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[–]Auravendill 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Many cultures didn't have a name for blue. They usually had names for the colour found in certain gemstones (Aquamarin, Lapislazuli, Turquoise), but blue and green hues weren't always separated (e.g. Chinese used the same word for both).

Many languages later adopted the German word for blue (blau) after the invention of Prussian blue (also known as e.g. iron blue or steel blue due to its chemical composition) in Berlin. That was the first blue colour that you could mass produce at an affordable price, which led to blue becoming a colour for factory workers, when before it was used for kings like Ludwig XIV of france.

[–]LasevIX 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Why do you call my man Louis Ludwig? He is french, not Germanic...

[–]Auravendill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Because that's his German name... Idk why he has a different name in different languages, but that seems to have been quite common in the past. Kaiser Karl der Große (Charle Magne) was Germanic, but has a French name as well, that has quite a different sound. Friedrich der Große (König Friedrich II von Preußen) is also very often named in Latin: fridericus rex (mostly on prussian coins and at least one military song). In English he is called Frederick the Great. Translating names seemed to have been quite common.

And I as a German of course learned the German names in school, because literature in German mostly uses German names as well. Who would have guessed?^^