What color is Yarok?

Question

Yarok ירוק in modern Hebrew means green. What color does it refer to in Mishnaic Hebrew? I have heard that it refers to yellow and not green because the Mishna in Sukkah (on 34b) discusses a citron which is "Yarok like a leek" implying that plain yarok is not like a leek, ie not green. ShmuelBrill in a comment says that Yarok sometimes means yellow and sometimes means green. It seems odd to me that one word would mean two colors. Can anyone explain?

Answer 1

Tosafos on succah 31b sv "Hayarok KeKharti" translate the word yarok in several different ways. Furthermore, rashi and several ashkenazi rishonim usually translate "תכלת" as "yarok", which could suggest that yarok means blue (unless they are saying that techelet is green...). Rav Yosef Dov Soloviechik has been quoted as saying that yarok in rashi means blue. This is also what the sifsei chachamim say.

Answer 2

Yarok in Nidah seems to mean a golden yellow color. However, there is some discussion that it may mean green. If I'm not mistaken, there is also some discussion about what "golden yellow" means, leading to an implication that it may, in fact, be a shade of red.

Confused yet? I sure was. I'll have to look at the sources again to find out what they really say, but I remember thinking this was really bizarre.

Answer 3

Jastrow describes the colour as "light-colored, yellow or greenish," presumably based on the mishnaic sources he cites.

However, Sokoloff translates ירוק as "yellow" and (oddly) ירק as "green" in his Babylonian Aramaic dictionary. In his Palestinian Aramaic dictionary he translates ירק as "green, yellow".

The entry in the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon for ירוק notes:

It is unclear if there is a difference in shade among dialects. If so, it is that in Jewish dialects it is more yellowish than not.

But see also the translations of the root ירק and its other derivatives (see bottom of page), which generally agree here with Sokoloff. The comment there states

yrq is the color of vegetable matter, from yellow-green to blue-green.

Yarok, therefore, seems to have generally been a yellowish/greenish colour—at least during the rabbinic period.

In the EHLL article "Color Terms" (by Tamar Sovran), the following, however, is stated:

The color green (יָרֹק yå̄rōq) in Job (39.8) is related to יֶרֶק yεrεq ‘grass’, to judge by its position vis-à-vis the word מִרְעֶה mirʿε ‘pasture’ in the following parallelism: יְת֣וּר הָרִ֣ים מִרְעֵ֑הוּ וְאַחַ֖ר כָּל־יָר֣וֹק יִדְרֽוֹשׁ || yəṯūr hå̄rīm mirʿēhū || wə-ʾaḥar kål-yå̄rōq yiḏrōš ‘It ranges the hills for its pasture and searches for any green thing’. In Leviticus (13.49) a green mold (נֶגַע יְרַקְרַק neg̅aʿ yəraqraq) is mentioned. The meaning of the expression יְרַקְרַק חָרוּץ yəraqraq ḥå̄rūṣ (Ps. 68.14) is not clear, but the context shows a connection to the shimmering of gold and silver: כַּנְפֵ֣י י֭וֹנָה נֶחְפָּ֣ה בַכֶּ֑סֶף וְ֜אֶבְרוֹתֶ֗יהָ בִּֽירַקְרַ֥ק חָרֽוּץ kanp̄e yōnå̄ nεḥpå̄ bak-kεsεp̄ wə-ʾεḇroṯεha b-īraqraq ḥå̄rūṣ ‘the wings of the dove are covered with silver, and her pinions with the shimmer of gold’.

Answer 4

Yarok is a term that includes green, blue, and yellow as it can be seen in here:

1. Rabbinical sources just a few of many

Teshuvot Maharam, Prague, 631

תרלא. ת"ר אשה כי תהיה זבה כו' יכול אפי' זבה מ"מ תהא טמאה (ת"כ מצורע פ"ד) פי' כגון דם מכה או דם העלייה [כקרן] כרכום, כמראה כרכום שקורי' קרו"ג. האי קרן כמו כי קרן עור פניו, כמימי אדמה מפו' בתלמוד איז אדמה ומציף עליה מים [וכמזוג] שני חלקי מים ואחד יין אדום. [וכמימי] תלתן [לחלוח] שבתלתן. האי שחור אדום הי' מתחלתו אלא שלקה והשחיר והני תרי אחריני [כמימי] תלתן וכמימי בשר צלי מלקא לקו ומתחלתן אדומי' היו. דם ירוק דמטהרי' כקבנן דעקבי' בן מהללאל (נדה י"ט ע"א) בין מראה בלויא בין מראה געלב בין גרין כולן בכלל [ירוק הן] דכל ה' דמים המטמאי' באשה נוטי' לצד אדמומית כדמשמע פ' כל היד (שם) מנלן דדם אדום טמא שחור נמי אדום הוא אלא שלקה👈🏻 וכל ג' מראות הללו כולן בכלל ירוק הן. בלויא משיכיר בין תכלת [לכרתי (ברכות ט' ע"ב)] וכרתי נקרא ירוק בפ' לולב [הגזול ל"ד ע"ב] ירוק ככרי ותכלת דומה לים ולרקיע הוא בלויא וגעלב כשעוה [שהוא] ירוק [דאי'] בתוספתא דנגעים (פ"א) ירקרק ירוק שבירוקים כשעוה ואדרבה הוא ירוק שבכולן והוא געלב וירוקה כשרה מדרבי נתן ( חולין מ"ז ע"ב) פרש"י כעשבים והוא גרין.👈🏻

"All the colors blue, yellow, and green are included in the color 'yarok', green."

