Request for ethnic terms

[Tony Vitale]

There is a "linguistics" issue which readers of this discussion group
could probably help me with. I'm writing a dictionary and some papers
on the lexicalization of ethnic expressions. I began working on this
14 years ago. I've been collecting some ethnic expressions such as
Mexican Standoff, Dutch Courage, Chinese Firedrill, French Fries,
Swedish Ivy, etc.

I have a large number of these words and phrases (450pp single-spaced) but the
number of languages is small relative to the number of major languages (approx.
6500) spoken in the world today.

If you or friends and colleagues who are native speakers of or specialists in
various Slavic and Eastern European languages can think of any, I'd appreciate
a list of these.

These are linguistic universals - all languages have scores of them. The
criteria for selecting these entries are as follows:

        1. The expression must be figurative and not literal, e.g.,
           China White 'heroin' is acceptable but China Sea is not.

        2. The entry can be between one word and an entire sentence.

        3. The entry must contain the name of (a) a country or continent
           (cities are not acceptable), (b) an ethnic group or (c) a language.
           Counties and ethnic groups may be older terms (e.g., Persia,
           Siam etc.) and languages may be dead or extinct (e.g., Dalmatian)
           Small (in terms of size or population) geographic areas or speech
           communities also qualify. Former city-states and empires (e.g., Rome)
           qualify as well. Note that flora and fauna are acceptable,
           e.g., Tibetan Mastiff, Norway Maple as well as cuisine and terms
           from mixology (the art of bartendering), e.g., French Toast, White
           Russian, etc.

The following are examples of acceptable entries and the form that is used
in the dictionary. Please send examples in this format to me at the
e-mail address above and below.  For languages which are written in non-Roman
characters or which use syllabaries or ideographs, please just send the
phonetics. I have software which will allow me to type in any language - and
I use that as well as IPA.

        Mexican Standoff (Am. Eng.) - 'an impasse, a stalemate.'

        Dutch Treat (Am. Eng.) - 'a situation in which each person pays
                his own way.'

        Scotch Organ, Play the (Brit. Eng.) - 'put money into a cash register.'

        Chinese Wall (Pol. Chinski Mur) - 'a situation or problem which is
                insurmountable.'

        Spanish Wall (Ger. Spanische Wand) - 'a room-divider.'

        German Work (Heb. Avoda Yekit) - 'very precise, exact work.'

        Chinese Shadows (Fr. Ombres Chinoises) - 'shadow puppets, designs or
                figures made with the shadow of one's hands on a wall.'

        Punic Faith (Lat. Fides Punica) - 'treachery.'

        Swedish, Make Oneself (Spa. Hacerse el Sueco) - 'be indifferent to
                something; see or hear something and then behave as if you
                hadn't.'

        Mongolian Doctor (Chi. Menggu Daifu) - 'a quack, someone who
                is professionally incompetent.'


Note that they are arranged in the following order:

        1. English equivalent beginning with the ethnic term.

        2. language of origin, e.g., (Pol. = Polish, Heb. = Hebrew, etc.)
           followed by the word or phrase (phonetics or Roman alphabet
           for now but eventually I'll put in the orthography itself for
           non-Roman (e.g., Greek, Russian, Hindi, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.) or
           non-alphabetic languages (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, etc.).

        3. meaning of the word or phrase as it is used in the language.

        4. any further information such as etymology of the phrase, whether
           the phrase is still in current use or whether it's obsolete,
           slang, colloquial, medical, nautical, etc.

NB: All such expressions won't necessarily be complimentary. However, one of
the jobs of a linguist or lexicographer, as the readers of this discussion
group well know, is to DESCRIBE various aspects of a language.
Therefore, please ignore the political correctness issues and simply
describe the word or phrase as it is used whether or not it is complimentary or
pejorative.

Please send replies DIRECTLY to me at: vitale at dectlk.enet.dec.com.

Thank you in advance. I appreciate the time and effort.

\tony



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                                Dr. Anthony J. Vitale
                                Senior Consultant
                                Linguistics & Speech Technology
                                Assistive Technology Group
                                Digital Equipment Corporation