# The truth's in wine



## doman

I don't know the origin source of this idiom, I just know in Czech language is " Ve vine je pravda !" and I translated into English as " The truth's in wine". Maybe is not corect, I am grateful to someone for corected !

How do you say this idiom in your language ?

In Vietnamese, we don't have an idiom as corectly as this, just something similar. *"Rượu vào, lời ra !"* means "Alcohol come in, words come out"


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## Cherubino

Well, the original quote is Latin (from Pliny the Elder), and it is *In vino veritas*.


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## Ilmo

I think the original is in latin: *In vino veritas*

In* Finnish:*
*Viinissä on totuus*

But unfortunately there are some wicked fellows who have twisted the original Latin phrase In vino veritas into Finnish as follows: *Viinissä on vettä taas*. It means: There is again water in the wine.


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## Thomas1

In Polish:
_W winie prawda_.
Ot's the counter part of the Latin version.

Tom


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## Honour

Latin: in vino veritas, in aqua sanitas.
Turkish: Gerçek şarapta, sağlık sudadır. 
Though, we don't have this expression in Turkish.


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## Chazzwozzer

How about _*"Şarapta hakikat vardır." *_?


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## jazyk

In Portuguese it would literally be _A verdade está no vinho_, but I don't think I've ever heard that. I've heard the Latin sentence _In vino veritas _more often.


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## Alijsh

*Persian*: masti yo râsti (literally: drunkenness and truthfulness)


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## OldAvatar

jazyk said:


> In Portuguese it would literally be _A verdade está no vinho_, but I don't think I've ever heard that. I've heard the Latin sentence _In vino veritas _more often.



The same in Romanian, I'm not aware of an existance of such proverb in Romanian. A translation would be: 

Adevărul este în vin.


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## Ptak

*Russian:*
Истина в вине (Istina v vine).


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## Outsider

jazyk said:


> In Portuguese it would literally be _A verdade está no vinho_, but I don't think I've ever heard that. I've heard the Latin sentence _In vino veritas _more often.


Yes. A possibly more elegant translation, also closer to the Latin phrase, would be _No vinho, a verdade_ "In wine, the truth".
I've tried to think of an equivalent saying in Portuguese, but can't recall any.


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## Nanon

French
Litterally, it would be _"La vérité est dans le vin"_, but I don't recall I've ever heard that (cf. Portuguese)

Spanish
Also not litteral: _"El vino de la verdad es amigo"_ (Wine is a friend of the truth)


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## krolaina

Español: En el vino está la verdad. Claro, todo el mundo sabe que los borrachos dicen siempre la verdad...


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## Bienvenidos

krolaina said:


> Español: En el vino está la verdad. Claro, todo el mundo sabe que los borrachos dicen siempre la verdad...



...y la dicen con orgullo  

IN PERSIAN:
 masti yo râsti (what Alijsh said) looks good; "masti" means playfullness, like foolishness, drunkeness. You would say, "masti nako" to say, "Don't fool/mess around!"

_Râsti is truth
_while
_Akikut is reality

  
_


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## doman

Outsider said:


> Yes. A possibly more elegant translation, also closer to the Latin phrase, would be _No vinho, a verdade_ "In wine, the truth".


 
Yes, I thought it's corected ! "In wine, the truth".
Thanks !


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

In Slovene:

*V vinu je resnica.*

(In wine there's a truth.)


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## Celoriu

The expression doesn't exist in Asturian, but the translation would be something like _"La verdá ta nel vino."_


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## univerio

Chinese: 酒后吐真言[酒後吐真言] (True words are spoken after alcohol.)


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## Maja

In Serbian: 

*U vinu je istina* / *У вину је истина*


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## Honour

Chazzwozzer said:


> How about _*"Şarapta hakikat vardır." *_?


Sounds good to me. I haven't heard either of them anyway


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## larosa

I think in Hungarian it is: *Borban van az igazság*.


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## Whodunit

The German expression "*Im Wein liegt die Wahrheit*" literally means "In vine lies the truth."


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## Zsanna

The set translation in Hungarian is: Borban az igazság, but the Latin form (In vino veritas) is fairly known and used as well.


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## Lugubert

I've only heard and read the Latin version in Sweden, never an attempt to translate it.


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## Encolpius

Zsanna said:


> The set translation in Hungarian is: Borban az igazság, but the Latin form (In vino veritas) is fairly known and used as well.


 
And what's more, since wine is very popular in Hungary we have a song about wine in a famous operette that beginns with this sentence.

_*Borban az igazság*, borban a vigasz.
Borban a felejtés, borban a tavasz.
Borban él az élet, benne messze téved,
Minden bánatunk. Rajta, hát! Igyunk!
_


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## Miguel Antonio

krolaina said:


> Español: En el vino está la verdad. Claro, todo el mundo sabe que los borrachos dicen siempre la verdad...


En España decimos que los niños y los borrachos dicen siempre la verdad


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## sokol

Zsanna said:


> The set translation in Hungarian is: Borban az igazság, but the Latin form (In vino veritas) is fairly known and used as well.


Interesting, because in Austria too the Latin version 'In vino veritas' is well known and much used (also by people who do not have a classical education).


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## ThomasK

In Dutch we sometimes say:
Als de wijn is in de man,
is de wijsheid in de kan. 

[If the wine is in the man,
the wisdom is in the bottle (or the wine container).]

Which sounds similar to the one you are asking about. But I now realize it almost has the opposite meaning. Ours is rather moralistic...

We do not translate the Latin, I think ---- probably because we assume every Flemish person speaks Latin...


