Following up from my previous post.

[randomness]

As bloodstones observes, more research into local firewaters is clearly needed if we're going to see whether drinking the local alcohol improves language production.

But what common hard liquors are nationally distinctive?

For example, in the case of báijiǔ, one of the inexpensive varieties is èrguōtóu, a clear sorghum liquor. One of the most popular brands is Red Star (红星, hóng xīng), which comes in a variety of strengths up to 112 proof:



I read that it's available for as little as $1.50 per 100mL bottle.*

Then there's Russian vodka, which I'm told is produced by thousands of distilleries all over the country, some of which is very cheap indeed. This discussion on bad vodka led me to a brand called Охта, from the ЛИВИЗ distillery in St. Petersburg. I snagged a photo of the label from a post on an auction site in Russia which lists the completed auction as having gone for 15 rubles plus 30 rubles shipping, or a total of 45 rubles ($1.50) for the liter bottle.



As a useful side-benefit, using inexpensive hard liquor will reduce our research expenses. We should highlight this in our grant proposal.

Brazil has cachaça, the United States has bourbon, Latin America has aguardiente, the Balkans have rakia (of which slivovitz is a variety made from plums). Korea has soju, Japan has shōchū, and Southeast Asia has arrack, which is distinct from Middle Eastern arak.

Anyway, you get the idea.

Edit to add: This site has Cachaça 51 Pirassununga (one of the best selling brands in Brazil), 78 proof, for R$5.95 a 965mL bottle. That's about $3.20 for the bottle, or $3.32 a liter.

It also comes in aluminum cans:

*I overestimated the cost of èrguōtóu. http://www.cntvs.com/product/1663/081031/25907/ has the stronger 65% (130 proof) for 12 yuan ($1.75) per 500mL bottle, or around $3.50/liter.

Comments

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

I definitely speak English better after I've had a little bourbon.

Though if you're allowing bourbon, then France has Cognac (though an interesting question there: do you speak with a regional accent after having cognac as opposed to other French Brandies?), the Germans have Kirsch, the Australians have watery lager.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

do you speak with a regional accent after having cognac as opposed to other French Brandies?

An excellent question! Another avenue of research to pursue.

the Australians have watery lager

Surely they have something stronger than that.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

That's true. That was totally unfair. Though I do understand that lager is, by far, the most popular Australian alcoholic beverage.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

That was totally unfair.

But funny!

Though I do understand that lager is, by far, the most popular Australian alcoholic beverage.

True.

I'm doing some net research now and it looks like they make some rum:

Bundaberg Rum has been labelled the drink for yobbos[9], after some bars reported that "bundy drinkers are a lot louder, and more disruptive than other patrons." In 2005, four bars in Brisbane banned the rum products, claiming it makes drinkers aggressive and attracts the wrong crowd[9]. "They will abuse bar staff, half a dozen a night, normally gangs of blokes, the marketing is directed at yobbos," one bar owner told The Age newspaper.[10] The Bundaberg Rum Distillery admitted it was aware its brand had a reputation of being associated with aggression, and said it may change its advertising to dispel its "yobbo" image.[11]

We may have a winner here.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I definitely speak English better after I've had a little bourbon.

r_ness started laughing maniacally again when he read this part. *facepalm* Doomed, I tell you.

[cerridwynn.livejournal.com]

In a related study, we can test to see whether drinking Scotch improves ones brogue.

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

I really need to find out if my Spanish improves with tequila.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

...tengo frio!

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

...tengo frio!

Entonces, se necesita más tequila.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Más tequila!

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

Oh! I am trying to learn spanish. I *can* participate as a subject.
Also, r_ness, it occurs to me that we'll need to videotape this so that we can get accurate transcriptions of our data. This is the best research idea *ever*. Also, we probably need native speakers to code things. We can pay them in the alcohol of their choice.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

we'll need to videotape this so that we can get accurate transcriptions of our data.

An excellent point!

This is the best research idea *ever*.

It is.

I wonder if the distilleries will be interested in sponsoring our research.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Looks like someone has published:

Applied Linguistics 1987 8(2):162-177; doi:10.1093/applin/8.2.162
© 1987 by Oxford University Press

A Critical Period for Learning to Pronounce Foreign Languages?

JAMES EMIL FLEGE
University of Alabama at Birmingham

applij.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/8/2/162.pdf

Relevant excerpt: "...alcohol did so better than subjects who received a placebo; these, in turn, did so better than subjects who consumed 2-3 oz of alcohol."

