The claim that Eskimo words for snow are unusually numerous, particularly in contrast to English, is a

cliché A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...

commonly used to support the controversial

linguistic relativity Linguistic relativity asserts that language influences worldview or cognition. One form of linguistic relativity, linguistic determinism, regards peoples' languages as determining and influencing the scope of cultural perceptions of their surro ...

hypothesis. In linguistic terminology, the relevant languages are the

Eskimo–Aleut languages The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...

, specifically the Yupik and

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

varieties. The strongest interpretation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, also known as the Sapir– Whorf hypothesis or "Whorfianism", posits that a language's vocabulary (among other features) shapes or limits its speakers' view of the world. This interpretation is widely criticized by linguists, though a 2010 study supports the core notion that the Yupik and Inuit languages have many more

root word A root (also known as a root word or radical) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. Th ...

s for ''frozen variants of water'' than the English language. The original claim is loosely based in the work of anthropologist

Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the mov ...

and was particularly promoted by his contemporary,

Benjamin Lee Whorf Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how the ...

, whose name is connected with the hypothesis. The idea is commonly tied to larger discussions on the connections between language and thought.

Overview

did not make quantitative claims but rather pointed out that the

Eskaleut languages The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...

have about the same number of distinct

word roots A root (also known as a root word or radical) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. Th ...

referring to ''snow'' as English does, with the structure of these languages tending to allow more variety as to how those roots can be modified in forming a single word.Geoffrey K. Pullum's explanation
in Language Log: ''The list of snow-referring roots to stick uffixeson isn't that long n the Eskimoan language group ''qani''- for a snowflake, ''apu''- for snow considered as stuff lying on the ground and covering things up, a root meaning "slush", a root meaning "blizzard", a root meaning "drift", and a few others -- very roughly the same number of roots as in English. Nonetheless, the number of distinct words you can derive from them is not 50, or 150, or 1500, or a million, but simply unbounded. Only stamina sets a limit.'' A good deal of the ongoing debate thus depends on how one defines "word", and perhaps even "word root". The first re-evaluation of the claim was by linguist Laura Martin in 1986, who traced the history of the claim and argued that its prevalence had diverted attention from serious research into

. A subsequent influential and humorous, and polemical, essay by Geoffrey K. Pullum repeated Martin's critique, calling the process by which the so-called "myth" was created the "Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax". Pullum argued that the fact that the number of word roots for snow is about equally large in Eskimoan languages and English indicates that there exists no difference in the size of their respective vocabularies to define snow. Other specialists in the matter of Eskimoan languages and Eskimoan knowledge of snow and especially sea ice argue against this notion and defend Boas's original fieldwork amongst the

, at the time known as

Eskimo ''Eskimo'' () is a controversial Endonym and exonym, exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Canadian Inuit, and the Greenlandic Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Sibe ...

, of

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smal ...

. Languages in the

and Yupik language groups add

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

es to words to express the same concepts expressed in English and many other languages by means of compound words, phrases, and even entire sentences. One can create a practically unlimited number of new words in the Eskimoan languages on any topic, not just snow, and these same concepts can be expressed in other languages using combinations of words. In general and especially in this case, it is not necessarily meaningful to compare the number of words between languages that create words in different ways due to different

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

structures. On the other hand, some anthropologists have argued that Boas, who lived among Baffin islanders and learned their language, did in fact take account of the

polysynthetic In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...

nature of Inuit language and included "only words representing meaningful distinctions" in his account.David Robson, New Scientist 2896, December 18 2012, ''Are there really 50 Eskimo words for snow?''
"Yet Igor Krupnik, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Washington DC believes that Boas was careful to include only words representing meaningful distinctions. Taking the same care with their own work, Krupnik and others have now charted the vocabulary of about 10 Inuit and Yupik dialects and conclude that there are indeed many more words for snow than in English (SIKU: Knowing Our Ice, 2010). Central Siberian Yupik has 40 such terms, whereas the Inuit dialect spoken in Nunavik, Quebec, has at least 53, including matsaaruti, wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners, and pukak, for the crystalline powder snow that looks like salt. For many of these dialects, the vocabulary associated with sea ice is even richer." Igor Krupnik, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Washington, supports Boas's work but notes that Boas was careful to include only words representing meaningful distinctions. Krupnik and others charted the vocabulary of about 10 Inuit and Yupik dialects and concluded that they indeed have many more words for snow than English does. Central Siberian Yupik has 40 terms. In Nunavimmiutitut, the Inuktitut dialect spoken in Canada's