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## Zsanna

I find it an interesting wink at the "original" saying, Jan. 
Truth is in wine (according to our interpretation) because if you drink a certain amount of it, you'll say exactly what's on your mind (i.e. the "truth") - which is far from being wise most of the time!


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## sound shift

In the UK it is not translated. It remains _in vino veritas._


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## ThomasK

I am very pleased with the compliment, Zsanna.  ;-) 

If we start talking about the word _truth_, then we'd better open up a new thread. Whcih I'd love to do but I'll have to wait for a while. 

Thanks for the hint though...


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## Lopes

ThomasK said:


> In Dutch we sometimes say:
> Als de wijn is in de man,
> is de wijsheid in de kan.



"Dronken mensen spreken de waarheid" is maybe a less subtle way to put it. (Drunk people speak the truth)

I like 'as de jenever naar beneden is komt de waarheid naar boven' better though (with authentic Jordaan accent )


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## ilocas2

doman said:


> I just know in Czech language is " Ve víně je pravda !"



I added diacritics.


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## apmoy70

Greek:

Archaism (verbatim translation): *«ἐν οἴνῳ ἀλήθεια»* [en ˈino aˈliθi.a] 
MoGr: *«η αλήθεια βρίσκεται στο κρασί»* [i aˈliθi.a ˈvriscete sto kraˈsi] --> _thruth is found in wine_


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## Kotlas

Whodunit said:


> The German expression "*Im Wein liegt die Wahrheit*" literally means "In vine lies the truth."


It's a slip of the tongue and it should be "In *w*ine lies the truth", of course. Since *v*ine is a grape plant, it would probably be correct to say "on vine _grows_ the truth".

But this 'in vino veritas' saying is one of those proverbs that have become shortened over the years (or rather, centuries). Its full version is 'In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas' (as has already been mentioned in post #5). I believe it could be a good topic for a new thread about sayings that are, in fact, only abridged versions of longer proverbs with a more complicated meaning.


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## ThomasK

Very interesting addition indeed. But then I suppose you could add quotes brought back to their context... It might also be revealing.

What is the larger context of the vino/aqua proverb?


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## Kotlas

ThomasK said:


> What is the larger context of the vino/aqua proverb?


Pliny the Elder is the author of _Naturalis historia, _the work (divided into 37 books) that has the earliest known allusion to the phrase "in vino veritas". He refers to it in Book 14 (Chapter 28 - Drunkenness), which he begins by calling wine "a liquid which deprives man of his reason and drives him to frenzy and to the commission of a thousand crimes!" And when Pliny describes how alcohol impairs men's ability to control what they say and to whom, he writes:

"Then it is that all the secrets of the mind are revealed; one man is heard to disclose the provisions of his will, another lets fall some expression of fatal import, and so fails to keep to himself words which will be sure to come home to him with a cut throat. And how many a man has met his death in this fashion! Indeed, it has become quite a common proverb, that "in wine there is truth."
Pliny the Elder,  The Natural History, BOOK XIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT TREES., CHAP. 28. (22.)—DRUNKENNESS.

Pliny does not add the expression 'in aqua sanitas', but his Book 31 (Remedies Derived From the Aquatic Production) is mostly devoted to water. In that book, he provides information on various bodies of water (rivers, lakes, springs, etc) where water is of medical value. Some of the chapter titles in the book speak for themselves:
Waters productive of fecundity. Waters curative of insanity.
Waters curative of wounds. Waters preventive of abortion.

And although he also mentions 'waters' with some negative impact on humans, he clearly states that water as such is a 'beverage given to us by Nature' and a 'wholesome element'.

Therefore, it is quite possible that when later authors (impressed by the information in _Naturalis historia_) used the 'in vino veritas' phrase mentioned by Pliny, they also added the part about water. After all, it is a common proverb pattern to have _things, qualities, etc. contrasted or at least compared_. So, if wine is a beverage with some clearly negative 'side effects', it is only logical to add the phrase about water which is a 'source of health' - in contrast to wine.

There is no information as to who recorded the proverb in its full form (In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas) for the first time. But similar proverbs exist 'across cultures and nations'.
However, the second half is not so popular (and not nearly so often quoted) as the first - maybe because it is considered by many to be a boring reminder of some dull universal truth.
What's more, some people do not use the first half as a warning to stay sober to avoid revealing secrets. Instead, they regard it as an 'invitation' to drink in order to find the truth. They have come up with a jocular ending to replace the "dull" _aqua_ axiom:

In vino veritas, _ergo bibamus_! The truth's in wine, _so let's drink_!


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

sound shift said:


> In the UK it is not translated. It remains _in vino veritas._



In the US, too (at least, I've only ever heard the the Latin expression). We seem not to have heard from any French 'natives'; I think it's "Le vin délie les langues.", literally "Wine unties  tongues."...even though we sometimes get our tongues tangled when we're in our cups! 

CORRECTION: Nanon (March 22 2007) is a French speaker.

If it was a 'common expression' in Pliny's time (the beginning of the 'Common Era'), it may have had its origins in ancient Greece - ?


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## ThomasK

Great information, Kotlas, thanks a lot!


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## djara

In Tunisian Arabic we say: اسقيه واستقصيه   "isqeeh w-itaqseeh", meaning give  him a drink (of wine) and ask him questions.


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## djmc

In Roman times water was relatively pure and in many cases very pure. In Rome they were quite proud of the quality of the various springs supplying the city. The aqua virgo was particularly prized. However in most regions alchoholic drinks were probably healthier to drink than water from the nearest source of water which may well be polluted. Alchohol is a fairly efficient anti-bacterial agent.


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