Qinghai is the romanized Mandarin pinyin pronunciation of the Chinese name Although modern Chinese distinguishes between the colors blue and green, this distinction did not exist in classical Chinese. The color ("qīng") was a "single" color inclusive of both blue and green as separate shades. (English for "qīng" is cyan or turquoise, also linguists have coined the portmanteau word "grue" to discuss its existence in Chinese and other languages.) The name is thus variously translated as "Blue Sea", "Green Sea", "Blue-Green Sea", "Blue/Green Sea", etc. For a time after its wars with the Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty connected the lake with the legendary "Western Sea" assumed to balance the East China Sea, but as the Han Empire expanded further west into the Tarim Basin other lakes assumed the title.