How did the Ancients called alcoholic beverages?

[Legion]

We were wondering on the chat what ancient, pre-distilated alcohol civilizations called, well, alcohol, alcoholic beverage. "Alcohol" only came to mean what it means in the 16th century, so what did they call it before that.

I have theorised that, before distilation, they would have just called everything "wine" or "beer". Can someone confirm this?

[Shm Jay]

Since they didn't have distillation, I believe you are right.

[zompist]

That would amount to saying that (say) the Romans considered wine a type of beer (cervisia) or beer a type of wine (vinum), which I very much doubt. If they had to consider them together I imagine they'd refer to the process underlying both, fermentatio, or perhaps to the result of both, ebrietas.

[Salmoneus]

Zomp: I think he means that they might have classed everything as either a wine or a beer. Much as, indeed, we more or less still do today, except that now we have 'wine', 'beer', and 'spirit'. And cider, I suppose.

[hwhatting]

Latin had a word temetum "any intoxicating drink, mead, wine".

[Kereb]

k besides rome
do we know any ancient catch-all terms for booze

[Rodlox]

k besides rome
do we know any ancient catch-all terms for booze

well, there's "that which clouds the mind"...but I don't know the Classical Arabic for it.

[linguoboy]

And cider, I suppose.

A.k.a. "apple wine" (Armenian, Bulgarian, German, etc.) or "apple beer" (Gaelic).

do we know any ancient catch-all terms for booze

Classical Chinese 酒 seems to cover everything from cider (蘋菓酒) to rubbing alcohol (消毒火酒).

[Salmoneus]

And cider, I suppose.

A.k.a. "apple wine" (Armenian, Bulgarian, German, etc.) or "apple beer" (Gaelic).

Yeah, but those languages aren't English, so aren't what I meant by "we" when I was talking about "our" words. But yes,'cider' is a more marginal one, which is why I said 'i suppose' - not only is it easier to imagine someone calling it 'apple wine', but we don't tend to apply it to non-apple products (although perry is increasingly being marketed as 'pear cider' these days). On the other hand, there does remain a distinction, in that real apple wine isn't cider, and grape cider isn't wine. That said, this distinction, these days, is more about the result than the process, and may well not be found in earlier eras (indeed, I suspect that much roman wine may just have been grape cider by modern definitions).

[masako]

do we know any ancient catch-all terms for booze

Classical Chinese 酒 seems to cover everything from cider (蘋菓酒) to rubbing alcohol (消毒火酒).

to name only a few

[linguoboy]

And cider, I suppose.

A.k.a. "apple wine" (Armenian, Bulgarian, German, etc.) or "apple beer" (Gaelic).

Yeah, but those languages aren't English, so aren't what I meant by "we" when I was talking about "our" words.

My mistake; I should known better, but I didn't realise that you were being so parochial.

[Salmoneus]

And cider, I suppose.

A.k.a. "apple wine" (Armenian, Bulgarian, German, etc.) or "apple beer" (Gaelic).

Yeah, but those languages aren't English, so aren't what I meant by "we" when I was talking about "our" words.

My mistake; I should known better, but I didn't realise that you were being so parochial.

...? We're talking about what words languages have for things. Obviously that's going to be language-specific. Should I also specify that when I said 'we', I didn't mean the words in Piraha, nor the words in Sandawe, nor the words in Ancient Elamite. No, when I was talking about what words we had, clearly I meant what words modern English had.

Likewise, for future reference, if someone says something and I say 'that's not a word', I'm probably still not talking about Sandawe. For instance, I completely failed to check whether Viktor's "after while" was a legal expression in the Arnhem Land languages....

[brandrinn]

I didn't realise that you were being so parochial.

You've... you've heard of Salmoneus before, right?

[clawgrip]

Classical Chinese 酒 seems to cover everything from cider (蘋菓酒) to rubbing alcohol (消毒火酒).

