Snakehead

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>We have a draft snakehead entry in the New Partridge for 'snakehead' but
>continue to question its inclusion because it is a literal translation
>from the Chinese.

I know that "snakehead" is routinely SAID to be a literal translation of a
Chinese word for "people-smuggler". But it looks a little too sexy, and too
reminiscent of English "wolf's-head" = "outlaw". Can it be verified that
there is indeed an appropriate Chinese word? Googling with the likely fish
name in Chinese I get references to fish. Googling with "snake head" in
Chinese I find some references to the fish and also some references to
"people-smugglers" but the latter only in news items from the US. Of course
there are thousands of Google hits -- of which I could examine only a few
-- and my incompetence in Chinese is a problem too.

My thanks to anybody who can show me (in Chinese text) the original Chinese
word meaning "people-smuggler" ... of which this "snakehead" is supposedly
a calque.

-- Doug Wilson