Talk:Eskimo words for snow/Archive 1

Archive 1

"sleet"

I think of sleet as more like frozen rain then as snow. am I wrong on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.251.184.117 (talk) 03:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Urban Legend debunkers disagree!

User:82.93.57.158 has added a link today that supposedly debunks the contention put forward in this article that Eskimo languages do not have proportionally more words for snow and ice. This happened after having had a long discussion over e-mail (that still hasn't finished) that started when I found this claim on the website maintained by User:82.93.57.158. The website is specifically dealing with debunking "urban legends", but deemed this myth to be true and used the link as evidence. This is the link: Internet newsgroup Alt.folkore.urban on Eskimo words for snow. Do you all think that this link is appropriate or are the contents of this wikipedia article misleading? Fedor 13:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

The latter. The article, though probably correct in denying that the Eskimos have "hundreds of words for snow" then goes completelly off-beam in trying to prove English has as many words for snow as do Inuit languages. Most of the "English Words for Snow" are not "words for snow" at all.

The article is so awful I'm thinking of putting it forward for deletion. Exile 14:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Exile, what the article is trying to convey is that the English words list are just as much 'words for snow' as the Eskimo words listed are - in other words, the words in either list range from good to pretty bad 'words for snow' depending on what you're looking for. You should perhaps note that the words as currently listed are those suggested as English snow lexemes by Prof. Maggie Browning, an Associate Professor in Princeton's Linguistics department, in her discussion of the issue - do we have a reason to discount her highly qualified opinion for yours?

I think the real issue here is that the page linked to (the one by Stu Derby) has arrived at an incorrect conclusion. For one thing, we should probably be looking at the original references this author has used to see if they support his conclusion - I'm pretty unimpressed with them actually; a general encyclopedia, a second hand dictionary (Eskimo -> German -> English!), a general text on 'historical linguistics', an account of a nineteenth century Church Missionary Society reverend - all of which leaves a single text that looks like it may be relevant.

I'd advise anyone interested in this topic to eschew 'urban legend pages' and usenet discussions and get a good book out of your local academic library - you should be able to find one (or at least a few journal articles) which focuses directly on this issue. It's not a simple matter. --Dom 09:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The Maggie Browning text (http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html) isn't mentioned in the article or external links. Perhaps it should be? Regardless of what a linguistics professor says, this sentence rubs me the wrong way: 'This may seem impressive until one realizes that English has at least 40 [words for snow], including "berg", "frost", "glacier", "hail", "ice", "slush", "flurry", and "sleet"'. One problem is mentioned elsewhere on this talk page: what is a word? Her list of 22 lexemes contains 13 items I would consider words, eight phrases, and two that I've never heard or seen before, "pingo" from Inuit and "slushsnow" - are those two really English? Of the 13 words, I found six, maybe seven, that I would really consider "words for snow". For example, I think it's pretty clear that hail isn't snow, and "hail" isn't a word for snow. So in my opinion both aspects of the "words for snow" list - the "words" part and the "for snow" part - are suspect at best. Secondly, it claims at least 40 English words for snow and then lists eight. The list suggested as the source (which incidentally doesn't contain "berg" or for that matter "snow") has 22, some of which may or may not be words. What are the missing terms? I think that sentence needs to be revised at least, if not removed. Nasch 16:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The article's phrase 'English has at least 40, including "berg"' is especially ill-advised, insofar as 'berg' is a German word. And it doesn't mean 'snow', it means 'mountain'. Ice-mountain, not ice-snow. Asat 08:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

"Berg" is a common short version of "iceberg". The relation to "snow" is somewhat contrived, but it's not immediately inappropriate. --Puellanivis 08:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

---

It isn't a TERRIBLE article, but it's all over the place. It's correct in its claim that the Eskimos don't really have hundreds of words for snow, but it doesn't really explain it very well. It totally ignores the issue of the morphemes, etc, of Eskimo words, and how they are put together, which is really crucial as to how the myth began. Much better than I could ever explain, from Language Log:

But the Eskimoan language group uses an extraordinary system of multiple, recursively addable derivational suffixes for word formation called postbases. The list of snow-referring roots to stick them on isn't that long: qani- for a snowflake, api- 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.