It's the same in modern Chinese and Japanese. Edit: as I guess sano pointed out.

[Qwynegold]

In Swedish there's a word rusdryck as a general term for all alcoholic beverages. Literally it means "rush drink", or idk maybe "drunkenness drink".

[linguoboy]

I didn't realise that you were being so parochial.

You've... you've heard of Salmoneus before, right?

As I said, I should know better by now, but it can be easy to forget that some people here are still stubbornly monolingual.

[Shrdlu]

In Swedish there's a word rusdryck as a general term for all alcoholic beverages. Literally it means "rush drink", or idk maybe "drunkenness drink".

Here we can also sneak in an example of compounding: "fullständigt"(completely) and "full ständigt"(completely drunk always). This together makes the handy sentence "fullständigt full ständigt" -- completely drunk always.

[Salmoneus]

I didn't realise that you were being so parochial.

You've... you've heard of Salmoneus before, right?

As I said, I should know better by now, but it can be easy to forget that some people here are still stubbornly monolingual.

And some people pretend to believe there's no point in distinguishing between languages. Well hello, but no, words are language-specific. Nobody could actually be so stupid as to assume that when I was talking about the meanings of words I was trying to make a statement about ALL languages EVER.

"Apfelwein" and "cider" are not interchangeable, because they are words in two different languages. Stop pretending that you don't recognise that fact. You're just trolling.

[linguoboy]

And some people pretend to believe there's no point in distinguishing between languages. Well hello, but no, words are language-specific. Nobody could actually be so stupid as to assume that when I was talking about the meanings of words I was trying to make a statement about ALL languages EVER.

Words are language-specific but the categories which they name are not. When you say 'wine' without specifying English as the frame of reference you could be talking about either. French, for instance, has a category of 'wine' distinct from 'beer', 'spirits', and 'cider' even if the word for it is vin rather than wine. And "we" on the ZBB have French (etc.) as a maternal and second language in addition to English.

[Pthagnar]

right, you're wonderful and cosmopolitan and so forth. i saw what he said and it made perfect sense to me.

[clawgrip]

Words are language-specific but the categories which they name are not. When you say 'wine' without specifying English as the frame of reference you could be talking about either. French, for instance, has a category of 'wine' distinct from 'beer', 'spirits', and 'cider' even if the word for it is vin rather than wine. And "we" on the ZBB have French (etc.) as a maternal and second language in addition to English.

"Much as, indeed, we more or less still do today, except that now we have 'wine', 'beer', and 'spirit'. And cider, I suppose."

His comment is clearly talking about categories as defined by English words. Did you honestly interpret this comment as meaning, "We humans of the world, in all languages, classify alcoholic beverages as either 'wine', 'beer', or 'spirit'. Or cider, I suppose."

Nevertheless, if you were just adding some interesting commentary on how other languages describe cider, then forget it. I guess it's not worth getting into some argument about.

[zompist]

Did you honestly interpret this comment as meaning, "We humans of the world, in all languages, classify alcoholic beverages as either 'wine', 'beer', or 'spirit'. Or cider, I suppose."

Hint: Whenever you write "Did you honestly mean [some absurd bullshit]", you are failing reading comprehension.

[Imralu]

I don't see how Salmoneus made any kind of error.
Also, categories are language-specific too. Ask a Spanish speaker how many continents there are and they'll usually tell you 'five'. An English speaker will say 'seven'. What's a fruit and what's a vegetable? Even colloquial English differs from botanical English.

[clawgrip]

Did you honestly interpret this comment as meaning, "We humans of the world, in all languages, classify alcoholic beverages as either 'wine', 'beer', or 'spirit'. Or cider, I suppose."

Hint: Whenever you write "Did you honestly mean [some absurd bullshit]", you are failing reading comprehension.

Please explain. What did I fail to comprehend?

Also linguoboy, I apologize for getting sarcastic with you when you were just providing some interesting examples from other languages.