What color do you associate which language with?

[Qwynegold]

Oh no! My previous thread about this aux/enge/artlang has been pruned. I hope I didn't miss any valuable replies.

I have this list of natlangs that I'm gonna borrow words from, and I'm currently putting together a map that shows where each language is spoken. So when I need a word for some plant or animal or any other thing that can be pinpointed to a specific location, I'll look at the map and see what language is spoken at that location, and then borrow the word from that language.

There are 38 languages I believe, and I need to mark each with a unique hue. So I want to ask you guys which of these languages you associate with what color, and why. I have already filled in some of these, but you can still give me suggestions for any of these languages if you think you have a better suggestion. The only limits are that it must be a single color and not some gradient or pattern, and black and white can't be used.

• Akan ████ - because the Akan people are known for metallurgy, including bronze casting
• Bambara
• Burmese - maybe ████ because they have all these golden pagodas and Buddha statues in Burma?
• English - ████ because this color is found on the flags of the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand
• Fula - ████ because they are pastoral nomads IIRC and they live in the Sahel region, and I imagine grass there has this color
• Hausa - ████ because they also live in the Sahel, but further north so khaki goes with that
• Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu)
• Hungarian - ████ because they like paprika and because they have a special word for a deep red color
• Japanese - ████ because it's the color of sakura
• Kazakh - ████ because it's the Turkic color and it's on their flag
• Korean - ████ Idk, maybe because I've been playing too much Civ 3
• Malay
• Mandarin - ████ - because it's on the Chinese flag and they use this color a lot in their architecture and other things
• Modern Standard Arabic - ████ Islam green
• Oromo
• Persian - ████ isn't the Persian landscape sort of orange? And isn't the apricot a pretty popular fruit over there?
• Russian - ████ icy color because it's northern
• Spanish - ████ because there's yellow on the Spanish flag and because Spain is known for sun
• Swahili
• Tamil - ████ because the Tamil people are apparently known for their steel and their weaponry
• Telugu
• Thai - ████ Idk, they seem to like bright colors in Thailand
• Turkish - ████ another light blue shade for a Turkic language
• Uzbek - ████ also Turkic, and they use this turquoise on their mosques
• Vietnamese
• Yoruba
• Ancient Greek - ████ because of Greek olives
• Latin - ████ this is like the color of the Roman empire
• Sanskrit
• Bengali - ████ because of the Bangladeshi flag? Idk
• Filipino/Tagalog
• French - ████ I think this color suits the likes of Louis XIV. And don't they also grow a lot of lavender in France?
• German - ████ the current German flag, and some of the past ones, have included black, and since I can't use black this is the closest option. This color also makes me think of industry which they have a lot of Germany.
• Italian - ████ burnt siena because Siena is in Italy
• Javanese
• Marathi
• Portuguese
• Punjabi

Distinctive colors that are still unused: ████, ████ (magenta), ████, ████ (salmon), ████, ████, ████, ████, ████, ████

[Zaarin]

Personally I'd give that unused royal blue to Korea because of the Korean flag. Purple isn't a color I'd really associate with Korea.

[bbbosborne]

yoruba feels like a magenta.
i think swahili could be the color twice right of salmon

[zompist]

There's really not enough colors to make it work, but I'd really want a color for each major language family, with variations in saturation and lightness within them.

[Qwynegold]

Personally I'd give that unused royal blue to Korea because of the Korean flag. Purple isn't a color I'd really associate with Korea.

Oh, that's right! I don't know how I didn't notice that there's still an unused color that's super common in flags.

However, when it comes to purple, please see the following images:

More: show

[Qwynegold]

yoruba feels like a magenta.

Haha, it could be. The languages in India and South East Asia also feel like different kinds of purples and pinks (and light greens) to me.

i think swahili could be the color twice right of salmon

Medium brown? But why?

[Qwynegold]

There's really not enough colors to make it work, but I'd really want a color for each major language family, with variations in saturation and lightness within them.

In this project? Yeah no, I have to try and choose colors in such a way that two similar shades don't appear next to one another. Especially if there are linguistic exclaves.

[mèþru]

All of this seems to have no reason and also in the wrong subforum.

[bbbosborne]

i think swahili could be the color twice right of salmon

Medium brown? But why?

dunno, just gut feeling.

[Zaarin]

Personally I'd give that unused royal blue to Korea because of the Korean flag. Purple isn't a color I'd really associate with Korea.

Oh, that's right! I don't know how I didn't notice that there's still an unused color that's super common in flags.

However, when it comes to purple, please see the following images:

More: show

When I lived in Korea, hanboks always seemed to be red, royal blue, magenta, and lime green. I don't ever recall seeing them in colors as subtle as those pictures.

[Qwynegold]

When I lived in Korea, hanboks always seemed to be red, royal blue, magenta, and lime green. I don't ever recall seeing them in colors as subtle as those pictures.

Oh, I see.

[Xwtek]

Javanese is certainly this. It reminds me of batik: ████

[Qwynegold]

Javanese is certainly this. It reminds me of batik: ████

Huh, now that I looked it up on WP, there are a lot of brown tones. I've always associated batik with all the colors of the rainbow.

[Pabappa]

I use color as well in my spreadsheet, but to make it easier to read I've had to use distinctive foreground colors as well. If you run out of colors or can't decide, perhaps you could give 2 languages the same background color but different colors for the text.

[Qwynegold]

It's finally finished!

Do you think I should skip the texts?

EDIT: It looks awful. Here's a downloadable PDF.

[Imralu]

Language books in Australia all seem to be:

French - blue
German - black
Italian - green
Spanish - orange

[Qwynegold]

Language books in Australia all seem to be:

French - blue
German - black
Italian - green
Spanish - orange

Heh, that's because those colors are found on their flags. Except for orange. Incidentally, in Civilization 3 Germany is black and in Europa Universalis 4 France is blue.

[Imralu]

Language books in Australia all seem to be:

French - blue
German - black
Italian - green
Spanish - orange

Heh, that's because those colors are found on their flags. Except for orange.

Ah, true. And orange is what you get when you mix red and yellow, so that also makes sense. Here in Germany, the language section of bookstores is mostly coloured by the brands of the publications - yellow for Langenscheidt, green for Pons, pinky purple for Kauderwelsch.