Description
Book SynopsisSalut! Prost! Skål! Na zdrave! Tagay!
No matter what country you clink glasses in, everyone has a word for cheers. In Cheers! Around the World in 80 Toasts, Brandon Cook takes readers on a whirlwind trip through languages from Estonian to Elvish and everywhere in between. Need to know how to toast in Tagalog? Say "bottoms up" in Basque? "Down the hatch" in Hungarian? Cook teaches readers how to toast in 80 languages and includes drinking traditions, historical facts, and strange linguistic phenomena for each. Sweden, for instance, has a drinking song that taunts an uppity garden gnome, while Turkey brandishes words like Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına. And the most valuable liquor brand in the world isn't Johnny Walker or Hennessey, but Maotai—President Nixon's liquor of choice when he visited China.
Whether you're traveling the globe or the beer aisle, Cheers! will show you there's a world of fun waiting for you. So raise a glass and begin exploring!
The audio book is narrated by Nicholas Smith. Produced by Speechki in 2021.
Trade ReviewSay you're invited to a wedding where the groom is from Indonesia or the bride is Romanian, and you'd like to toast them in their native languages. A new book, "Cheers! Around the World in 80 Toasts," will tell you that "Bersulang!" or "Noroc!" are what you need to say as you raise your glass. This global lexicon, written with a light touch, is a scholarly treatise on toasts in scores of languages and takes a deep dive into linguistics, history and traditions. The author, a writer and teacher, is proficient in five languages. He has organized the book by region, with the countries in each listed in alphabetical order for easy reference. You'll discover what to say, what libation should fill the glass and how it all came about. Read it with a clear head; there's much to learn.
-- Florence Fabricant * New York Times Food *
Cook debuts with an entertaining guide on how to give a toast in nearly 80 languages. . . . It's worth raising a glass to the enthusiasm and good nature of this fun project.
* Publishers Weekly *
A new book explores drinking traditions across cultures and languages, and how rituals of celebration have evolved around the world, through a spirited study of 80 ways to raise your glass.
-- Sucheta Chakraborty * Mumbai Mid-Day *
Even if you have not set foot outside of your own home for over a year, this brick of a book can take you on a whirlwind worldwide tour in the comfort of that home with the potential for an additionally comforting beverage in your non-page-turning hand! . . . We all have so much to celebrate. Let's share our joys with the world.
-- Matt Robinson * Matt's Meals *
A fascinating little book that sheds light on how different cultures raise a glass, and who, what and how they toast while doing so.
* Decanter *
The collection of wry historical insights about raising a glass in 100 countries and almost that many languages is served up with keen observations on humanity and linguistics.
-- Babs Rodriguez * 360West *
Table of ContentsForeword
Acknowledgments
Part I: Europe and Eastern Europe
1. Albanian
2. Basque (Euskara)
3. Breton
4. Bulgarian
5. Croatian
6. Czech
7. Dutch
8. English
9. Estonian
10. Finnish
11. French
12. Galician
13. German
14. Greek
15. Hungarian
16. Irish
17. Italian
18. Latvian
19. Lithuanian
20. Maltese
21. Norwegian
22. Polish
23. Portuguese
24. Romanian
25. Russian
26. Serbian
27. Slovak
28. Slovenian
29. Spanish
30. Swedish
31. Turkish
32. Ukrainian
33. Welsh
Part II: Eurasia
34. Armenian
35. Azerbaijani
36. Belarusian
37. Georgian
38. Kazakh
39. Mongolian
40. Tajik
41. Uzbek
Part III: Asia and Austronesia
42. Myanmar (Burmese)
43. Cebuano
44. Mandarin Chinese
45. Chinese Dialects
46. Hawaiian
47. Hindi
48. Indonesian
49. Japanese
50. Khmer
51. Korean
52. Malayalam
53. Malay
54. Nepali
55. Sinhala
56. Tagalog
57. Tamil
58. Thai
59. Vietnamese
Part IV: Africa and the Middle East
60. Afrikaans
61. Amharic
62. Arabic
63. Hausa
64. Igbo
65. Kinyarwanda
66. Persian (Farsi)
67. Somali
68. Swahili
69. Wolof
70. Xhosa
71. Yoruba
Part V: Ancient, Constructed, and Miscellaneous
72. American Sign Language
73. Ancient Greek
74. Aramaic (Syriac)
75. Esperanto
76. Hebrew
77. Latin
78. Na'vi
79. Quenya (Elvish)
80. Toki Pona
Language List by Country
Bibliography
