A language question

[Calthrop]

If you didn't know, it's called lenition, and gives rise to the most obscure T-shirt slogan I know:

Gaels of the World, lenite!

My new word for today -- thank you !

 

[MarcVD]

It is also said, but not proven, that the russian word Vokzal comes from the dutch expression ”wacht zaal” which means ”waiting room” and can be found written some place on every dutch station.

 

[30907]

Bulgarian is a Slavic language, while Romanian is a Romance language, which means that they have developed in completely different ways. It is still quite possible that one might have nicked a word from the other.

Or very likely both from French, which was the international/highbrow language of the day (including German nobility - "to my wife I speak French, to my horse English, to my dog German").

In this specific meaning, "chariots de gare" refers to chariots transbordeurs: transfer carriages used to shift wagons and passenger coaches laterally from mainline tracks to sidings and v.v.

A traverser in UK railway jargon.

 

[181]

When I first went to West/East Germany I discovered the name for platform was gleis in the west, but bahnsteig in the east.

My understanding is that bahnsteig is the structure you stand on, and gleis the track that the train runs on. Either could presumably be used to identify where a train is leaving from -- like British 'The London train departs from Platform 2' vs. American 'The New York train departs from Track 2'.

If I remember rightly, Poland tends to number both platforms (peron) and tracks (tor), with each physical platform having a single platform number but potentially two track numbers, one on each side.

Prague's main station is hlavni nádraží , but Bratislava's is hlavna stanica (neither are capitalised).

Polish has stacja, dworzec and przystanek; my impression is that przystanek refers to a basic halt, and dworzec to a station building and maybe by extension to a large(ish?) station (I think dwor can refer to a manor house; my street map of Wrocław labels the main station as Dworzec Główny PKP, while https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrocław_Główny appears to use both stacja and dworzec). I'm open to correction, though, from those more knowledgeable.

 

[martinsh]

If I remember rightly, Poland tends to number both platforms (peron) and tracks (tor), with each physical platform having a single platform number but potentially two track numbers, one on each side.

Same concept in Latvia - even the same word "perons". The actual track is "cels", which can mean road or way

 

[Gloster]

Perron in Danish means platform. In French it can also mean platform, although in a more general, non-railway sense.

Quai can mean both a shipping quay and a railway platform in French.

 

[Calthrop]

It is also said, but not proven, that the russian word Vokzal comes from the dutch expression ”wacht zaal” which means ”waiting room” and can be found written some place
on every dutch station.

Mockery not intended, with what follows -- all kinds of associations can be suggested for the Russian word's derivation, and the true full story will probably never be known: it does seem strange that Russian hit on this particular one to mean a railway station, but language often is strange... I've mused at times re "Voksal" (possibly suggesting that I need to get a life) -- Great Yarmouth's most prominent (and now only) station, used to be named Yarmouth (Vauxhall): one imagines Russian mariners who put in at that port, getting thence, a pleasing thought of home. And the third station out of Letterkenny on the Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway's Burtonport extension, was Foxhall -- it's imaginable that such few Russians as may ever have travelled by that rail route during its lifetime, found cause there for surprise and amusement.

Or very likely both from French, which was the international/highbrow language of the day (including German nobility - "to my wife I speak French, to my horse English, to my dog German").

I seem to recall reading that in Tsarist Russia, the nobility and upper classes mostly communicated among themselves, in French; the Russian tongue was for proles and peasants. If that was indeed the case: surprising that when railways came along, the Russian language did not take the "gare" route -- however, the ways of language can be highly random.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

French was the language of the ruling classes in Russia, that changed after 1812, the Russian peasants were taught to read and write in their own language

The French Huguenots seem to crop up all over, French could easily have become the world language instead of English. Or German or Russian

One of my favourite German words: Pufferkuesser, buffer-kisser: railway enthusiast

 

[Taunton]

Even within one language, UK and USA usage differs widely across the railway. It's amazing they use the same gauge.

Stations are commonly 'the depot' ("dee-po"). Platform numbers are 'tracks'. Station building is 'head house'. And so on.

The accepted account in Russia about Voksal for station is that the Czar, Nikolai I, was personally interested in the first railway, and sent their pioneer engineers to the London & Southampton Railway, which was nearing completion. Due to a translation misunderstanding they thought Vauxhall, the initial London end, was the word for terminus, rather than the district of London it was in.