I can't read the whole thing without paying, but maybe you can get at it.

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

I'm on it. And why *wouldn't* distilleries want to sponsor our research. Maybe we can get some sort of package deal with Rosetta Stone too... Like buy the spanish edition and get this complimentary pint of tequila...

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

I got it. I'm emailing it to you now.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Thanks!

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Okay, I found a cite in the above paper to the following:

Guiora, A., B. Beit-Hallahmi, R. Brannon, C. Dull, and T. Scovel. 1972. The effects of experimentally induced changes in ego states on pronunciation ability in a second language: An exploratory study.' Comprehensive Psychiatry 13:421-7.

which describes the method:

Eighty-seven University of Michigan students served as subjects for the experiment. All were over 21 years of age and were informed in advance only that the experiment would involve responses to an alcoholic beverage. Half of the subjects were required to avoid intake of any food or beverage after lunchtime on the day of the experiment, which took place during the early evening. The other group of subjects was given the same instructions except that they were to eat a full-sized candy bar one hour before reporting to the laboratory and to bring the wrapper with them.* Upon entering the laboratory the subjects were assigned to one of five treatment conditions based upon self-reported body weight and previously ascertained Scholastic Aptitude Test scores (obtained from university records). The purpose of the assignment procedure was to control the effects of body weight and general intellectual ability by equating the treatment groups on these attributes as nearly as possible.

The subjects were then asked to drink a “cocktail” presented by the experimenter. All such cocktails were served with cocktail napkins, in stemmed glasses, and were garnished with a cherry and a twist of lemon peel. A darkroom signal timer was set to allow exactly 10 minutes for the drink to take effect, and at the end of this period subjects immediately began the language test described below.

The “cocktail” ingested by each subject contained either zero, one, one and a half, two, or three ounces of ninety proof liquor. The four alcohol treatments consisted of varying amounts of a punch known for its deceptive potency. It is one half liquor (cognac, light and dark rum) and one half other ingredients, such as citrus juices. A three-ounce serving thus contained one and a half ounces and so on.

(Full paper available at http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/34041)

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

I bet that was a really popular study to participate in.
It occurs to me that in addition to seeing if the various liquors have language specific properties we'll have to control for the possibility that it's just alcohol in general by mixing it up - have some people drink vodka and then asking them to speak mandarin, etc.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I will be _happy_ to test either báijiǔ with my moderately good Russian abilities, or vodka with my extremely limited Mandarin abilities.

[rfrancis]

See, I've already started! 紅星 - kurenai hoshi - crimson star.

:)

R

[ceo]

My ancestral country has Akvavit, but I've never actually had the stuff (and I can't speak Swedish to begin with).

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

and I can't speak Swedish to begin with

Maybe we can fix that! :)

[contrariety.livejournal.com]

I am just commenting to say that my brain insists on reading èrguōtóu as a derivative of the word "ergot" which, you must admit, would make an amazing liquor. In fact, I am shocked no one has done that yet. It would be for the people who were underwhelmed by absinthe.

Incidentally, I had this stuff the other day:
http://www.rhumbologne.fr/

It's basically... French rum? But it's... less distilled, or something? Because it doesn't taste like normal rum.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It would be for the people who were underwhelmed by absinthe.

Very true. I wonder if ethanol breaks down ergotamine.

All wikipedia has is "Le rhum Bologne est un rhum agricole produit à Basse-Terre en Guadeloupe (France)."

I'd never even heard of it before, but of course it makes sense that the French Caribbean islands would make rum just like anyone else in the neighborhood.

[hotpoint.livejournal.com]

Rhum agricole is made with sugar cane juice as the base, as cachaça is, rather than with molasses as other rums. Depending on r(h)um, that should give it less of the caramel-molasses flavor of a dark rum, and more of a turbinado-sugar flavor plus a bit of the taste of the sugar cane itself.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

how does one pronounce "ЛИВИЗ", anyway?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Liviz is how I've seen it transliterated.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yup!

And Охта is Ohta but that х is more like the ch in 'loch.'

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Becherovka and Mandarin?

Báijiǔ and Slovak?

AWESOME.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Becherovka

I brought a bottle of that back from the Czech Republic for colinmac, back when you could still bring liquids on board aircraft.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

As did my uncle a few summers ago. (He married in-- he's not Slovak at all. But he drinks the booze and studies the language because he's a nerd like that and he has a MA in Russian Studies.)

I know where to find it locally, actually: Table & Vine in W Springfield carries it.