THAT needs to be in the article. That's why it seems like they have hundreds of words for snow. Like the link says, "book", "books" "handbook", and "guidebook" do not count as entirely different concepts in our language. Other issue is that the wiki article needs to explain the Sapir-Whorf issue and why people seem to believe that Eskimos see the world differently as a result of the way they categorize snow.

--devotchka oct 10 2005

Fantastic. Edit away!

A niggle, unrelated to your vision for the article: if adding a postbase to a root word in Eskimo forms a 'distinct word', how is this any different to combining two nouns in English. I would hold that it's no different, and that, just as in Eskimo, the number of 'distinct' English words derivable from a single root (say, snow) is also unbounded. "handbook" and "guidebook" are just as 'different' as "apun" and "aput" are.

--Dom 00:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I tried my best. Tell me how it is!

--devotchka oct 11 2005

Excellently written! I will try to update the Dutch article accordingly... Fedor 08:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Go team! Nice to see that awful list is gone! --Dom 10:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• Perhaps there needs to be a discussion of the difference between a "term" and a "word." All the small-count numbers suggest they are talking about actual, single words; all the large-count number suggest they are including any and all terms, including compound words and multi-word phrases. Personally, I think both methods of counting are valid, but any study needs to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, since new terms can be created almost infinitely by added "snow" or "ice" to other words ("ice sculpture"). English includes words like ice, icicle, hail, snow, blizzard, etc. as well as many, many snow-related terms like iceberg, snowball, snow flurries, snowman, snow fort, black ice, snow bank, snow drift, artificial snow, shaved ice, ice cube, etc. --Tysto 19:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Debunking those who debunk the debunkers??

I looked at the list of purported words, and they are closer to "snow" than many of the words claimed elsewhere: for example, it doesn't include "igluksaq" (="house-building material") which is often claimed. That said, it still seems misleading to claim that these are all "words" for snow, because what amounts to a "word" in Eskimoan languages, is very different from what amounts to a "word" in English. As others have pointed out, what we would express with a phrase, Inuit, Greenlandic, etc., tend to glom together into a "word". Think of it as them just leaving out a lot of spaces. German does the same thing, though to a lesser extent.

I'd like to commission a speaker of Greenlandic to make a similar list of "words for grass" or even "words for sand". I'll bet they could come up with just as many as for snow, by using a couple basic words for grass or sand and modifying them in the same ways. If a purported list were to be in the article, I'd want to see better documentation, and a column breaking the words into their parts so people could see they're compounds, not basic words.

The LanguageLog article cited above ( http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000405.html ) is quite good -- glad someone added it to the refs.

All that said, I'll momentarily trot out my doctorate in linguistics to say that although I'd like to check out the purported source for the 49 words, I'm really skeptical. Just as we know Whorf raised the "count" from Boas' 4 to 7 (apparently by magic), this list may have just appeared -- many such lists have, ranging from dozens to several hundreds of words. And depending on how you count, you could probably generate any number of "words" that happen to contain Eskimo morphemes for snow, just as you could generate any number of phrases the happen to contain English words for snow.

I did some Googling and found about 50 pages that seem to have much the same list as at http://tafkac.org/language/eskimo_words_for_snow_derby.html Most of the words only occur on 40-50 pages; mostly the same 40-50 pages. I find it really interesting that they vary slightly, suggesting that like some viruses, this word-list is very prone to mutation. A few words (for example sullarniq and qanipalaat) show up on more pages, but with other uses, like as names. Very few of these words *ever* show up except in versions of this list, which I think should make us suspicious.

There are also about 50 copies of a very amusing *spoof* list, e.g. a copy is at http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/varia/snow.html including:

  depptla         a small snowball, preserved in Lucite, that had been handled by Johnny Depp

Perhaps a citation to the spoof list would be useful? Presumably with an explanation for the rare reader unable to perceive that it's a spoof....

