Global Cognates for Alcohol

 Global Cognates for Alcohols

Today, you can buy some form of whiskey almost anywhere in the world where alcohol is sold. The same goes for rum and vodka. And the names often follow, giving rum and whisky more than 80 and 100 found cognates respectively. 

That being said there’s something interesting happening with terms for vodka. Along an area known as ‘The Vodka Belt’ (Central Asia, Southern Russia, and the Caucasus), languages very often have a non-cognate term for vodka, often (though not always) related to the term araq. Despite having at least 10 languages where a cognate term looks unlikely, vodka still had more than 75 cognates found. Incidentally, araq wasn’t too far behind with 62 found cognates. Cognates for ‘gin’ and ‘champagne’ were also looked into but the numbers were much lower.

Language	Family	rum	vodka	whisky,  whiskey
Spanish	Indo-European	el ron	la vodka, el vodka	el whisky
French	Indo-European	le rhum	la vodka	le whisky
Portuguese	Indo-European	o rum	la vodca	o whisky
Catalan	Indo-European	rom	vodka	whisky
Romanian	Indo-European	rom	votcă	whisky
Italian	Indo-European	il rum	la vodka	il whisky
Greek	Indo-European	ρούμι (roúmi)	βότκα (vótka)	ουίσκι (ouíski)
Albanian	Indo-European	rum	vodkë	uiski
Bulgarian	Indo-European	ром (rom)	водка (vodka)	уиски (uiski)
Serbo-Croatian	Indo-European	рум - rum	вотка - votka	виски - viski
Ukrainian	Indo-European	ром (rom)		виски (viski)
Belarusian	Indo-European	ром (rom)	водка (vodka)	виски (viski)
Russian	Indo-European	ром (rom)	водка (vodka)	виски (viski)
Slovak	Indo-European	rum	vodka	whisky
Czech	Indo-European	rum	vodka	whisky
Polish	Indo-European	rum	wódka	whisky
Lithuanian	Indo-European	romas	vodka (non-standard)	viskis
Latvian	Indo-European	rums	vodka (non-standard)	viskijs
Armenian	Indo-European	ռոմ (ṙom)		վիսկի (viski)
Welsh	Indo-European	rym	fodka	chwisgi
German	Indo-European	der Rum	der Wodka	der Whisky
Swedish	Indo-European	rom	vodka	whisky
Norwegian	Indo-European	rom	vodka	whisky
Danish	Indo-European	rom	vodka	whisky
Icelandic	Indo-European	romm	vodka	viskí
Dutch	Indo-European	de rum	de wodka	de whiskey
Afrikaans	Indo-European	rum	wodka	whisky
Tajik	Indo-European	ром (rom)	водка (vodka)	виски (viski)
Persian/Farsi	Indo-European	rom	vodkâ	viski
Pashto	Indo-European		wodkâ	viski
Hindi	Indo-European	रम (ram)	वोदका (vodkā),  वोडका (voḍkā),  बोदका (bodkā)	व्हिस्की (vhiskī),
Bengali	Indo-European	রাম (ram)	ভদকা (bhodoka)	হুইস্কি (huiski)
Gujarati	Indo-European	રમ (rama)	વોડકા (voḍkā)	વ્હિસ્કી (vhiskī)
Nepali	Indo-European	रम (ram)	भोड्का (bhodkā)
Punjabi	Indo-European	ਰੰਮ (rama)	ਵੋਡਕਾ (bhodkā)	ਵਿਸਕੀ (viskī)
Marathi	Indo-European	रम (ram)
Sinhalese	Indo-European	රම් (ram)	වොඩ්කා (woḍkā)	විස්කි (wiski)
Assamese	Indo-European	ৰাম (ram)
Georgian	Kartvelian	რომი (romi)		ვისკი (visḳi)
Chechen	Northeast Caucasian			viski
Yakut	Turkic	ром (rom)		виски (wiski)
Uyghur	Turkic		wotka	wiski
Bashkir	Turkic
