Re: booze words

On May 7, 2008, at 7:49 AM, MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote:
>
> Trying to steer this back into a more conlangy thread:
> How do people treat the subject of alcoholic drinks and other mind-
> altering
> subjects in their conlangs.
Kïlda kelen, a.k.a. "Neo-Khitanese", has surprisingly underdeveloped
boozoglossia. They tend to think it's only Russians that have a
problem with drink, but they're not exactly abstemious themselves.
But as far as the native lexicon goes, there's really only a three-
way distinction:  ñeren or ñüren; sagï; and arakï or arïkï.

"Sagï" is used for any alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain,
usually clear in color. Fairly obviously, it's a loanword, through
Kurile Ainu, from Japanese "sake". Depending on the speaker's degree
of linguistic nationalism, beer and ale is called either "sagï" or
"bir". Kvass is always "sagï". Sake, in all its forms, and all its
Korean relatives, are all also just "sagï".

"Arakï" (older standard but now falling out of favor) or
"arïkï" (originally dialectal, now the vernacular standard
pronunciation) is the generic term for distilled liquors, or for any
kind of booze with a particularly high alcohol content. The word has
obvious cognates in Mongolian and Turkic languages (arak, anyone?);
whether you consider it a loanword in Kïlda or not depends on whether
you think Kïlda is Para-Mongolic with a huge Tungusic substratum, or
Tungusic with a big old Mongolo-Turkic adstratum. Vodka is always
"arakï"; brandy is nowadays usually just known by the brand name
"ararat".

"Ñeren" (older/archaic) or "ñüren" (older dialectal and now standard;
folk etymology from verb stem ñüre- "get warm, heat up") is usually
translated as "wine", and refers to a varied group of beverages --
any kind of alcohol made from fermenting fruits or berries; or from
grasses or grains that result in a dark/opaque or sweetish-flavored
drink; kumiss, or other milk-based alcohols; actual wine, the kind
made from grapes; and rice "wine" in the context of classical Chinese
and Japanese cultures (e.g., translations and adaptations of foreign
East Asian literature before c. 1800).

Almost all specific types of liquor other than these above are
referred to by loanwords -- wiski and berben, shampan, teikïla,
windöpörtü, awardïndï and orom, amareito, afalmost, rakïya, koñak...

K.