One of the things we discussed at the French conversation group last night was wind turbines, or les éoliennes in French. I hadn’t heard the word before and it took me a while to work out its meaning, but I knew it had something to do with the wind as Aeolus (Αἴολος) was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. Eventually I realised what it was from the context.
The word aeolian also appears in aeolian harp (harpe éolienne), a harp played by the wind; aeolian processes (érosion éolienne), wind generated geologic processes; the Aeolian Islands (Les Îles Éoliennes), the Aeolian mode of music, a musical mode; and Eolianite (L’éolianite), a sandstone formed from wind transported sediment.
I’m standing next to a “tyrbin gwynt” right now. They call them “rod-avel” in Breton which I think means ‘wind wheel’?
Rod-avel does indeed mean ‘wind wheel’ in Breton.
Names for wind turbines in other languages include:
Bulgarian: Ветрогенератор [vetrogenerator] (wind generator)
Catalan/Spanish: Aerogenerador (air generator)
Chinese: 風力發電機 / 风力发电机 [fēnglì fādiànjī] (wind power generator)
Czech: Větrná turbína (wind turbine)
Finnish: Tuuliturbiini (wind turbine)
German: Windrad (wind wheel)
Greek: Αιολική μηχανή [Aioliké mekhané] (wind machine)
Irish: tuirbín gaoithe (wind turbine)
Japanese: 風力原動機 [fūryoku gendōki] (wind power engine)
Scottish Gaelic: tuirbin-gaoithe (wind turbine)
windmolen in Dutch.
Can you imagine? The Dutch don’t even have a word to distinguish a modern windmill from a traditional one: it’s all ‘windmolen’. Okay, you could say ‘windturbine’, but I expect that term to be used mainly by engineers.
Never knew the French call them éolienne! That is the cutest word for such an ugly thing I’ve ever heard.
Korean – 풍력터빈 (風力turbine), or the more technical 풍력발전기 (風力發電機)