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#10837 11/21/00 09:25 AM
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>vodka is from the Russian word for water (voda) and is, I have read, shortened for Russian water of life<

I studied Russian years ago at school, and I seem to remember that vodka (in form, at least) is a diminutive of the Russian for water, so would better translate as 'little water'

If you've ever drunk vodka with any Russians, little water is far more than they put in it!


#10838 11/21/00 10:07 AM
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>why we in the "West" for so long mispronounced (and still do) Chinese names and place-names, for example... the transliteraters were, shall we say, sloppy.<

Anna, I'm afraid I have to take issue with you here. It is not the transliterators who were sloppy, it is the transliterees. (Ooh, I knew I wouldn't get away with that one! ) Or maybe the English alphabet, which is sloppy enough that it uses a mere 26 letters for far more than that number of sounds.

Let's take "Deng Xiaoping" as an example.
In Pinyin, which is the transliteration system used by mainland China, he transliterates as Deng Xiao-ping.
In Wade-Giles, which is an older transliteration system used by Taiwan, he transliterates as Teng Hsiao-p'ing.

A student who knows either transliteration system will have a clear and precise idea how to pronounce the man's name correctly. Each is equally good in this case.

An English speaker who does not know the transliteration systems will come closer to a correct Mandarin pronunciation of his name if it is transliterated using Pinyin. It can be argued that Pinyin is a more useful transliteration system in this case.

(Neither Pinyin nor Wade-Giles as shown above show the tones of the syllables, which are integral to their meaning. Both have fuller versions, barely used in English targeted at non-Sinologists, which do indicate the tones. This is a different issue.)

So far, it sounds as if Pinyin is an improvement on Wade-Giles. And it probably is, for Mandarin to English. But Mandarin to English is not the same as Chinese to English. Chinese includes all sorts of other dialects/languages, including Cantonese, Fukkienese, Taiwanese etc. Some of these dialects (and I am reaching the edges of my knowledge, so don't quote me, but I am pretty sure Fukkienese is one of them!) distinguish three consonant sounds where English only distinguishes two. The Wade-Giles transliteration preserves these three distinctions. The Pinyin (being a construct of the Party who also wanted everyone to speak Mandarin rather than their local language) makes no allowance for three consonants.

Example:
Wade-Giles b - soft, unbreathed (try saying b without letting any breath out of your mouth - that's the nearest I can get to an English equivalent!)
Wade-Giles p - soft, breathed (equivalent to English b, Pinyin b)
Wade-Giles p' - hard, breathed (equivalent to English p and English p)
Similarly, there are three sounds in the g-k continuum and three sounds in the d-t continuum.

Now, if you're a student trying to learn Fukkienese (or Cantonese, or Taiwanese, or any other language that has three consonant sounds in the series instead of the two that English has) which transliteration system is better?

Remember, the systems were designed for students of the Chinese language(s) in the first place!

My main point is, I think it's a bit unfair to say the early transliterators were sloppy when in fact they were trying to devise an English-letter system that could represent more distinct sounds than the English language recognises!

PS, If you find the concept of the three different consonants b,p,p' difficult, don't worry. It took me about four years to get my head round it and I was meant to be studying the stuff!


#10839 11/21/00 11:50 AM
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Both are a transliteration of Whiskey (uisge beatha–the Gaelic for water of life.)

Hmmm. I think, like Lucasz, I'd need convincing on this one, Helen.

It's a romantic notion that whiskey was the original stuff of life - well, still is , though I'll take the Scotch variety, thanks - yet surely the chilly Northern Europeans would have independently developed their own tipple at around the same time? Giving it a name that's derived from a word for "water" (with a bit of "fire" or "life" thrown in) is natural enough.

Or am I unaware of an established pattern of European migrations in the dim and distant past?

Vodka and whiskey are definitely pretty distinct drinks these days. Vodka is actually far closer to pot(ch)een the potato-based spirit than to whiskey.
Which, incidentally, is highly recommended if you really want to blow your head off, and can get the real thing.