Sderose 00:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

---

I put it in with 'external links' because I think it's pretty funny, but I don't think that spoof lists have made enough clout to dramatically impact the myth the way other things have. Still, I mentioned that it's a spoof, just in case somebody gets a little confused.

devotchka 23 oct 2005

I know few things about the matter, but I've read an article about pole-exploration and there used a special word to say "one-year old snow", something like pukak I can't remember. 81.211.185.24 15:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)xmav

81.211.185.24 15:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)xmav A little search inside Internet found http://www.well.com/~gilesgal/Snowwords.html According to me, if you need several words to translate something a language feels like words, and these words form not a compound, then one can say that language has several "single" word in order to define better the same concept. A translation like "one-year-old-snow" for pukak (if the word is correct) does not tell us english has a new word for snow, even in the case that, say, pu = snow, kak = 1 (year)...

The Situation in Sweden...

A Swedish book by Yngve Ryd (born 1952), Snö - en renskötare berättar (Ordfront, 2001, ISBN:91-7324-785-5) lists more than 300 words for snow in the Sami language. The author comments that reindeer-herding Sami have a more intense relationship to snow than Eskimos. There are Sami words for the different kinds of snow on the surface, where you walk or ski, and other words for the snow conditions near the ground, where the reindeer find their food even in the winter. The same author has also published a book on the Sami's relationship to fire. -- A recent enquiry (fall 2005) made by the Swedish public radio found 90 different words in Swedish for children's habit of "washing" or rubbing each others faces with snow (source: the radio show "Språket", Sveriges Radio P1, January 10, 2006). Since this habit is not used by grown-ups, neither is the word. These words are passed by oral tradition from 8-year-olds to 4-year-olds and this makes them the linguistic equivalent to fruit flies. --LA2 12:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I found a Norwegian page once, listing Norwegian words of snow, based on the Eskimo rumor. Itw was quite interesting, and could be added. 惑乱 分からん 16:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The Situation in Canada

The linguists at the Nunavut Arctic College (http://www.nac.nu.ca/main.htm) are maintaining a pretty extensive on-line dictionary of the standard language spoken in Nunavut, with a very explicit support of the Nunavut Government itself(http://www.gov.nu.ca/Nunavut/). The dictionary itself is at http://www.livingdictionary.com/main.jsp, linked from both of the first two sites, and gives the sources of its content at its site.

(Caution: using translating dictionaries is a tricky business. There is no such thing as perfect equivalents between two languages, counting search results is a completely meaningless exercise, and the more reliable direction for making any conclusions whatsoever is always the the-less-known-to-the-more-known language direction.)

It makes it easy for anyone well-accustomed to using a translating dictionary to gather the inclination of the Inuit lexicon. (It is a pity that this article actually ignores or negates all Inuit-language evidence, as well as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (while invoking Whorf and Boas by names!), in an effort to "debunk". Whereas it is closer to the truth than the urban legend it fights against, it makes up some pretty naive conclusions, ending up unverifiable and by no means NPOV.)

Lalaith

Inuits?

I think Inuits is the preferred term as opposed to eskimos Happyhyper 08:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course. But the Eskimo/Inuit distinction can also be useful as an indicator, whether a Wikipedia article is giving actual information concerning actual ethnic groups (there are quite a few such wiki articles, using "Inuit") or not (this article is probably pretty far from the linguistic reality, for example, and indicates the fact properly by using the childbook term "Eskimo".) To give a specific example, quoting this article: "perhaps a few less depending on which Eskimo language one is focusing on"; here, I guess, the author didn't have the vaguest idea of a specific example of such "Eskimo language". If an unverifiable statement like this is mechanically changed to "perhaps a few less depending on which Inuit language one is focusing on", it will just become more dangerous (assuming it is just what the author's phantasy produced while trying to convey a valid point that there are differences between Inuit languages as spoken in specific parts of Greenland, Nunavut, or Alaska, and not a citable fact itself.) Lalaith

