When archaeologists discovered an 800-year-old winery in Georgia (the country, not the state), linguists weren't the least bit surprised. They had already traced the modern word "wine" back to the region and the era by reverse-engineering it, since it occurs in various forms in so many other languages Linguists are a clever bunch. Some of our terms for alcoholic beverages are indeed ancient, while the origins of others are just a matter of deciphering the historical record. PBS's Otherwords gives us a quick lesson in how alcoholic drinks got their names. I'll drink to that! (via Laughing Squid)
Brilliant - amusing and informative. I love etymology, although most Indo-European languages dissapear into Proto-Indo-European. Many kudos to the presenter, who managed to conquer pronunciations in many, many languages.
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