Interestingly, the Irish writer Stan Carey told me that the Irish word for red hair is different from the general Irish word for red.Īfter red, most languages add a word for either yellow or a spectrum that includes both green and blue that language experts sometimes call “grue.” Since blue and green are so prevalent in nature, I would have expected one of them to be the third word more languages would add, but I was wrong! In fact, we call people redheads instead of orangeheads because at the time we started calling them anything, the word “orange” hadn’t entered the language as a color word, and the word “red” included the orangey color of red hair. In those early days though, “red” was probably the name for the color rust, as well as purple, pink, and orange. The same root for “red” also likely gave us the word for the color “rust.” For example, the Oxford English Dictionary lists Radcliffe, Radclive, Redmile, Redford, and Rattery, all from 1086, and slightly later Radly and Redhill. Red shows up in a lot of place names where it referred to the color of natural elements such as rocks and soil. That surprised me, but one thing that surprised me most was that the next color almost all languages name is red-one theory is that it’s because it is the color of blood.Īlthough black, white, and red all likely go back to the prehistoric language Proto-Indo-European (PIE), Online Etymology Dictionary states that red is “the only color for which a definite common PIE root word has been found.” There are still languages today that have just two words for colors that are essentially white for all light or warm colors and black for all dark or cool colors. Online Etymology Dictionary says “ White” is also one of the oldest surnames in English, originally referring to people with fair hair or a fair complexion. In Old English, it meant “bright and radiant, or clear and fair.” It could be describing something we think of as white such as snow, milk, or an old person’s hair, but it could also describe something transparent, or something light yellow, pale gray, or silver. “White” is a little more straightforward. So it took “black” a while to be limited to what we think of as black today.
And to make it even more complicated, at some point, “black” could also be used to describe something bright, shining, or glittering, perhaps related to the idea that something that is burning is all those things. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says that it is often difficult to tell which of these two colors is meant in Old English texts when the context doesn’t make it clear. “Black” comes from very old words that meant “to burn” or “burned.” But the same old words also gave us “blake,” which is a now obscure word that meant pale, pallid, and ashen. It is not so much about avoiding colors as much as it is about ensuring that colors used in web design have appropriate contrast.In nearly all languages, the first colors to get names are black and white. A common question web designers have when addressing color contrast is what colors to avoid. The ratios have been scientifically calculated to ensure that text can be read by those with moderate low vision and that contrast is sufficient enough for those who have color deficiencies. So, it is critical to consider adequate contrast between text and backgrounds.įor Level AA conformance, WCAG 2.0 Success Criterion 1.4.3 recommends that regular text has a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 and that large text (18-point or 14-point bold) has a minimum contrast ratio of 3:1. There are nearly three times more individuals with low vision than those with total blindness and one out of twelve people has some sort of color deficiency. People who may have low vision, or may be colorblind, could encounter some difficulty distinguishing text from a background color if the contrast is insufficient. Color contrast is a common web accessibility issue that is often overlooked.
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