Actually, Lalaith, you're completely wrong. Eskimo is the superset - there are five major Eskimo languages, only one of which is Inuit - Inuit can be further broken down into well differentiated dialects, but these aren't the languages in question. It's prefectly correct to refer to a "Eskimo language" (you're right in that changing Eskimo to Inuit makes no sense - it's like saying "less depending on which English language...") Furthermore, while Inuit is the prefered term in Canada, it's not in other places - such as many native communities in Alaska. So, to clarify, this article uses the term Eskimo because, in the words of one of the sources listed, "it properly refers to any Eskimo group, not only the Inuit". --Dom 14:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Further to this, I'd recommend anyone who is still confused check out Eskimo-Aleut languages, which provides a great overview of the different languages that are termed "Eskimo", and why "Inuit language" doesn't do justice to the article. --Dom (talk) 02:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely agree, Eskimo-Aleut languages is a great and accurate page. Just to clarify: "Eskimish" = "Macro-Eskimo" = "Eskimo-Aleut", a language family. "Inuit language", is, well, a language in that family. (Okay, there is generally not that much real difference between a language family and a language, just giving the traditional college version. I may be wrong about the term "Eskimo", because it is not in linguistic use where I am.) --77.93.195.206 (talk) 22:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Inuit doesn't take an 's' since it is already in the plural. Singular is inuk, dual is inuuk, and plural is inuit. FoiledAgain

I think this is currently indeed a *terrible* article. The text completly misses the point by suggesting that even *if* some Inuit language has many words for snow, the same concepts can be expressed in English using phrases. As has been mentioned above, the text *also* completely misses the point by giving all kinds of English words for *non-snow* (berg, glacier, sleet, etc.) as examples of English words for snow.

What might be worth looking into is the largest number of words (not words-that-must-be-strung-together!) that any one Inuit-Aleut language has for snow, and comparing that with the number of words that English-speaking competitive *skiers* have for types of snow. (My guess is that the skiers need to have more fine-tuning than Eskimos typicallly do.)Daqu 00:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Key Issue: Why are WORDS important?

The issue of "number of words" are viewed as important because of a tacit assumption that the presence of words reflect actual cognitive distinctions. The problem is that the notion of "word", and especially words having something called "meaning" attached to it like a pendant, is increasingly seen to be false, e.g. in the field of cogntive semantics. Meaning resides in larger contextual chunks, which may include many meta-linguistic elements, and it is impossible to define the meaning of any word. Thus, this entire debate is placed at an earlier worldview in the evolution of our understanding of semantics, and perhaps is not as germane today.

In linguistics today, we find it difficult to answer simple undergraduate questions as to what constitutes and does not constitute, a word. According to Cognitive Semantics notions (e.g. Langacker), any string, however long, may be a "linguistic unit" if it's encoding - i.e. the phonological-semantic mapping - is entrenched, so that given the semantics, the phonology comes to mind immediately, and vice versa. That this applies to strings like green apple many people may agree with; but it may also apply to even larger strings like "months with 28 days". Thus, when you ask people "how many months have 28 days" they prefer to respond February rather than all 12 months.

This ambiguity on the status of "word" is hinted at in the article when it discusses the agglutinations in Intuit languages, but this needs to be elaborated. Mukerjee 05:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

On that note, the article uses the Term "polysynthetic." I think a more appropriate word is "agglutinative." My own, limited, understanding is that polysynthetic refers to producinging new lexical terms by combining already existing words (seatbelt, iceberg, snowball, etc). Whereas agglutinative refers to languages where mophemes are stung together with gramatic markings to make word-sentences (such as Turkic languages and many Native american languages do). Am I wrong on this?

-Rafngard 19:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Specificity

For an article to be useful, it must include specific details. By not providing any list of words from any Eskimo / Intuit language, the article is doing a disservice to its readers. E.g. the article discusses the use of enclitics on bases to agglutinate larger chains, but it does not give any list of roots (such a list did appear in earlier versions). As a result the reader emerges with a vague notion of the debate, without any specific evidence to pin things down.

Also, I agree with the "debunk the debunkers" proponents - Fedor, Exile, Sderose. The slant is so much in favour of demythifying the Linguistic Relativism position that it is perhaps an urban legend in itself... A small correction is called for. Mukerjee 05:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not a proponent of "debunking the debunkers" at all, but merely pointed out that some "urban legend debunkers" somewhat disagree that this is a true myth. This was inspired by a discussion I had with one of these who did not even want to consider the fact that inuit languages are polysynthetic. So, I insist that this is a true, or at least grossly exaggerated myth. Fedor 13:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

It's Worse than you think

Sometimes in popular myth, people speak (or even write) about Eskimo words for snow being not just in the hundreds, but in the thousands.Das Baz 16:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