#10840 11/21/00 11:57 AM
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Vodka is actually far closer to pot(ch)een the potato-based spirit than to whiskey. Which, incidentally, is highly recommended if you really want to blow your head off, and can get the real thing.

If you're ever spending a night over in the Midlands, there is a little family-run hotel some miles outside Hinckley where the food is spectacular and the landlord, if he trusts you, will bring some poteen out from behind the bar. It is, being unlicensed, and vastly stronger than the standard spirituous liquor (which is abnout 40% v/v?), illegal, which is why he needs to trust you first - and why I'm not revealing his name here. Mail me if you want a recommendation. I can vouch for the excellence of the poteen.


#10841 11/21/00 02:20 PM
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>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



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#10842 11/21/00 02:48 PM
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ted, the initial citation for transliterate in the OED captures the dilemma quite well:

1861 Max Müller in Sat. Rev. Not only proper names, but the technical terms also of the Buddhist creed, had to be preserved in Chinese. They were not to be translated, but to be transliterated. But how was this to be effected with a language which, like Chinese, has no phonetic alphabet?



#10843 11/21/00 05:12 PM
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Welcome to you, Lukaszd. I see in your bio that you are about to be "beatha" (born) into the 'real world' when your
life as a student ends. Good luck, Dear!

Now--here is my very imaginative genealogy:
I began by imagining how uisge might be pronounced,
and came up with, roughly, oos-ga. From there, I got to
juice->liquid->water->vada->vodka. (?)
Beatha looks like breathe, which is what you do when you are born, and live. Beatha->vita?


#10844 11/22/00 06:21 PM
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yes, shona, you're right, it is closer to translation or even a meme-- the idea that grain could be fermented and distilled and the liquid extracted was "the water of life".

as for the migrations, well, by the time roman culture was reaching ireland, it was falling apart in rome.. and the culture that did get saved and transmitted to ireland was changed by irish.. and as for the irish and the scandinavians-- well the norsemen didn't just visit england.. they were well known in ireland too.

a few years ago i saw a scandinavian film (originally produced for scandinavain TV) "Under the Glacier" one of the characters was married to a an irish woman who was a silky.
all the stateside reviews went to lengths to explain what was going on, but apparently it was clear enough to the original audience. They might not believe in silkies, but knew about them. Bel doesn't celebrate the 4th of july, but is likely to be familiar with the holiday. cultures cross bounderies.


#10845 11/22/00 08:26 PM
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Thanks for the welcome, Jackie.

To finish the glass of vodka here's a bit of lecture:

Both Gaelic and Russian languages came from the same root - the Indo-European. Gaelic was one of the first Romance dialects whereas Russian is much younger and derives from a common Slavonic dialect, now extinct (just like Gaelic...). I would say that 'water' is one of the most basic concepts and therefore the need to name it had appeared long before the Indo-Europeans parted their talk. I suppose we could find the common origin of words for water from all the European languages save Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque (even French eau would qualify, though I cannot really believe it ).

Russian vodka is indeed a diminutive from voda - water - and is made from potatoes and/or rye. I prefer flavoured brands myself and I can recommend you all the famous 'Zubrowka' (exported as Polish Bison Vodka), best consumed with apple juice (mixed 1:3 - and that's 1 of vodka!).



#10846 11/22/00 09:00 PM
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What! take good whiskey and dilute it? Apple juice? the correct way to drink whiskey is neat--if on the rocks, quickly, let the ice chill it, but not melt and dilute it. (why haven't we moved to freezing all alcohol? I mean, i store my vodka in the freezer, but not Jack Daniels-- well maybe i should...)

If you have to have a mixed drink, you mix your alcohol with other alcohols-- make a martini (a drop of vermouth) or a manhattan (vermouth again) or a black russian--vodka and kualua... now there is a drink, strong alcohol mixed with strong alcohol! none of the mincing pansy stuff of vermouth.
I never could understand why you'd mix any whiskey worth drinking with fruit juice! The only reason the english did it was to get the sailors to drink the lime juice.. they knew it would be drunk if mixed with a bit of rum.
and as for drinking water-- din ye never see the insides of pipes?

(actually i love the local water--- NYC water is great)


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