Wine is a universal language in itself.
Born in Mesopotamia in the Middle-East, it was spread all over Europe by the Greeks and more importantly the Romans.
After being adopted as part of the native culture all over the Old World, it has gained in popularity also everywhere in the New World.
Consumption of wine in Asia has risen as well dramatically over the past few decades making of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of the continent one of the biggest wine market in the world.
How do all these people say the word ‘Wine‘?
If you go around the world traveling, how do make sure you can order your favorite beverage and make yourself understand to try the local plonk.
Ancient Greeks said oinos (οἶνος), the Romans introduced the word vino.
We’ve gathered for you how to say ‘wine’ in 8 of the world’s most-spoken languages so you’re sure you can continue sharing the passion in your travel and discoveries.
If you manage to remember those 8, our calculations show that you can make yourself understand with 41.5% of the worldwide population, that is to say nearly 3 billion people. That is a lot of wine lover friends to share with !!!
The infographic above gathers how to say wine in the eight following languages (with number of native speaker for each language in millions=M, and the corresponding percentage of the world’s population):
- English: Wine (360M, 5.4%)
- Spanish: Vino (405M, 6.1%)
- French: Vin (74M, 1.1%)
- Italian: Vino (59M, 0.9%)
- German: Wein (89M, 1.4%)
- Mandarin (traditional Chinese): 葡萄酒 – pronounced Pútáojiǔ (955M, 14.4%)
- Japanese: ワイン – pronounced Wain (125M, 1.9%)
- Russian: вино – pronounced vino (155M, 203%)
- Portuguese: Vinho – pronounced vinio (215M, 3.3%)
- Hindi (main language of India): वाइन – pronounced Vā’ina (310M, 4.7%)
The population figures were gathered from Wikipedia’s list of languages by native speakers.
Enjoy the journey my friends…
Continue your exploration of the wonderful world of wine with all our wine knowledge articles.
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