...but the number of words is unlimited, that's the point. Did you read the whole article? —Keenan Pepper 18:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

"Polysynthetic"

It's irritating when people find out that a language is "polysynthetic" (or "agglutinative" or "isolating" or whatever) and then assume that they know a lot about its morphology. So we have this passage in the article:

This means that where an English speaker would describe what he or she is seeing as "soft, easily-packed snow", a speaker of an Eskimo language could describe the same thing in one word. And when the snow began to melt, she could change a few suffixes and describe, once again in one word, "soft, melting snow that is not easily-packed". If the snow became dirty, she could add a suffix and say, "soft, dirty, melting snow that is not easily-packed." All this in one word, where an English-speaker would need an entire phrase. And yet, the concept is the same in both languages.

I know something about Inuktitut, not nearly enough to translate these English phrases, but enough to be almost certain that these would not be single words in Inuktitut. There are quite strong limitations on what lexical content can be included within a word (as in other polysynthetic languages, as far as I know). And the idea that the number of words for snow is thereby "unlimited" is just silly. I actually don't think the fact that Eskimo languages are polysynthetic (and I would say that they are) is that relevant to the topic at hand. — MikeG (talk) 17:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

27 Albanian words for moustache?

The news item at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4248494.stm is about missing words in the English language. While the author makes no reference to Eskimos or words for snow he does offer that "Hawaiians have 108 words for sweet potato, 65 for fishing nets - and 47 for banana" and that "The Albanians [have] no fewer than 27 separate expressions for the moustache." Are these really different words, or just more confusion about compound words? 88.198.196.117 16:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

What, like 'nose-neighbor', 'push-broom', and 'Dr. Fuzzenstein?' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.122.208.51 (talk) 19:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

Well, this is exactly what has been mentioned before. English have probably a similar number of words (or actually phrases) for moustache, for example the fu manchu, the hitler, the dick strawbridge, handlebar, slug etc. the same can be applied to anything. Lets take guitars for example. A person who knows nothing about guitars other than they are musical instruments with strings will see all guitars as a "guitar" because no subjective context exists for them to differentiate between different types. a person more accquainted will be able to tell the difference between a classical, acoustic, electric, spanish, bass, mandolin, banjo, bass etc etc. someone with even more knowledge and experience (let's say with electric guitars for example) will be able to see the differences between ibanez, gibson, fenders, and then even models like the stratocaster, telecaster, etc. thats not to say that the unaccquainted will not see the same image as the experienced, but it will be defined in a different way due to this - how many times have you heard people say "they all look/sound/taste the same to me" when referring to cars or certain genres of music or brands of cola perhaps.

sorry if this was really badly written, especially the spelling! im at work and attempted to do this a little discreetly lol! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.108.73.47 (talk) 14:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Eskimo Versus Inuit

I've noticed that every couple of months, somebody decides that 'Eskimo' can't possibly be correct and goes through and does a simple search: s/Eskimo/Inuit/g. Please, please, don't do this. There's a clear, rational reason why this article uses the term 'Eskimo' rather than 'Inuit'. Even if this isn't the most popular or politically correct term in your country of origin, it is the most accurate term for the article. See the 'Inuits?' section above for details. --Dom 15:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but how come the whole article is called "Inuit words for snow" then? Surely if, as you claim, eskimo is the correct term then that's what the article should be called? Especially as the phrase itself is definately "eskimo words for...". Right or wrong the famous phrase uses Eskimo, not inuit. 129.67.50.205 21:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh, the name of the article is "Eskimo words for snow", not "Inuit words for snow". Although, some people don't read this page and move the article. --Dom (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

one more complaint

The article states: "blizzards and flurries are two different types of snow, but they are both recognized as 'snow' in the general sense..." I don't have any credentials that entitle me to critique anyone's article, but this strikes me as ridiculous. Seems to me that blizzards and flurries would fall under meteorological events, or conditions, rather than "different types of snow... " or "recognized as snow". Forgive me if this is just obvious to everyone else, therefore redundant. -- T.B.