Mordechai brought in Yoreh Dei'ah 188:1

"What is called 'blue' is included in the category of green".

‎וכן מראה שקורין בל"א בלו"א בכלל ירוק הוא

2. The Jewish Encyclopaedia talking about Yarok says:

(a) 👉🏻The term "yaraḳ," originally "pale," is used to describe those uncertain colors which waver between green, yellow, and blue. 👈🏻It is applied to the color of vegetation (Job xxxix. 8; II Kings xix. 26; Isa. xxxvii. 27), the fading color of decaying vegetation (Deut. xxviii. 22; Amos iv. 9; Hag. ii. 17), or of a panic-stricken countenance (Jer. xxx. 6). "Yeraḳraḳ" (greenish or yellowish) is used of the appearance of plague-spots (Lev. xiii. 49, xiv.37) and of gold (Ps. lxviii. 13). The term "ḥaraẓ," applied to gold, probably means "yellow."

(b) 👉🏻The same root is used in later Hebrew and Aramaic for green, yellow, and blue (compare Yoreh De'ah, 188, 1). 👈🏻Green is given as the color of leek (Ber. i. 2; Suk. iii. 6), and of myrtle (Meg. 13a). Yellow is the color of crocus (Niddah ii. 6; Ḥul. 47b), of cuscuta (Ḥul. l.c.), and of the yolk of an egg (ib.). The color of the "tarshish" (probably chrysolite or olivin) is like that of clear olive-oil (Num. R. ii. 7). Hence, "moriḳa" (crocus) and "yeraḳon" (jaundice). The verb "horiḳ" (Gen. R. xiii.; Ber. 44b) is used to denote "making pallid," "pale," especially the pale yellowish color of a frightened countenance (Soṭah iii. 4). The same idea is conveyed by the verb "kirkem," a denominative of the noun "karkom" (crocus).

Compare, further, "moriḳa" (saffron-colored), from , a byform of (Levias, "Am. Jour. Semitic Lang." xvi. 250); "ḥardali" (mustard-colored), used of the color of wine (Shab. 63a), "👉🏻ḳela'illan," an adaptation of κελαῖνου (sea-green, blue; compare Krauss, l.c.s.v.).👈🏻

3. Hebrew color linguistic evolution

“In 1969 the anthropologist Brent Berlin and the linguist Paul Kay published an interesting book: Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969). Their research in the field of color terminology has been highly influential in anthropology and linguistics. They checked how many basic color terms for each language are universal, and concluded that the number of basic color terms in the world’s languages are limited to around 11 universal basic color terms.

Berlin and Kay also depict the evolution of colors term. They realized that the basic terms appear in every language in the same order. The same happened in Hebrew. According to their research the first two basic color terms in every language are שָׁחֹור (black) and לָבָן (white). 👉🏻שָׁחֹור refers not only to black, but to all the cool colors (such as blue, green, grey). לָבָן refers not only to white, but to all the warm colors (such as red, yellow).👈🏻

The third basic color term to enter the language is אָדֹום (red). After אָדֹום comes כָּחֹול (blue), יָרֹוק (green) or צָהֹוב (yellow). We don’t have information about those steps in Hebrew, since they occurred long ago, before the invention of the writing. When the Bible was written the Hebrew language was already at the third phase. It already included 4 basic color names: שָׁחֹור, לָבָן, אָדוֹם וְיָרוֹק (black, white, red and green).

👉🏻The Israelites described the whole colors of the world with only 4 words. Obviously each of the words referred to more colors than it referred to today. The biblical אָדֹום referred to חוּם (brown) as well. The biblical יָרֹוק referred to כָּחֹול (blue) and צָהֹוב too👈🏻.”

“Berlin and Kay marked the four last color terms to enter every language: purple (סָגֹול), pink (וָרֹוד), grey (אָפֹור) and orange (כָּתֹום). And so it was in Hebrew. סָגֹול, וָרֹוד and אָפֹור were invented during the 19th century. וָרוֹד named after the flower with the same color – rose (in Hebrew וֶרֶד). אָפוֹר after the dirt with the same color – ash (in Hebrew אֵפֶר). כָּתֹום was invented only during the 20th century. At the establishment on the state of Israel, Hebrew had not 11 basic terms of color, as Berlin and Kay declared, but a dozen.”

4. The Tosefta

It compares the strongest green and the strongest red, asking: "What is the greenest of the green?" The answer given by Sumchus was, "like the tail of a peacock."

In fact, a peacock has 365 different colors, with all possible colors, except red and purple or violet.

Answer 5

Languages have different terms for colors. It's actually quite common for one word to serve for blue, green and yellow. ירוק is a term clearly related to yerakot which comes in the green-to-yellow range, so I would assume that it fills that role.

Why does English have only one word that means kachol and techelet?

Answer 6

Anything from yellow to green.

Anthropologists will tell you that different cultures can have words that mean a variety of colors; yet it appears that the color wheel as we know it is universal -- no known language has the same word for a color and its opposite, and no known language uses one word for non-contiguous colors on the wheel.