Terms that Express Colors

In Japanese, there are a lot of color names. I think the number of the color names are more than one hundred. You can produce color names from various things which have the color you want to express, for example, 茶色, the color of tea or brown, ねずみ色, the color of rats or gray, 水色, the color of water or light blue, 桃色, the color of peaches or pink, だいだい色, the color of oranges. You can make adjective phrases by adding the possession-indicating particle の right after the color name: 茶色の, ねずみ色の, 水色の, 桃色の, and だいだい色の. Among these color names, 茶色 is different from the others in usage. It can be converted into an adjective 茶色い while the others cannot.

To express a color which is close to a particular color that has a name, you can add the ending particle っぽい right after the color name, for example, 茶色っぽい, ねずみ色っぽい, 桃色っぽい, だいだい色っぽい, and 水色っぽい. They inflect as an adjective like 茶色っぽかろ（う）, 茶色っぽかっ（た）, 茶色っぽく（ない）, 茶色っぽい（。）, 茶色っぽい（とき）, 茶色っぽけれ（ば）.

Color names can change with the time. We don’t use 桃色 and だいだい色 very often today. 桃色 has changed to ピンク色 and だいだい色 has changed to オレンジ色. We even omit 色 from them, and ピンク and オレンジ prevail as color names. ピンクの, ピンクっぽい, オレンジの, and オレンジっぽい are valid for color adjectives, which indicates that they has become common as color names.

The four basic color terms 白 (white), 黒 (black), 赤 (red), and 青 (blue) are very old. I believe that they have been used for more than a thousand years. The fact that they can form color adjectives without using 色, for example, 白い, 黒い, 赤い, and 青い indicates their antiquity.

黄 (yellow) and 緑 (green) are newer than the four basic colors. They can express colors without adding 色, which indicates that they are old enough. The word 黄 (き) is so short, however, that it is always used with 色 even it is old. 黄色 can form the adjective 黄色い, while 緑 cannot. You should use 緑の or 緑色の to modify nouns. This color is loved by most Japanese people because it is the color of leaves. I know several women who is named みどり.

Japanese Version
http://meadowlake001.blogspot.jp/2015/02/terms-that-express-colorsjapanese.html

Tips on Japanese (Web site)
http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~meadowlake/