Yeah, I believe the point of that sentence, and of the section before it, is that blizzards(/flurries) are to snow as many Eskimo "words for snow" are to snow. It is pretty clear that ordinary speakers would look at you funny if you tried to substitute one for the other, but it's also pretty clear that they are at least related. Does that help? If you can find a way to make that more clear, that'd be excellent. --Dom (talk) 02:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That damned word list

I noticed that one particular part of the article that a lot of people had a problem with was this:

Eskimo languages have more than one word to describe snow. For example, Yupik has been estimated to have around 24 — but English has at least 40 words that describe frozen water, including "berg", "frost", "glacier", "hail", "ice", "slush", "flurry", "graupel," and "sleet".

I've removed just this paragraph. While there might not be anything completely wrong in this paragraph, I felt it was distracting from (and in some sense contradicting) the rest of the "beyond mythology" section. And it just seems to lead to too many people being confused about how the words in the list are snow words (and while that's kinda the point, I think we do a better job of explaining so in other parts of the article). --Dom (talk) 02:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Original Research / Synthesis

I tagged this for Original Research / Synthesis because I believe that this article is not encyclopedic and should be either removed or rewritten from scratch. I think that this study is valuable, but its original research and detailed conclusion makes it appropriate for a journal or a magazine. In an encyclopedia, this topic would need a short definition, citation of linguistic studies and a raw list of words. --Kuteni (talk) 10:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

You do understand that the number of Inuit "words" for snow is infinite right? We can't just list the issues. This is an article rebutting a common "urban legend", and thus contains a detailed conclusion about where the misunderstanding came from. Pretty much nothing said in this article is actually "original research" but rather is simply a composite of all the information available. Steve Pinker, and numerous other linguists and non-linguists alike have already renounced the idea that there are hojillions of words in the Inuit language for snow, or that the idea of "words" is being misconstrued. Should we simply cite Snopes, or Steve Pinker in order to justify well known information disputing an urban legend? --Puellanivis (talk) 10:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that perhaps Pinker should be listed somewhere, as he has a best-selling novel that addresses this particular "hoax" in good detail. At the very least, it might not hurt to add his book to the list of references (or citations.) RlndGunslinger (talk) 07:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Personal Experience Moving from California (no weather) to the Mountains (new weather every 20 minutes)

When I moved from California to Flagstaff Arizona I learned several new words/phrases for "snow". That is, I went from an area with no weather, to one with lots of weather.

For instance, "accumulation" was one of the first synonyms I learned for snow. If someone says to you, we're getting some accumulation in Flagstaff, that means thats its snowing, but that the snow is quickly melting afterwords.

I've heard skiers use the term "bombproof" to describe snow with a hard crust.

There's lots of others. A "dusting" is the snow equivalent of sprinkling, etc.

So ultimately, I think the article "debunking" is misguided and overly pedantic. Eskimo's could easily have 100 phrases for snow, because here in Flagstaff we have lots of terms/phases for snow.

Piercew (talk) 22:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I know, I know, no original research. Nevertheless whether the intuition that this article purports as having been debunked by the experts has actually been debunked remains an open question.

Would the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis be vindicated if, instead of comparing the number of words for snow between the Eskimo and English languages, linguists and wags were to compare the number between Eskimo and Amazonian languages? Meanwhile I have it on good authority, from a friend who worked as a scientist for NASA, that if you want to study rocket science you must know either English or Russian, and it's better to know both.

FWIW, in light of the holes big enough to drive a semi trailer truck through (how many indigenous words in Eskimo for one of those?), in my view the study of linguistics as it relates to cognition is still very much in ferment. So for me, keeping an eye on the course that the original research takes makes for an interesting hobby.

The "urban legend" spin of this article may well turn out to be little more than a cause célèbre, popular for a time among certain experts, whose views prove out to have been more parochial than what they have supposedly debunked. I get the feeling that the study of cognitive development is where the action is going to be. ô¿ô 16:25, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

removal of dead link

[2] was removed because it appears to be dead I do not know what it was supposed to be but it was introduced mid-December 2007.--Filll (talk | wpc) 22:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed non-encyclopedic header

If anyone can justify - and reference - the following, please stick it back - maybe as part of the text:

English Has 35 Plus 130 Plus 6 Plus 10 Plus 35 Words and At Least 3 Phrases for 'Snow'

