A popular but discredited story is that the Eskimo language
contains many times, even multiple times, more words for snow
than English. The story is that Eskimos have words for different
kinds and states of snow that we don't have: where we might say
"falling snow" they would have a single word.
At first blush the story seems plausible, even common sense,
as the Eskimos have more experience with snow than someone in
Miami Beach or Liverpool. Further, first glance at the Eskimo
languages does appear to support the urban myth. Where we would
have phrases describing snow ("falling snow," "Crunchy
snow." "Snow drift on the roof"), the Eskimos
appear to have single words for our phrases.
Beyond that there are multiple not one Eskimo language, the
problem with the myth is the Eskimo languages are structured
differently than English, so it appears to have more words when
it really doesn't. The Eskimos language are polysynthetic, meaning
they have words comprised of numerous words and pieces of attached
to each other. English has examples of this, including fisherman
(fisher + man), sweetheart (sweet + heart) and masterpiece (master
+ piece). The Eskimos have more extreme combinations, with long
phrases and even sentences scrunched into a word. Where we would
have the phrase "Hard snow" they might have their language
equivalent "hardsnow." Where we would say "Snow
drift on the roof of my house" they would have "Snowdriftontheroofofmyhouse."
Due to the polysynethic nature, the Eskimos attach all sorts
of words together, making new words as they go.
|
English |
Polysyntheticenglish |
|
snow |
snow |
|
white snow |
whitesnow |
|
white snow in the wind |
whitesnowinthewind |
|
white snow on a stick |
whitesnowonastick |
|
white snow on my dog |
whitesnowonmydog |
Looking at the above list, some would say English has one
word for snow, while Polysyntheticenglish has five. However,
the only real difference between the two is the right omits the
spaces. The left and right are equivalent.
In reality, the Eskimos languages hay have slightly more or
slightly fewer words, but not the vast amount more than English.
In fact, due to the different structuring of the languages, it's
impossible to exactly compare the number of words. What counts
and doesn't count as a word is debatable, and the comparing the
languages' words can be like comparing apples to oranges.
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