Comparable is the route of the first long distance railway, between St Petersburg and Moscow. Hearing of disagreements between engineers over the route, the Czar got them all together with maps on a table, pulled out his sword, drew a straight line along it between the two cities, and said "that is the route". It is, if you look at it nowadays, astoundingly straight, though over very easy and flat country. There's one significant S-bend deviation down to cross the Volkhov river, and back up the other side. "What's that then?" is the question, to which every Russian today will answer "Oh, that's where the Czar's thumb was holding the sword".

The engineers presented their plans to the Czar, who by all accounts was more knowledgeable than them. They described how a "standard gauge" was starting to emerge, and trains would be able to run right through from Western Europe to Moscow and beyond. Now Nikolai I had been a junior army officer in 1812 when Napoleon invaded Russia. "I'm not having that", he said, "any invading army will come straight through on it. Use a different gauge. Not a lot, but just sufficient that it will be an impossibility to readily adapt them". And so Russian gauge became 4 inches wider than everyone else. 100 years on, 1941, it effectively saved the country. Not that Stalin (not a Russian, incidentally) gave any credit to it.

 

[SargeNpton]

Comparable is the route of the first long distance railway, between St Petersburg and Moscow. Hearing of disagreements between engineers over the route, the Czar got them all together with maps on a table, pulled out his sword, drew a straight line along it between the two cities, and said "that is the route". It is, if you look at it nowadays, astoundingly straight, though over very easy and flat country. There's one significant S-bend deviation down to cross the Volkhov river, and back up the other side. "What's that then?" is the question, to which every Russian today will answer "Oh, that's where the Czar's thumb was holding the sword".

The same legend is given about the Trans-siberian Railway; only it was a nick in Stalin's ruler that caused the kink.

 

[Beebman]

Basque is an interesting language as it's an 'isolate', i.e. it has no relationship to any others. A quick Google search reveals that the Basque word for station is 'geltokia'.

If I remember rightly, Poland tends to number both platforms (peron) and tracks (tor), with each physical platform having a single platform number but potentially two track numbers, one on each side.

There's a clear view of such signing at 2:45 in Simply Railway's latest video in Poland:

 

[rf_ioliver]

(My bolding): they inflect words at their beginnings, not their ends -- crazy Celts !

Inflections at the end; mutations at the beginning

Cerdded = to walk
Cherddaist ti? = Did you walk?

Think that's bad, wait till you see aggluntative languages like Finnish and Hungarian

 

[Calthrop]

French was the language of the ruling classes in Russia, that changed after 1812, the Russian peasants were taught to read and write in their own language

Thanks ! I didn't realise that -- so by the time railways came along, the nobs were actually conversing in their own language...

One of my favourite German words: Pufferkuesser, buffer-kisser: railway enthusiast

Which prompts me to wonder whether there's a corresponding French nickname for people like us. Going by what one gathers somewhat, about French mind-sets and attitudes, or tendencies thereto -- maybe "fou": lunatic ?

Even within one language, UK and USA usage differs widely across the railway. It's amazing they use the same gauge.

The US was quite keen on 5ft., long ago; one suspects it might have been that bit of unpleasantness between 1861 and '65 turning out the way it did, which tipped the balance !

Comparable is the route of the first long distance railway, between St Petersburg and Moscow. Hearing of disagreements between engineers over the route, the Czar got them all together with maps on a table, pulled out his sword, drew a straight line along it between the two cities, and said "that is the route". It is, if you look at it nowadays, astoundingly straight, though over very easy and flat country. There's one significant S-bend deviation down to cross the Volkhov river, and back up the other
side. "What's that then?" is the question, to which every Russian today will answer "Oh, that's where the Czar's thumb was holding the sword".

The same legend is given about the Trans-siberian Railway; only it was a nick in Stalin's ruler that caused the kink.

This does seem to be quite a durable "meme" concerning Russian tyrants. I'd heard the tale, in connection with the sorting-out after the end of World War II, of where the USSR / Finland frontier should run from then on. One part was a dead-straight stretch, being dealt with at the relevant conference with ruler-on-map: there was close to the line, somewhere or something coveted by both sides -- per the straight line, it should have been in Finland, but Stalin set his thumb right at the relevant spot, so that the line got at that one spot, a little bulge which put the location in the USSR instead. The Finnish representatives weren't happy; but having been on the losing side in the war, they had to suck it up.

Basque is an interesting language as it's an 'isolate', i.e. it has no relationship to any others. A quick Google search reveals that the Basque word for station is 'geltokia'.

I like the story told by the Basques, who seem overall to hold themselves in quite high regard: namely, that the reason why they are such a virtuous and thoroughly admirable people, is that the Devil once tried to learn Basque, in order to tempt them -- but learning the language proved to be beyond even his capability.

