Before we’re old enough to even see over the dashboard, we learn that green means go and red means stop. This internationally recognized traffic light color system is standard in most of the world.

The reason behind the unusual traffic light color is closely associated with language.In Classical Japanese, the word to denote blue (ao) is interchangeable with the term to denote green and cyan ...

Although traffic lights (信号機, **shingoki) *in Japan usually follow the worldwide convention of red, yellow and green, learners of the Japanese language will know that the locals actually say the color ...

A blue traffic light in Japan Credit: Alamy. But it’s nothing to do with the wiring – it’s all to do with the Japanese language. It stems from the fact that there used to be one word for ...

The country we are talking about is Japan, a technologically advanced nation famed for its booming economy and high living standards. But why does Japan use blue traffic lights, instead of green?.

Japanese traffic lights are blue instead of the green Americans know, but the reasoning involves some complex linguistic ...