LL-L "Lexicon" 2010.02.01 (06) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 01 February 2010 - Volume 06
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From: DAVID COWLEY <DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2010.02.01 (03) [EN]

Subject: Delectables

Quote:

Just in case any of you do not already know this, please let me explain
that
what our British friends call "chips" (or "chippies") are what in
North
America are called "(French) fries"...

- Two friends of mine in Moscow were having lunch and read the Cyrillic
 menu without understanding much; but they did get that there were
'chips' and also 'hot dog' (hot in Cyrillic translitterates as 'XOT');
so they ordered hot dog and chips, thinking they'd have a plate of
(British-style) chips and a frankfurter in a bread role - but were
shocked to get some chrisps and a frankfurter on its own!
- A slightly weird language moment came sometimes in Moscow when
reading bilingual signes for lifts - which are actually called 'lifts'
in Russian - written in Cyrillic. But in English they appear as
'Elevator'. So they borrowed from British English into Russian and now
use the N American English ...
- Russian for station is Vakzal - there's a story that there was a very
early photo of an English railway station, which was somehow used as a
model in Russia. The station's name? - Vauxhall (a place) having been
interpreted as if it actually meant 'Station'.

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Thanks, David!

So *that* is where Russian *вокзал* (*vokzal*) and Belarusian *вакзал *(*
vakzal*) for 'railway station' came from! I always wondered about it and
imagined something like German *Wagensaal* ("wagon hall") ... ;-)

Interestingly, this word is where most languages of Russia, Siberia and
Central Asia (including Xinjiang in China) got their words for the same,
e.g. Azeri *vağzal*, Turkmen *wokzal*, Uzbek *vokzal*, Uyghur ۋوگزال *вогзал
* (vogzal), Kazakh *вокзал* (*vokzal*), Kyrgyz *vokzal*.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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