Eskimo words for snow

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The belief that the "language of the Eskimo " (in fact there are several Eskimo languages) has a particularly large number of words for snow compared to other languages is a common misconception . In fact, it is no more than in other languages, because in Eskimo languages ​​compounds like wet snow appear as one word. In addition, other languages ​​also have many words for snow, unlike Franz Boas, who falsely puts it in the mouth, to whom this modern saga from the beginning of the 20th century goes back.

history

The ethnologist and linguist Franz Boas mentioned this topic for the first time in 1911. Boas was a cultural relativist and wanted to use this example to show, among other things, how different peoples linguistically adapt to their living environment and classify the phenomenal world differently through language. He first named four different lexemes , which according to him denote "snow on the ground", "falling snow", "drifting snow" and "snowdrift", and contrasted them with English snow , which can be used to describe all these phenomena. However, he emphasized less the terminological diversity than the fact that the Eskimo lacks a general umbrella term under which all these types of snow can be subsumed. The same applies in Eskimo to the difference between drinking water and salt water , and the lack of a general term for water . He wanted to show that the vocabulary of the various language communities reflects the characteristics of their communicative interests. In this context, Benjamin Whorf , one of the eponymous representatives of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis , also cited the topic in 1940 in order to redefine the relationship between language and worldview.

These considerations were taken up by the public and popularized and changed in the process. Over time, the supposed number of words for snow in the supposed Eskimo increased from four to 100 words.

background

The Eskimo-Aleut language family includes a whole range of languages ​​spoken in northern Canada , Alaska , Siberia, and Greenland . The number of words for snow varies depending on the individual language. For the language Yupik, for example, a number of approx. 24 lexical units is used, which are however partly related to each other through word formation (as in German snow and powder snow ). However, there is no general term, such as “snow”, which subsumes all these manifestations of frozen water without exception under one generic term (comparable to the lack of a non-composite generic term for “ice” and “snow”).

The following three general terms exist in Greenlandic , whereby further differentiations can be made within the first:

  • aput "snow on the ground" (< api.voq "snow" + -ut noun acti / loci / instrumenti )
    • aperlaaq "snow" (< api.voq + -er.poq privative + -laaq diminutive )
    • aput aqitsoq "loose snow" (< aqip.poq "soft" + -toq PPA )
    • aput aajuitsoq " firn " (< aap.poq "melt" + -juip.poq "never" + -toq PPA )
    • aput qaasinartoq "moist snow" (< qaas.er.poq "moist" + -nar.poq resultative - passive + -toq PPA )
    • manngeqqak, manngertaq "Harsch" (< mannger.poq "hard" + -taq PPP )
    • qinoq " slush "
    • apusineq " Snowdrift , Wächte " ( aput + -si.voq "become" + -neq nom.abstr. )
    • apussarineq "high snow" ( aput + -sar.poq hab. + -neq nom.abstr. )
    • maagaliornartoq " deep snow " (< maagar.poq "sink into the snow" + -lior.poq "create" + -nar.poq resultative - passive + -toq PPA )
  • qanik "falling snow, snowflakes"
  • sullarneq " snow flurry " (< sullap.poq "filled with snow" + -neq nom.abstr. )

The Alaska-Yupik contains the following dictionary entries for "snow":

  • aniu "snow on the ground"
  • apun "snow on the ground"
  • qanikcaq "fallen snow on the ground" (< qanuk "snowflakes")
  • kanevvluk "light snow"
  • muruaneq "soft deep snow"
  • natquik " snowdrift "
  • nevluk "sticky snow"
  • qanisqineq "snow on water"
  • qetrar "harsh"
  • utvak "snow block "
  • navcaq " Snowdrift , Wächte "
  • nutaryuq "fresh snow"

Such a number of different names is not uncommon in view of the meteorological manifestations of snow (see Snow # Snow types ). The word field snow therefore also includes a number of words in other languages, but these are less known, especially in a non-rural context. In German, a distinction is made between the age of the precipitation - new snow (maximum three days old) and old snow - as well as its consistency, e.g. B. powder (loose, dropped below zero degrees), Harsch (via frozen powder snow), breakable crust (a particularly massive layer of ice snow) Press snow (on slopes, is Blowing mostly by wind and solidified snow), sticky snow or wet snow , corn snow (wet and difficult), slush or septic snow (mixed consistency without cohesion), Griesel (repeatedly frozen, granular snow) firn (at least one year old, repeatedly frozen). There are also the words avalanche, cornice and snowdrift. There are also further differences between the Swiss-German and Bavarian (including the Austrian) dialects.

