Why is Envy a Green Monster? Color associations vary greatly from culture to culture, just as each language or dialect has unique colloquialisms that are often misunderstood or lost in translation. In many Western cultures the feelings of envy or jealousy are commonly associated with the color green. However, in German the feeling is most closely related to the color yellow, as the phrase “gelb vor neid,” or “yellow with envy” suggests. Moreover, in Arabic the same association is made, as noted in the common phrase “yasfaru wajhahu mina al-Heqd” or “his face turns yellow with envy.” Continuare →