Ethno:log beschreibt eine Möglichkeit, für direkte Hilfe in einem Fischerdorf nahe Pondicherry zu spenden.
Details of the above project are available only in German (Ethno:log, via Mosaikum). Professor Laubscher of the Ethnology department at Munich University has a house on the coast near Pondicherry that the wave did not quite reach and is involved in a project that has been going on for 30 years. Money is intended to help the locals help themselves. Among other things, 6 fishing boats for 3000 euros each are needed.
As this is also a language website, I wonder why suddenly tidal waves have turned – in the Eng.-speaking world – into what Japanese fishermen call Tsunami(s). The only connection seems to be the Far East, though Japan was not directly hit.
Is it a buzzword to make this natural disaster more mysterious or psychologically to cushion the impact?
In German & Swedish, the original root-word flood-waves seems to be the main term used on the Internet and in the mass media.
I think this subject was done to death elsewhere last week. See languagehat
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001693.php
with 29 comments and link to Anggarrgoon.
As for my heading, it’s designed to attract attention and be comprehensible, so I’d use it even if I used ‘tidal wave’ elsewhere (which I don’t!)
Thanks for the weblink. It’s interesting to see others have queried the term, albeit hair-splitting geologically.
The term “tsunami” will be be familiar to anyone who has studied geography and tectonics. And it’s certainly not a “buzz word”. It’s a distinct term for a distinct geotechtonic phenomenon and does originate from Japanese. After all, historically, Japan has been most prone to this type of disaster. It’s certainly not a “tidal wave” caused by interaction between the earth and the moon. The reason why some news agencies are using the term “flood wave” is a mystery to me.
Paul
Flood (tidal) wave is a literal translation back into English of Flutwelle in German and flodvag (circle over the a)in Swedish.
Whether or not the wave(s) is or are the ultimate consequence of a tsunami ‘seaquake’, the Swedish mass media are – pragmatically perhaps – not cottoning on to the Japanese term.
But the Japanese term is now an English special-language term, adopted by plate tectonics experts, seismologists and geographers to describe just this narrowly defined phenomenon. Just as the German “Hinterland” has. There is no synonym for “hinterland” in geographical writing, just as there is no synonym for tsunami (apart, perhaps, from “seismic flood wave”). I am not familiar with Swedish tectonics terms so I can’t comment. Certainly, English media, referring to a “tidal wave” are to be slapped on the fingers with a good heavy ruler….
Paul