 

[etr221]

Even within one language, UK and USA usage differs widely across the railway. It's amazing they use the same gauge.

Stations are commonly 'the depot' ("dee-po"). Platform numbers are 'tracks'. Station building is 'head house'. And so on.

The American 'Standard Code of Operating Rules' defines 'Station' as 'A place designated in the time-table by name', and the term is widely used in thate sense. A 'depot' is essentially a building where the railway does business (handling passengers and freight) - and as a matter of usage, is said when we would say station.

Station is very much one ot those terms that everybody thinks they know, but whose definition is hard to pin down...

Every language, and railway culture, distinguishes between 'track' (where the train is) and 'platform' (from which it loads) - they just differ in how they are used, and which is more normal (in part dependent on how significant platforms might be).

 

[Gloster]

This does seem to be quite a durable "meme" concerning Russian tyrants. I'd heard the tale, in connection with the sorting-out after the end of World War II, of where the USSR / Finland frontier should run from then on. One part was a dead-straight stretch, being dealt with at the relevant conference with ruler-on-map: there was close to the line, somewhere or something coveted by both sides -- per the straight line, it should have been in Finland, but Stalin set his thumb right at the relevant spot, so that the line got at that one spot, a little bulge which put the location in the USSR instead. The Finnish representatives weren't happy; but having been on the losing side in the war, they had to suck it up.

The story about ‘Stalin’s Finger’ at Enso/Svetogorsk appears in Desmond Bagley’s book The Tightrope Men (a book that had a dramatic effect on my life, more than any other book, or anything else for that matter). It is possible that he just made it up or, more likely, repeated a story that he heard locally.

 

[Calthrop]

The story about ‘Stalin’s Finger’ at Enso/Svetogorsk appears in Desmond Bagley’s book The Tightrope Men (a book that had a dramatic effect on my life, more than any other book, or anything else for that matter). It is possible that he just made it up or, more likely, repeated a story that he heard locally.

That is indeed where I came across the story; only I'd forgotten about the place both countries wanted, being Enso / Svetogorsk. I enjoy Desmond Bagley's thrillers -- exciting but down-to-earth and often quietly funny. I'd rather have one novel by Bagley, than a dozen by the late John le Carre.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Some railway-derived phrases are quite usual in German:
Frau Merkel stellt die Weichen, she sets the turnouts
Mr Merz, who wanted to lead the CDU, lost the election, he is now on an Abstellgleis, spare siding, out of use, reminds me of what happened to non-grata engines in the Thomas stories. Could be that his political career has reached the Prellbock, buffer-stop

 

[Gloster]

In Swedish engelsman is the word for a double-slip.

 

[SHD]

Which prompts me to wonder whether there's a corresponding French nickname for people like us. Going by what one gathers somewhat, about French mind-sets and attitudes, or tendencies thereto -- maybe "fou": lunatic ?

Oh, there are a few!

One common word used to describe people who are passionate about a specific subject is "Fan" or "Fana" (shortenings of the English adjective "fanatic" itself borrowed from French), and for people who are slightly or disproportionately passionate, we use "Mordu" (literally "bitten") and indeed "Fou" (lunatic) but these are not specific to railways.

The specific word for railway buffs is "Ferrovipathe" (*) - the suffix -path(e) has the same meaning in French and in English!

A slightly pejorative expression for obsessive people with an exaggerated taste for railway minutiae, especially in the model railways community, is "compteur de rivets" (literally, someone who counts rivets!).

(*) Even though it is an unholy mix of Latin and Greek roots!

 

[Gloster]

A slightly pejorative expression for obsessive people with an exaggerated taste for railway minutiae, especially in the model railways community, is "compteur de rivets" (literally, someone who counts rivets!).

When I was young the expression ‘rivet-counter’ was known in the model railway world for those people. It is possible that the French acquired the word from our side of the Channel.

 

[D6130]

In Swedish engelsman is the word for a double-slip.

In German a double slip is 'ein Englander Weichen' and in Italian 'un complesso inglese'.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I have also seen 'Englaender' used in German to denote an adjustable wrench

A double-slip is also a Doppelkreuzweiche, double-cross point. Maybe they are so difficult that only Englishpersons could assemble them with special adjustable spanners

 

[leytongabriel]

The first train stations opened in France in the 1830s/1840s were referred to as “embarcadères” (boarding points), a word borrowed from the vocabulary of inland navigation.

