Blue Pea

South East Asia’s popular blue pea flower provides a neat example of the unique treasure that Singapore enjoys and which Linguafour seeks to highlight.

The blue pea flower is beautiful to look at and is widely used across South and South East Asia as a colouring in food, drink and hair; a tonic tea; and a medicine. The plant is part of the Fabaceae family, which includes peas, and its flowers grow on a vine.

Malay

Malay speakers gave blue pea the name “telang” and call it “bunga telang” (telang flower) or “kachang telang” (telang pea) or just “bunga biru” (blue flower).  But when we look at the range of ways this plant is referred to in Singapore and the surrounding region, we find a good example of how different languages capture and reflect different human perspectives on the same thing. 

Chinese

Looking at the delicate petals, some saw butterfly wings, hence the Chinese 蝶豆 (dié dòu, butterfly pea). Others saw "pigeon wings.

Tamil

Some Tamil speakers saw a shell and called it சங்குப்பூ (sangu-poo, shell flower) or காக்கட்டான் (kakkanam, mussel creeper).  Other Tamil speakers saw the small pea-like seed pods which the plant produces when it fruits and called it கருவிளை (karuvilai, which means to bear fruit, to be pregnant or to give birth).

English

In addition to “blue pea,” some European travellers were reminded of a common wild flower back home and called it “bluebell vine.”

Other languages

The 18th century botanists who gave it its scientific classification in Latin, based on Linnaeus’ specimens from the Indonesian island of Ternate, saw something different again and named it “Clitoria Ternatea.” 

Filipinos seem to have seen the same thing because they call it “pukingan” or “puki-reyna” (“puki” is a reference to a woman’s intimate parts; ”-ngan” is a diminutive suffix; and “reyna” means queen).  

In Hindi, the flower is named for अपराजिता (Aprajita), the goddess whose name means “undefeated,” expressing confidence in the plant’s medicinal properties.

The blue pea is an example of how one and the same thing may be seen in multiple different ways and with a wide diversity of connotations and associations.  Looking at how something is referred to in different languages is a readily accessible way to open our eyes to other perspectives.  The more distant from one another the languages that we pick are, the broader the range of perspectives that are likely to emerge for us. And that is why Singapore is such a rich treasure trove.

_{Photo credit: Dr. Raju Kasambe, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}