--Technopat (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Having taken a look at it I have removed all the sections. First of all the article is about the urban legend not really about Inuit languages having more words for snow than English. Second, some of the words listed are types of snow, powder snow for example, most have nothing to do with snow and are not types of snow. Hail, hailstorm, frost line and berg are all examples of things that have nothing to do with snow. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 07:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree - but as a newcomer to this article, didn't feel bold enough to do that, but the article is about Eskimo words for snow NOT English words for snow, nor German words for snow, nor words for snow in any other language. If such articles exist, they can be added in the See also section. --Technopat (talk) 12:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The article being about the overblown legend that Eskimo words for snow are unusually numerous compared to English words, I had added the list in order to show easily the falsity of the legend using already-established sources. The range of English words was based on the first four Eskimo words for snow listed in the article being for where snow is ("on the ground") and for what is being done to it ("falling", "drifting", and "drift"). Those Eskimo words do not relate to the structure or appearance of a flake. That being the basis for the claim that there are lots of Eskimo words for 'snow', I used a similar semantic range in including English words. All the words I listed are related to snow, while I did not list words such as snow bridge, which is not made of snow but may support it. Snow is solid precipitation, and the references show that snow is much more than the six-sided crystal we usually see illustrated, graupel, for example, not being six-sided.

I can write a drier title. As to whether it was properly referenced, I don't know what still needed referencing. Every count was based on the count anyone could make in the text and sources were cited for where words could be found.

There's no challenge to the narrower view of the comparison, including why it was made and the theoretical aspects such as how words are formed. The legend to be challenged is the simplistic one about comparative counts.

My plan is essentially to restore the section, perhaps clarifying its relevance, but I'll await discussion first.

Nick Levinson (talk) 08:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Minor correction to what I wrote above: I did mention snow bridge, although perhaps I meant that I had distinguished it.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Word lists

(arbitrary header break)

I restored the portions of the article which explain the various linguistic considerations - polysynthesis, compounding, orthography, inflection, and recycled morphemes. This material is relevant, interesting, and is exactly the sort of thing that the various referenced essays mull over when they consider the veracity of this legend.

As for the word lists, I came to this article thinking, well Wikipedia will surely have answered this question definitively by simply having a list of words we can all see. The problem right now is that the article has English word lists but not "Eskimo" word lists. These lists do appear in referenced sources, despite the enumerated linguistic complexities. It would be interesting for this Wikipedia article to have a combined list, preferably sorted in such a way that readers make up their own minds about which words in each language "count" as words. (For example, I would start by identifying unique morphemes, and push compounds to the fringes.) -- Beland (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Unless the title of this article and/or that subsection changes, it is appropriate for the inuit words to be there, not the English words. Thegreatdr (talk) 21:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Linguistic comparisons

Incidentally, I think using English as a comparison language is a good idea, since most readers of the English Wikipedia will be familiar with it, and the referenced linguists are also making that comparison. The various permutations of the claim are all comparative - different languages have different numbers of words, or affect the thinking of the speaker in different ways. But I was also thinking that snow is a common phenomenon in Britain and the United States, and in the Germanic lands of primordial English. It would be interesting to see how many words for "snow" there are in languages that originate in equatorial climates where it never actually snows. I wonder if any expert commentators have considered this question? -- Beland (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

There are 15 Eskimo words for snow - same number as English. [3] --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

No Eskimo words for snow

I came here looking for a list of the words, so I could count them. Are there 3, 7, or a hundred words for snow? The article doesn't list any at all!

I'd like to see a list of words, preferably in a table with two columns:

1. the Eskimo term
2. its English meaning (or synonym)

And about the Aleut vs. Eskimo distinction: okay, some advocacy groups don't like anyone to use the word Eskimo, but what does that have to do with the number of snow words? Pick a language, tell us what it's called, and then list all its words for snow so we can count them. Please. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but which of the Eskimo-Aleut languages? Looking at the Inuinnaqtun/English dictionary I see about 30 words that could possibly be considered as "words for snow". I don't know for sure but each dialect may have slightly different words for snow. I am beginning to think that this article should be merged into another article, probably Eskimo-Aleut languages or Inuit language (where a section already exists), as a section. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 21:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Smile! You're on Candid Camera!