The word “gare” was initially used in a slightly different sense: it referred to specific installations such as sidings on single-line railways designed for train crossing and escapement. This was also a loanword from the world of river and canals. These sidings usually coincided with stations and progressively “gare” took over “embarcadère”

see this entry from the Trésor de la langue française (the dictionary of the Académie française, wonderful for etymology):

GARE : Définition de GARE

www.cnrtl.fr

Rem. 1. Jusqu'à la fin des années 1860, on employait embarcadère* dans le sens de gare. 2. Au xixes. on a employé port*-sec pour gare de marchandises (cf. Wexler 1955, p. 87).

Does this reflect the idea that early train stopping points didn't always have the high platforms and buildings we associate with 'stations' now?

 

[Calthrop]

The specific word for railway buffs is "Ferrovipathe" (*) - the suffix -path(e) has the same meaning in French and in English!

(*) Even though it is an unholy mix of Latin and Greek roots!

Thank you for this word -- I really like it ! English-speakers have attempted to coin a term meaning the same as "railway enthusiast" -- another illegitimate offspring of the same two languages: "Ferrovialophile". No suggestion here, of mocking devotees of the hobby: meant in an altogether straight-faced way -- to go with "philatelist" and similar words; but "ferrovialophile" never caught on.

 

[takno]

Polish has stacja, dworzec and przystanek; my impression is that przystanek refers to a basic halt, and dworzec to a station building and maybe by extension to a large(ish?) station (I think dwor can refer to a manor house; my street map of Wrocław labels the main station as Dworzec Główny PKP, while https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrocław_Główny appears to use both stacja and dworzec). I'm open to correction, though, from those more knowledgeable.

Przystanek is stop in the sense of bus or tram stops. Perhaps not grand enough for most train stations, but makes sense in the phrase "4 stops to go before mine". As far as I can see PKP like to use Dworzec everywhere, but stacja seems to be understood, and is used on the Metro IIRC.

I'm not convinced there's any set hierarchy. It seems more like the difference between saying train station and railway station in the UK - i.e. if the difference offends you then you might look into how fun you are at parties!

 

[biko]

In German a double slip is 'ein Englander Weichen' and in Italian 'un complesso inglese'.

Also in Dutch it's an 'Engels wissel'. Interesting that there are so many similarities between the languages

 

[vlad]

This does seem to be quite a durable "meme" concerning Russian tyrants....

If we're mentioning these then how about another?

In its original design stage, the Moscow Metro only had radial lines (this bit at least is true!). One day the office was visited by Stalin, who placed his coffee cup on the network map, leaving a stain. The designers realised a circle line was an excellent idea and to this day it's coloured brown on the map, just as it was on the original....

 

[MarcVD]

The specific word for railway buffs is "Ferrovipathe" (*) - the suffix -path(e) has the same meaning in French and in English!

(*) Even though it is an unholy mix of Latin and Greek roots!

if you don’t like this mix, instead of ferrovipathe, you can say ”siderodromophile”. There you’ve got only greek.

 

[madjack]

Przystanek is stop in the sense of bus or tram stops. Perhaps not grand enough for most train stations, but makes sense in the phrase "4 stops to go before mine". As far as I can see PKP like to use Dworzec everywhere, but stacja seems to be understood, and is used on the Metro IIRC.

I'm not convinced there's any set hierarchy. It seems more like the difference between saying train station and railway station in the UK - i.e. if the difference offends you then you might look into how fun you are at parties!

I've spent the evening debating this with my Polish friend... We think dworzec is for bigger stations where there are *facilities* - so Ealing Broadway, although having 4 mainline platforms and 2 underground lines, probably doesn't count and is relegated to stacja.

That's the interesting thing about languages, hearing a native speaker's gut reaction and trying to work out the pattern that causes it...

 

[oldman]

The first train stations opened in France in the 1830s/1840s were referred to as “embarcadères” (boarding points), a word borrowed from the vocabulary of inland navigation.

The Wikipedia article on the Moscow station in SPB has pictures of the debarkader, which is presumably where you got off.

The name vokzal has attracted so many wacky theories about its origins. I came across some more:

Some have suggested that it derives from the German Volkssaal (people’s hall), or the Russian vokalny zal (vocal hall).

But ... a voksal was a place of entertainment, modelled on the Vauxhall gardens, as was Copenhagen's Tivoli, originally Tivoli and Vauxhall. They existed in Russia from the 18th century - Pushkin mentions them in an early poem from the 1810s. Gerstner, who proposed building the railway in 1836, also proposed a 'new Tivoli, a splendid voksal' at Pavlovsk to encourage traffic. There is still the question of when the name of one station became the generic name.