Nunavik Nunavik (; ; ) is an area in Canada which comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, part of the Nord-du-Québec region and nearly coterminous with Kativik. Covering a land area of north of the 55th parallel, it is the homelan ...

region has at least 53, including , for wet snow that can be used to ice a sleigh's runners, and , for crystalline powder snow that looks like salt. Within these dialects, the vocabulary associated with

sea ice Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less density, dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world' ...

is even richer. In the

Iñupiaq language Iñupiaq or Inupiaq ( , ), also known as Iñupiat, Inupiat ( ), Iñupiatun or Alaskan Inuit, is an Inuit language, or perhaps group of languages, spoken by the Iñupiat people in northern and northwestern Alaska, as well as a small adjacent par ...

Wales, Alaska Wales (, ) is a City (Alaska), city in the Nome Census Area, Alaska, Nome Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census the population was 145, down from 152 in 2000. It is the westernmost city on the North ...

, Krupnik documented 70 terms for ice including: , ice that lasts year after year; , a patchwork layer of crystals that form as the sea begins to freeze; and , ice that is filled with holes. Similarly, the Sámi peoples, who live in the northern tips of

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

and Russia, use at least 180 words related to snow and ice, according to Ole Henrik Magga, a linguist in Norway. Unlike Inuit dialects,

Sámi languages The Sámi languages ( ), also rendered in English language, English as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Indigenous Sámi peoples in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwest ...

are not polysynthetic, making it easier to distinguish words. Studies of the

of Norway, Sweden and Finland, conclude that the languages have anywhere from 180 snow- and ice-related words and as many as 300 different words for

types of snow Classifications of snow describe and categorize the attributes of snow-generating weather events, including the individual crystals both in the air and on the ground, and the deposited snow pack as it changes over time. Snow can be classified ...

, tracks in snow, and conditions of the use of snow.

Origins and significance

The first reference to Inuit having multiple words for snow is in the introduction to ''Handbook of American Indian languages'' (1911) by linguist and anthropologist

. He says: The essential morphological question is why a language would say, for example, "lake", "river", and "brook" instead of something like "waterplace", "waterfast", and "waterslow". English has many snow-related words, but Boas's intent may have been to connect differences in culture with differences in language. The hypothesis of

put forth by

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguistics, linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States ...

and

, holds that the language we speak both affects and reflects our view of the world. This idea is also reflected in the concept behind

general semantics General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophy, philosophic and science, scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate list of schools of philosophy, school of philosophy, a separate science, or ...

. In a popular 1940 article on the subject, Whorf referred to Eskimo languages having several words for snow: Later writers, prominently Roger Brown in his ''Words and Things: An Introduction to Language'' and Carol Eastman in her ''Aspects of Language and Culture'', inflated the figure in sensationalized stories: by 1978, the number quoted had reached fifty, and on February 9, 1984, an unsigned editorial in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' gave the number as one hundred. However, the linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum contends that Inuit and other related dialects do not possess an extraordinarily large number of terms for snow.

Inuit word roots

Three distinct word roots with the meaning ''snow'' are reconstructed for the Proto-Eskimoan language: 'falling snow', 'fallen snow', and 'snow on the ground'. These three stems are found in all Inuit languages and dialects—except for West Greenlandic, the main dialect of the

Greenlandic language Greenlandic, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Kalaallisut (, ), is an Inuit languages, Inuit language belonging to the Eskaleut languages#Internal classification, Eskimoan branch of the Eskaleut languages, Eskaleut language family. ...

, which lacks . The Alaskan Yup'ik and

Siberian Yupik Siberian Yupiks, or Yuits (), are a Yupik peoples, Yupik people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far Russian Far East, northeast of the Russia, Russian Federation and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. They speak Si ...

people (among others) however, are not

Iñupiat The Inupiat (singular: Iñupiaq), also known as Alaskan Inuit, are a group of Alaska Natives whose traditional territory roughly spans northeast from Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the northernmost part of the Canada–United States borde ...

, nor are their languages Inuit or Iñupiaq, but all are classifiable as

s, lending further ambiguity to the "Eskimo words for snow" debate.

References

External links

Geoffrey K. Pullum's explanation from
Language Log
"Eskimo" words for snow
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621091527/http://www.derose.net/steve/guides/snowwords/index.html , date=2008-06-21 by Steven DeRose, including English lists
Snow' lexemes in Yup'ik

by Igor Krupnik. Eskaleut languages Snow in culture Snowclones Urban legends Stereotypes of Inuit people Misconceptions

Overview

Origins and significance

Inuit word roots

See also

References

Further reading

External links