Artifical colour

Both yhlee and ljwrites (no relation, afaik) recently posted the fact that Korean (한글) doesn't define colour the same way English does. Specifically, both pointed out the lack of a blue/green distinction.

This reminded me of a similar thing in Breton, but rather than derail either post with the following explanation of why Breton both does and does not have that distinction, I thought I'd post about that here instead.

Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany, the westernmost part of France. It's closest extant relative is Welsh.

Much like Korean and Welsh, Breton uses one word for both blue and green -- glaz/glas -- except in the one very specific case of artificial green.

Turns out the blue/green distinction is a nifty thing to have, to the point that if you really need to, you can use it in Breton, by saying sea-bluegreen or grass-bluegreen. Which is kind of cumbersome, because sure glasmor/sea-bluegreen, but the sea isn't always blue?

Unlike Breton, French has a blue/green distinction. The French word for green is "vert". It is an homonym of, among other words, "verre" ("glass").

The Breton word for glass is "gwer". I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Breton just fucking wholesale grabbed an unrelated noun to become a colour adjective because it sounds the same in another language. A purely, if you will, artificial word.

A word so artificial it is only used to describe artificial colours. A green light? Gwer. Green algae? Glas.

Why? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At what point does a colour become artificial/shift from glas to gwer? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Why do some people use glaswer and where does it find in the glas-gwer spectrum? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