Tatar	Turkic	ром (rom)
Kazakh	Turkic	ром (rom)	водка (vodka)	виски (viski)
Uzbekh	Turkic	rom	vodka	viski
Karakalpak	Turkic			viski
Kyrgyz	Turkic	ром (rom)	водка (vodka),	виски (viski)
Turkmen	Turkic			wiski
Azeri	Turkic	rom	vodka	viski
Turkish	Turkic	rom	votka	viski
Mongolian	Mongolic	ром (rom)		виски (viski)
Greenlandic/ Kalaallisut	Eskaleut	rommi	vodka vodka-mik	whisky
Korean	Koreanic	럼 (reom)	보드카 (bodeuka)	위스키 (wiseuki)
Japanese	Japonic	ラム (ramu)	ウォッカ (wokka)	ウィスキー (uisukī)
Hungarian	Uralic	rum	vodka	whisky
Estonian	Uralic	rumm	vodka	viski
Finnish	Uralic	rommi	votka vodka	viski
Basque	Isolate	ron	vodka	whiski, whiskia
isiZulu	Niger-Congo	ulwamu
Ndebele	Niger-Congo			iwiski
Lingala	Niger-Congo			wisikí
ChiShona	Niger-Congo			hwisiki
Kinyarwanda	Niger-Congo		voduka	wisiki
Swahili	Niger-Congo	rum	vodka	wiski
Hausa	Afro-Asiatic			wuski
Somali	Afro-Asiatic		fodka	wiski
Oromo	Afro-Asiatic			wiskii
Hebrew	Afro-Asiatic	rom	vodka	viski
Maltese	Afro-Asiatic		vodka	whisky, wiski
Arabic	Afro-Asiatic	ram	vodkā, fūdkā	wiskī, wiskī
Hijazi Arabic	Afro-Asiatic		vōdka
Amharic	Afro-Asiatic			ዊስኪ (wiski)
Tigrinya	Afro-Asiatic	ራም (ram)	ቮድካ (vodka)	ዊስኪ (wiski)
Tamil	Dravidian	ரம் (ram)	ஓட்கா (ōṭkā)	விஸ்கி (viski)
Telugu	Dravidian	రమ్ము (rammu)	వోడ్కా (vōḍkā)	విస్కీ (viskī)
Kannada	Dravidian	ರಮ್ (ram)	ವೋಡ್ಕಾ (vōḍkā)	ವಿಸ್ಕಿ (viski)
Malayalam	Dravidian	റം (ṟam̐)		വിസ്കി (viski)
Ilocano	Austronesian	rum
Bikol	Austronesian	rum
Fijian	Austronesian			wisiki
Samoan	Austronesian			uisikī
Hawaiian	Austronesian	lama		wekekē,  waikekē
Malagasay	Austronesian			whisky
Tagalog	Austronesian	ron	bodka	wiski
Cebuano/ Bisaya	Austronesian	ram, rám	bodka	wiski
Waray-Waray	Austronesian	ram		wíski
Sundanese	Austronesian		vodka	wiski
Basa Bali	Austronesian	rum	vodka
Javanese	Austronesian	rum	vodka	whisky
Bahasa Indonesia	Austronesian	rum	vodka	wiski
Bahasa Melayu	Austronesian	rum	vodka	wiski
Tetum	Austronesian		vodka	wiski
White Hmong	Hmong-Mien
Khmer	Austroasiatic	ស្រារ៉ូម (sraa roum)	វ៉ូដាកា (voudaakaa)	វីស្គី (viiskii)
Vietnamese	Austroasiatic	rượu rum,  rum	vodka	uytky,  huých-ki
Mandarin	Sino-Tibetan	蘭姆酒／兰姆酒 (lánmǔjiǔ)	伏特加酒 (fútèjiājiǔ),  伏特加 (fútèjiā)	威士忌酒 (wēishìjì jiǔ)
Cantonese	Sino-Tibetan	冧酒 (lam1 zau2) 蘭姆酒 (laan4 mou5 zau2)	伏特加酒 (fuk6 dak6 gaa1 zau2),  伏特加 (fuk6 dak6 gaa1)	威士忌酒 (wai1 si6 gei6-2 zau2)
Hokkien	Sino-Tibetan	rum	vodka	ui-sū-kī
Hakka	Sino-Tibetan			ûi-sṳ-kí
Wu	Sino-Tibetan		伏特加
Burmese	Sino-Tibetan	ရမ် (ram)	ဗော့ဒ်ကာ (baud.ka)	ဝီစကီ (wisăki)
Thai	Kra-Dai/Tai-Kadai	เหล้ารัม (lâo ram),  รัม (ram),	วอดก้า (wɔ́t-gâa)	วิสกี้ (wís-gîi)
Lao	Kra-Dai/Tai-Kadai		ວອດກ້າ (wǭt kā)
Lü/Tai Lue	Kra-Dai/Tai-Kadai
Guaraní	Tupi-Guarani			guíki
Tok Pisin	Creole	ram		wiski
Bislama	Creole			wiski
Sranan Tongo	Creole
Papiamentu	Creole	ròm		wiski
Haitian Creole	Creole	wonm	vodka	wiski

Totals

	whisky, whiskey	rum	vodka
Languages with Cognate Terms	96	82	76
Languages Likely without Cognates	4	2	10
	0.96	0.976	0.884