【正文】 Their Historical Backgrounds Color words, in whatever languages, are used for describing different things. The statistics show that there are more than 7 million kinds of colors can be recognized in the nature. However, the color names are very limited in the languages because there are only dozens of colors expressed in singlemorpheme word. A number of color words are expressed by adding modifiers, for instance, crimson, pale red, apple green, azure, coffee color etc. Color words reflect the different cultural connotations in different languages. People regard color words with special esteem in different countries. We should not only understand their basic meanings, but also pay attention to their deeply symbolic meanings. The symbolic meanings of color words have different features in different cultures. History, background, aesthetic and psychology are different because of our country’s geography. So, the feeling of the color words will not be the same, and the symbolic meanings of color words will be various. According to the definition of color, it is clear that color is a vision phenomenon aroused by the reflecting and radiating of object. The definition of color is blurry in China feudal society. In Western, it is easily accepted for its development of education and science. At the beginning, the Western people pay attention to things rationally. They often display the basic meaning of color words to the objective world, so the symbolic meanings of the color words are very direct in Western culture. The Western people express some abstract cultural meaning with the concrete color of objective things. For example, in Western culture “getting red” means the color of “blood”. Among the mind in Western culture, once the blood trickles, the life end, so people always associate red with the violence, dangerous, and it is a taboo word in Western culture. When Western Sinologists translate “Dream of the Red Chamber,” they consider that “red” makes Western people feel blood。s time, people worshiped a single color. After Huang Di and through the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, the emperors selected colors as symbols based on the theory of the five elements. The order of five elements is water, fire, wood, metal and earth. These are corresponded with the colors black, red, greenish blue, white and yellow, respectively. Ancient Chinese people believed that the five elements were the source of everything in nature. As the source of everything es from these five elements, the colors e from the five elements as well. Based on the understanding that “colors e na turally while black and white are the first,” people gradually established the relationship between the colors and the principle of the five elements, which guided the natural movement of heaven. People also selected their attire, food, transportation and housing according to the natural changes in the seasons, going from spring, to summer, to autumn, and then to winter, which further formed the theory of five colors. In the traditional Chinese system, five colors, black, red, greenish blue, white and yellow are regarded as standard colors. Black was regarded as the color of heaven in the Yi Jing. The saying “heaven and earth of mysterious black” was rooted in the feeling of ancient people that the northern sky shows a mysterious black color for a long time. They thought that the North Star is the Tian Di (heavenly emperor). Therefore, black was regarded as the king of all colors in ancient China. The color of black was worshipped the longest time in ancient China. In the Taiji diagram of ancient China, black and white are used to represent the unity of Yin and Yang. In ancient China, the color of white represents multiple things. In the theory of “Five Elements”, white symbolizes brightness and classifies it as a standard color, representing the nature of purity, brightness and fullness. Yellow is the center of colors, symbolizing the color of the earth. In China, there is a saying, “Yellow generates Yin and Yang,” regarding yellow as the center of all colors. Yellow is the orthodox color positioned in the center and the color of neutrality. It is placed above the color brown and regarded as the most beautiful color of all. In 211 B. C., Qin Shi Huang unified China. He still followed his ancestors’ traditions by observing objects and deciding symbols. He distinguished black from white, respected the virtue of water and “decided that October was the beginning of winter and its color was a superior black.” When Qin Shi Huang ascended to the throne, “the color of the clothing and flags was black.” Since the Qin dy nasty, colors gradually assumed a decorative function and became rich and colorful. Throughout the Han Dynasty, yellow became the special symbolic color of the royal court because of its brilliance, and its shade was close to the golden color. Ordinary people were not allowed to wear yellow clothes. Usually, people regarded the other colors as the inferior colors. During the Han Dynasty, bright purple was regarded as an extremely precious and rare color. In the Tang dynasty, the color of purple was used in the clothing of officials ranking. Royal court members were fond of the purple color. Purple borders were considered elegant. During the preQin period, the symbolic meanings of color words started to show a tendency towards diversification. In order to support the Zhou Dynasty39。 our ancestor must face wild animal attack. Therefore the color of white has a kind of instinctive frightened sense. White bees a kind of taboo color in Chinese culture. It