# Do most languages have different words for the different phases of water? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 26, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086 "2014-07-26T05:30:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/1 "2014-07-26T05:30:27Z")
In the languages I sort of know (English, Mandarin, French) water is separated into ice/water/steam, whereas drippy hydrogen is simply liquid hydrogen, and stinky sulfur is just sulfur gas. And I know that water isn’t an element, but it might as well have been to the ancients. I assume this is due to the importance of water to life. Do most cultures recognize this? Are there any languages that call water “wet ice” or steam “gassy water”? ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/2 "2014-07-26T10:51:12Z")
Spanish has _hielo_, _agua_, and _vapor_ for ice, water, and steam. Perhaps some languages that developed in the tropics might not have had a word for ice, particularly before artificial refrigeration? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/3 "2014-07-26T11:15:46Z")
In Thai, ice (น้ำแข็ง) is a compound word with constituents meaning ‘water hard’; similarly steam (ไอน้ำ) is ‘vapor water.’ ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/4 "2014-07-26T11:51:20Z")
Japanese has an extra one. _koori_ = ice _mizu_ = (cold) water _(o-)yu_ = hot water _ki_ = steam (the basic word is ki meaning vapour but depending on the context it could be jouki - as in a steam turbine - or yuge - as in what steams up your glasses in the sauna) It would be incorrect (and a typical foreigner error) to say _atsui mizu_ for hot water. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/5 "2014-07-26T12:46:25Z")
English also has different basic words for snow, sleet, hail, frost – which are all the same things (ice) but present themselves in nature in different ways. Those distinctions would all be subdivided and differentiated according to how relevant the difference is to the culture that uses the language. Running them all through the google translator, not all languages distinguish them, and quite a few seem to have no word at all for ‘frost’. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/6 "2014-07-26T13:14:00Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > Spanish has _hielo_, _agua_, and _vapor_ for ice, water, and steam. _Vapor de agua_, specifically, for water steam, as _vapor_ can also mean other gases or even a steamship. Catalan is the same (including the ship bit), I think French is as well (in Dunkirk you can see _un des vapeurs_ which took the English sailors out of France saying “we’ll be back!” at the beginning of WWII). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/7 "2014-07-26T14:37:19Z")
I’m not sure it’s the importance of water as it is the antiquity. As a generalization, the earlier concepts enter language the more likely they are to be named individually. If you look at irregular verbs, as an example, the more basic the concept the more likely they are to be irregular. I once read that “to be” is irregular in every language, though I can’t confirm that. Hydrogen is quite modern compared to water as a concept. It’s not surprising that it developed in a different way linguistically. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/8 "2014-07-27T02:37:21Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > and stinky sulfur is just sulfur gas. Sulfur is a solid, and, although I suppose there are conditions under which it can be vaporized, it will not do so in air under normal conditions of pressure. Any “stinky sulfur” you are smelling is probably either hydrogen sulfide or sulfur dioxide, both gasses at normal temperatures and pressures. (They both smell unpleasant, but in quite different ways.) Heating sulfur in air will cause it to burn, forming sulfur dioxide. ---
**Author:** ![MrsTime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@MrsTime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrsTime)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/9 "2014-07-27T05:45:04Z")
I particularly like snow in Farci…barf. So it barfs in Iran. But probably not often. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/10 "2014-07-27T06:16:34Z")
Farsi, you mean? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/11 "2014-07-27T06:17:54Z")
It doesn’t really sound the same as “barf” though. It’s similar in Indian languages “baraf” or “borof” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/12 "2014-07-27T14:19:30Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > English also has different basic words for snow, sleet, hail, frost – which are all the same things (ice) but present themselves in nature in different ways. Those are words specific to types of _precipitation_, though, which is a bit different from having words for just different kinds of water. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/13 "2014-07-27T15:58:18Z")
Russian has a word, “voda,” for water in general, water from the tap, in the bath, in a lake, whatever, that may or may not (probably not) be potable, and also “kipyetok,” for boiled water, suitable for making tea, but sometimes also used to refer to water that has been boiled and cooled down, and is safe from drinking from a pitcher in the fridge. It depends on whether you live in a place where it’s safe to drink the tap water. There’s also a single word for mineral water. Also, vodka is the word for water, “voda,” tweaked a little, the way you would to make a diminutive of it. If someone’s name is Marina, people might call her “Marinka.” And voda --\> vodka. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/14 "2014-07-27T20:03:21Z")
> [@MrsTime](#): > > I particularly like snow in Farci…barf. So it barfs in Iran. > But probably not often. It does snow in Iran. They had a lot of snow this past winter. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/15 "2014-07-27T20:09:28Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Running them all through the google translator, not all languages distinguish them, and quite a few seem to have no word at all for ‘frost’. I would counsel against drawing any conclusions from such Google Translate experiments. Maybe you are used to seeing it perform reasonably well for some language pairs (such as English-Spanish) but its limitations become very apparent if you ask it to translate to or from Japanese or Finnish. ---
**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/16 "2014-07-28T07:49:48Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > _ki_ = steam (the basic word is ki meaning vapour but depending on the context it could be jouki - as in a steam turbine - or yuge - as in what steams up your glasses in the sauna) “Ki” does not mean steam in Japanese; it represents the state of something. In the case of “jouki”, it would be the gaseous state of (water). ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/17 "2014-07-28T20:29:43Z")
> [@Saturn\_Dreams](#): > > “Ki” does not mean steam in Japanese; it represents the state of something. In the case of “jouki”, it would be the gaseous state of (water). The first meaning of the character 気　_ki_ in my online dictionary is “air;vapour;gas”. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/18 "2014-07-29T01:18:46Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Also, vodka is the word for water, “voda,” tweaked a little, the way you would to make a diminutive of it. If someone’s name is Marina, people might call her “Marinka.” And voda –\> vodka. Good to know - my doctor told me to drink more water. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/19 "2014-07-29T02:44:39Z")
More water, not little water. ---
**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086/20 "2014-07-29T09:24:29Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > The first meaning of the character 気　_ki_ in my online dictionary is “air;vapour;gas”. Oh, it was online. Then it must be true. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-most-languages-have-different-words-for-the-different-phases-of-water/694086.md?page=2)