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May 26, 2008
Quake Lake?
Disasters often add grim new terminology to the English lexicon (see: IED, hanging chad, grassy knoll, etc.) and the Wenchuan Earthquake is no different. Actually, it is, because I can't think of any other event that took place in a non-English speaking country that so quickly produced a new English term, like quake lake.
I did a quick search to find the origin of the term in its current usage, and made another surprising discovery... quake lake seems to have spread like a disease from one brilliant mind at Xinhua, quickly attaching itself to respectable journalists across the globe. I even put together a little chart to track the progression:
| May 22 | Wen flew to Mianyang, in southwest Sichuan Province, the area hit hardest by the magnitude 8 earthquake on May 12, and took helicopter to Tangjiashan in Beichuan county to oversee the situation of a quake lake there. In Sichuan, there are 33 "quake lakes" formed by landslides that blocked rivers. The one in Tangjiashan is one of the three largest. (Xinhua) |
| May 23 | Xinhua said Mr Wen would check the state of a so-called quake lake in Tangjiashan, Beichuan county. (SCMP) Steps have been taken to reduce the risks of "quake lakes" - formed by landslides that blocked rivers - before the rainy season starts or further aftershocks, officials said yesterday. (China Daily) The onset of the rainy season is swelling dangerous "quake lakes" and compounding the difficulties of reconstruction after China's worst earthquake in decades. (Reuters) |
| May 26 | If the barrier holding back water in the Tangjiashan quake lake is breached, a flash flood could threaten the lives of 70,000 people downstream, the state media reported. (New York Times) According to a 2004 paper by geologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, about 5,500 people were killed after quake lakes burst in the last century. (The Guardian) |
Now that m'dawg Tania Branigan at The Guardian is pushing quake lake, I'm pretty sure it's gonna stick. Jake Hooker at the New York Times used the term for a second time today.
For all you outdoorsy types, yes, I'm familiar with Quake Lake in Montana, near Yellowstone National Park. The lake was formed in 1959 when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the sparsely populated area, quickly becoming a tourist attraction. No word on whether or not the Xinhua writer had any previous knowledge of that particular lake, but I think the use of the lowercase quake lake as a general term for bodies of water created by seismic activity is new.
I suppose Xinhua has introduced other terms into the English language over the years, but quake lake comes without any political baggage and, better yet, it rhymes. Perhaps it's not as Orwellian as splittists, and it certainly lacks the panache of Cultural Revolution, but I think quake lake is the perfect way to quickly describe what would otherwise be tediously written out as "lakes formed when landslides caused by an earthquake result in the flow of a river being blocked".
posted May 26, 2008 at 11:46 PM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!
Comments
I've also seen "barrier lake". More scientific sounding, but that's just me.
The Japanese are one up the Chinese on this though. Instead of what might be called "quake wave" coming into the English language, we have "tsunami".
Correspondingly, if Xinhua were as smart as you believed, they should have pushed for "yansaihu" instead of "quake lake".
Posted by: Nimrod at May 27, 2008 04:26 AM
Ah, but a tsunami can be caused by volcanoes and meteors (I know the technical definition is bolide) in addition to earthquakes. Plus, "quake wave" is a slant rhyme.
Posted by: Tiako at May 27, 2008 06:12 AM
But yansaihu can also be caused by regular landslides and debris. It literally means barrier-blocked-lake, with no reference to earthquakes. It is also a pre-existing word in Chinese.
Posted by: Nimrod at May 27, 2008 06:54 AM
I've been told of an underground group in Sichuan who have applied to the Religious Affairs Ministry for the right to practice their faith.
In lieu of current circumstances I am not so sure how the ministry will react to the Quackers applicaiton?!?
Posted by: jimba at May 27, 2008 02:08 PM
Quackers? You mean Quakers... erm.. Religious Society of Friends? Hume-ian slip?
Posted by: Ryan at May 28, 2008 09:19 AM
Quake Lake was used several times today on NPR, hence, I think it's here to stay.
Posted by: rick at May 30, 2008 12:27 AM
Seems lame and disingenuous for an armchair lexicographer to discard prior language (including one that is a commonly-recommended tour stop for the most famous scenic park in the world).
How do you rationalize this as not being the byproduct of the mental stickiness of a rhyme and the odds that this prior lake is known enough to have innoculated the term into common speech.
Last of all, rather than looking around a news room, call any geology or natural-resources management department in any college in the world and get their view. I'd bet that even in Italy or some farflung (neither US nor Chinese) nation, that regardless of language there are expert staff that have long been familiar with the english 'quake lake' term. Given how commonly mild seismic events cause landslides that close off streams or rivers and create lakes, it is a term that is steadily and inevitably used by people working in these fields.
The term is not new just because you're unfamiliar with it.
Posted by: d2 at May 30, 2008 07:28 PM
Even if it was used by a highly specialized group of people in the past, it's still significant as a term that's moved towards general use. I'm sure IED (improvised explosive device) was a term that's been around the military for years, but the fact that many of us are now familiar with the term is the important thing.
Posted by: michael at May 30, 2008 08:10 PM