>Both (vodka and aquavit) are a transliteration of Whiskey (uisge beatha–the Gaelic for water of life.)
Of Troy:
This is not what I remember, and I learned this at the feet of a master. Aqua vita (whence akvavit and aquavit) is Latin for water of life. Both aqua and vita would have been in use long before Julius's almost fatal exposure to the Gaels, when, I assume, the Romans would have first encountered fortified liquors. I can't speak to vodka except to note that voda and water aren't that far apart to a casual observer, though a trained linguist might disagree vehemently.
Along these lines, I'd like to see more about transliteration. My dictionary defines transliterate "To represent (letters or words) in the corresponding characters of another language."
How does this differ from borrow or loaner words? Or does it? Take, for instance, the word apparatchik, a member of an underground (usually Communist) political organization. While not a word in common use, there's no doubt where it came from. And its spelling is a transliteration of the Russian word, based on how it is spelled Cyrillically (like that one?? (GRIN)).
BUT! What if we had taken this word from the Russians before St. Cyril created his alphabet for the Slavic languages? Since there was only a spoken word and presumably not a written word, how could it be a transliteration (which requires two alphabets)? And one would have to assume that there are such words, though perhaps not very many.
Other words closer to home in the US: tepee or tipi, from a Dakota word tipi. Certainly there was no Dakota alphabet to use for transliteration. The people who first ran into the Dakota may well not have tried to write down the word for months or years. In fact, judging from where the Dakota lived, it wouldn't surprise me very much to learn that this particular word came to us through French-speaking traders who were among the first Caucasians to tread there.
Ted
