yellow kind of white; literally it means 'yellow white'. The same word would be used of an item with both colours, i.e. a yellow-and-white flag, for example.)


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## Hakro

jonquiliser said:


> I imagine you can make up more as much as your creativity allows you! THese anyway are fairly common.


In Finnish we have two words for extreme white:
(valkoinen = white)
lumivalkoinen = snow white
vitivalkoinen = fresh snow white
As you may know, nothing is as white as the fresh snow on the old snow.


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## Hakro

As I mentioned in my post #27, *valkea* (white) also means "fire". On the other hand, (it might be interesting to know) the origins of these words are in the word *valo*, the light. 

Finnish is not the only language where these three words (and abstactions) are associated: 
"light the fire" 
"light blue" (not dark, nearer to white)

Interesting, isn't it?


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## daoxunchang

Qcumber said:


> Interesting because these are all derived from bái 白 "white", so there is only one basic term in Chinese to refer to the colour "white".


 
Yes, and mostly we add words indicating shades before the basic colour name. e.g red红－> pink粉红, scarlet猩红/深红, mauve紫红...
But there are many exceptions and a large part of them are not used in daily life: e.g.　赭reddish brown, 绯red.............


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## divinelight

Chazzwozzer said:


> There are two words for white in Turkish but they both express the simple white, not different shades.
> 
> *beyaz *and *ak*


 
*Ak *comes from old Turkish, and *beyaz *comes from Arabic.


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## Chazzwozzer

divinelight said:


> *Ak *comes from old Turkish


Yes, and actually, *ak *_(āk),_ meant_ colour of the white horse _(*horse:* at) in 8th century, is thought to have not been used to mean white in general until 11th century.


divinelight said:


> and *beyaz *comes from Arabic.


Using *beyaz *as an adjective is peculiar to Turkish. Oh, and, I think *beyaz *has something to do with Arabic *beyza*, _egg_.


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## divinelight

Chazzwozzer said:


> Using *beyaz *as an adjective is peculiar to Turkish. Oh, and, I think *beyaz *has something to do with Arabic *beyza*, _egg_.


 
Yes, that is true, according to this etymological dictionary http://www.nisanyan.com/sozluk/search.asp?w=beyza
_beyza _and _beyaz_ both mean _an egg_ in Arabic.


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## Zamolxis

Though 99% of the time only one of them is actually used, here are the four *Romanian* words for _white_ (three of them already mentioned above):

*1. Alb - *used in most contexts: everyday talk, academic or any technical field. Most Romanians don't use (or some haven't even heard of) the others. From the the Latin _albus_, probably the only Romance language which preserved the Latin word, all others mainly using derivations of the Germanic _blancus._

*2. Dalb *_(de+alb) _*- *as mentioned by another user above, used mainly in poetic contexts. Apart from white (but naturally related), it might also mean "bright" or "shiny", when referring to the fresh snow for example.

*3. Coliliu - *exists in the dictionary, but personally I don't recall meeting it in any part of Romania. As per dictionary, the main use is refering the the white hair of (usually) old people - but only it is completely white (so not to be confused with any shade of grey). Possible origin would be Serbo-Croat _kovilje_.

*4. Bãlai / Bãlan - *regional variations of the same word of Slavic origin (_bĕlŭ_), both rarely used, but with the same set of meanings. This is actually the only Romanian word for "white" which may also refer to other other (light) colors. It translates as:
a. Blond(e)
b. Fair; light(-complexioned)
c. White
d. Whitish-grey
e. Whitish-yellow
(the last three usually used in the context of domestic animals with white or very close to white fur, but occasionally it may apply to other objects as well)

- - - -




robbie_SWE said:


> What about "*coliliu*" Parakseno? Since I no longer live in Romania, I don't know if this word is used.


Does that mean you found it in an online dictionary? Or by any chance from your family - in which case I would be interested to know where in Romania is your family from? AFAIK the word is not in use anymore, so I'm trying to establish if we're dealing with an archaism or a regionalism.


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## Angel.Aura

*In Italian*, white is *bianco*
As in swedish, we have different nuances of white.
_Bianco latte_ = Milk white
_Bianco neve_ = Snow white
_Bianco candido_ = Pure white


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## Kangy

The word for "white" in Spanish is *blanco*.
The different shades are indicated by adding other words, like in Italian.


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## Tedehur

French : *blanc* (already quoted by Frank06)
Esperanto : *blanko* (noun), *blanka* (adjective)


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## Mahaodeh

Qcumber said:


> To tell you the truth I started this thread because I found that Arabic has two terms for "white":
> 2abyaD [?abjad¿] أَبْيَضُ
> 2aHwarii [?aÉwarijj] أَحْوَرِيٌّ
> The former is the common term. The latter is rare, and mainly refers to the colour of body parts.


 
There are two more words for white in Arabic: A'mhaq أمهق is a pure dim white (not bright but not mixed with any color no matter how faint); and A''far أعفر which is dusty white, not gray or beige...etc. but not pure or bright white.  A'byadh is a clear bright white.

There is also A'bhaq أبهق (faint white, pale), but like 2aHwarii it is used specifically for humans, so I don't think these two count.  The other three, however, are white in general.


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## robbie_SWE

Zamolxis said:


> Though 99% of the time only one of them is actually used, here are the four *Romanian* words for _white_ (three of them already mentioned above):
> 
> *1. Alb - *used in most contexts: everyday talk, academic or any technical field. Most Romanians don't use (or some haven't even heard of) the others. From the the Latin _albus_, probably the only Romance language which preserved the Latin word, all others mainly using derivations of the Germanic _blancus._
> 
> *2. Dalb *_(de+alb) _*- *as mentioned by another user above, used mainly in poetic contexts. Apart from white (but naturally related), it might also mean "bright" or "shiny", when referring to the fresh snow for example.
> 
> *3. Coliliu - *exists in the dictionary, but personally I don't recall meeting it in any part of Romania. As per dictionary, the main use is refering the the white hair of (usually) old people - but only it is completely white (so not to be confused with any shade of grey). Possible origin would be Serbo-Croat _kovilje_.
> 
> *4. Bãlai / Bãlan - *regional variations of the same word of Slavic origin (_bĕlŭ_), both rarely used, but with the same set of meanings. This is actually the only Romanian word for "white" which may also refer to other other (light) colors. It translates as:
> a. Blond(e)
> b. Fair; light(-complexioned)
> c. White
> d. Whitish-grey
> e. Whitish-yellow
> (the last three usually used in the context of domestic animals with white or very close to white fur, but occasionally it may apply to other objects as well)
> 
> - - - -
> 
> Does that mean you found it in an online dictionary? Or by any chance from your family - in which case I would be interested to know where in Romania is your family from? AFAIK the word is not in use anymore, so I'm trying to establish if we're dealing with an archaism or a regionalism.


 
I found it in my dictionary. My family comes from Bucharest and neither my mother nor my grandmother have ever heard of this word .

 robbie


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## Abbassupreme

In Tehrani Persian:
"sepideh" or, far more commonly, "sefid".


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