Even the English have more than just a single lexeme for snow-related concepts ( snow, slush, sleet, blizzard and so on).

All Eskimo-Aleut languages ​​are polysynthetic languages. This means that many concepts that can only be expressed on a phrasal level in non-polysynthetic languages are realized in these languages ​​via multiple affigations with a single word. In German, for example, there is no other option than, for example, using phrasal combinations such as snow that has started to melt to express the desired content. In Eskimo-Aleut languages, such units usually appear as a single, complex word. The number of simple words for "snow" is not increased by this; such complex words can always be traced back to simple lexical roots , the number of which is not significantly higher than in other languages. These differences are due to the language type .

The Icelandic language offers a large number of expressions for snow with 16 word stems. For example, snowfall is called “fannkoma”, heavy snowfall with large flakes in calm weather “hundslappadrífa”, powder snow “lausamjöll” and snowfall with wind “ofanbylur”.

The Scots has probably the most extensive snow terminology with 421 terms, such as snaw "snow", sneesl "start to snow lightly", damp "light snow", spitters "small snowflakes in the wind", skelf , "large snowflake", blin-drift " Snowdrift ", snaw-pouther " fine snow drift ", flindrikin " light snow shower " , feefle " swirling snow ", snaw-ghast " apparition in the snow ". It doesn’t snow much in Scotland, but the fact that other domains of the meteorological vocabulary also show a similar expression seems to at least indicate that in Scotland people like to talk about weather in a very differentiated way.

Literary echo

The phenomenon found a literary echo in Kathrin Passig's story “You are here”, with which she won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2006:

“Eskimos have innumerable words for snow, just like unimaginative fellow men like to throw into the conversation at this point. Presumably, this is intended to indicate the city dweller's dulled perception of nature. I have no patience with the followers of this banal claim. The Eskimo languages ​​are polysynthetic, which means that even rarely used expressions like "snow falling on a red t-shirt" can be summarized in a single word. It is so tiring to have to explain that over and over again. "

The modern myth is also alluded to in Siegfried Frieseke's metalinguistic novel GLIBBER bis GRÄZIST :

"[...] These gauchos have more words for their nags than the Eskimos for snow ..." "You should delete this comparative figure from your cosmovision. - You are embarrassing yourself with it in front of anyone who has mastered the beginnings of linguistics. "" Cursed! What's wrong with that? "" Everything. 'The' Eskimo language does not exist; the definition of word is even more epic in agglutinating grammars than anywhere else, and people who are familiar with it have nowhere found a noticeably higher number of base phrases for 'snow' than, say, in Upper Bavarian. "" You are caught up in so many myths ... [...] "( GLIBBER to GRÄZIST , Borsdorf 2011, p. 559f.)"

This error was also exaggerated, in the song “Ein Affe und ein Pferd” published by KIZ in 2013 , taken up by Tarek as a punchline and used in this context as an allusion to the drug cocaine.

"Cops are listening to my cell phone (is he talking about coke now?)

I have 50 words for snow, like Eskimos "

- Tarek Ebéné : KIZ - A monkey and a horse

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Right / Right ?: Eskimos have more than 20 expressions for snow. In: time online. May 27, 1999, accessed on February 12, 2018 : "The anthropologist Franz Boas mentioned at the beginning of the century that the Eskimos had four stems for snow - as evidence of the complexity of supposedly" primitive "languages."
  2. ^ Franz Boas: The Mind of Primitive Man. Macmillan, New York 1911, p. 211.
  3. ↑ after Kirsten Gade Jones and Robert Petersen, Ordbogen Dansk - Grønlandsk , Nuuk 2003, p. 737
  4. ↑ after Steven A. Jacobson, Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary , Fairbanks, 1984, p. 744
  5. ↑ Anatol Stefanowitsch : Who has the most words for snow? Interview. December 31, 2012.
  6. ↑ Eskimos don't have the most words for snow , faz.net of September 23, 2015
  7. ↑ Scots beat Inuit in words for snow University of Glasgow News, September 23, 2015
  8. ↑ Bachmann Prize archive at orf.at
  9. ↑ KIZ - A Monkey and a Horse (Official Video). Retrieved March 15, 2017 .
  10. ↑ heard at 0: 35-0: 41