Ahem. Ed... "you'd like to see"? As it happens, the article explains why listing the words is impractical. Right at the top. Didn't you read it? — ラビット The Black Rabbit of Inlé_(Sigh) 01:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Surely it'd be like listing "European words for snow" wouldn't it? TheresaWilson (talk) 02:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Aw... :( User #188 never sticks around to chat after being logically dismantled. I find this unfair somehow. — ラビット The Black Rabbit of Inlé_{(Beware, you might be etcetera.)} 04:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you serious? The whole point of the article is that such a list or table would be linguistically absurd. Perhaps actually read the article before attacking its content on grounds it addresses? Mookster (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

More specifically, not just "linguistically absurd" but impossible. The same sort of list would be impossible for "Eskimo words for Skyscraper" though, as it would be for any polysynthetic language. But then this is nothing new... American English speakers (which would be the majority of viewers to this article) have this annoying tendency to not realize that languages can work entirely different from English. I like people complaining about the long German words, when I point out that English does the same thing, we just put spaces between the nouns and declare them separate words. --Puellanivis (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

To give you an accurate and reasonable response intending that you meant to be serious, there are an infinite number of Eskimo words for snow. However, there are only about 3 roots, last I looked into the matter. --Puellanivis (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

...No word yet from User #188? I'm not surprised. It's so inconvenient to debate without a portable kangaroo court. — ラビット The Black Rabbit of Inlé_{(Available in green)} 01:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Citation needed

The final paragraph of the section Origins and significance needs specific citation. Not only does it add significant information and analysis to the article (see WP:NOR), but it also reverses the logical path from how I had personally assessed the words-for-snow situation.

Specifically, as written the text states that the uninformed believe a multiplicity of words has led Eskimos to make many fine differentiations among types of snow. I, however, understand the popular view to be that Eskimos' intimate connection to their climatic environment leads them to require many words to describe the differences among various phenomena that are of more import to them than to peoples who inhabit different environments, giving credence to the urban legend when it comes around. In other words, one model has language preceding Eskimos' view of their environment; the other model has Eskimos' view of their environment preceding language.

I am neither a linguistic nor sociological scholar, so I certainly don't intend to put up a hypothesis to compete with what's already in the article. But I hope I've illustrated why a citation is needed for that paragraph. —Ipoellet (talk) 15:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Are there really that many more Eskimo NAMES for snow?

It would be nice to have numbers comparison, just as reference.

I don't know if this is true, but I suppose, for instance, Eskimo must have different names for slippery snow - ones that are more slippery, ones that are less. This must be probably true because it's a natural thing to expect. So, let's say they have 3 levels there, that's 1 thing that have 3 different names in Eskimo but just 1 in english - because for us it just matter to know it's slippery!

Get those numbers in every word variation and come up with the dreaded expected much higher number of Eskimo names for snow than what we bother to have in english.

The focus here should be on the fact - if it's really true - that Eskimo have more reasons to have more names (a.k.a "lexemes" in this link[4]) for snow, rather than words, and then point to numbers.

After reading the article I'm still looking for that answer.

--Caue (T | C) 00:00, Thursday 2010-03-4 (UTC)

Archive 1

Zulu green

I don't think we should include the info about Richard Lewis' claims about Zulu words for Green. These are unrelated issues and including it here borders on synthesis. The fact that the hundred eskimo words for snow is no longer considered to be true does not lead to the conclusion that other claims about exotic differences in vocabulary in other languages are also false - those claims must be investigated separately. In short untill a study exposes Lewis' claims about Zulu green as false there is no reason to suppose that they are. And even then it will have no bearings on the eskimo snow issue.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant section

The last section, about compound words, is tangential. I don't think it helps this article. Cognita (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

nah, I can see the connection to the rest, it is relevant. But the link to the foregoing is not made very clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.144.246 (talk) 14:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

inuit/ innu langauge group

I've gone ahead and reduced the phrase " inuit / innu language group" to simply " inuit language group". Although the traditional territory of both groups overlap, the Innu and Inuit are totally separate groups. The Innu actually speak an Algonquin language related to cree and mi'gmaq which are grouped in a family entirely seperate from the eskimo-aleut languages — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.70.214 (talk) 04:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sami is the same

--quote-- In contrast, the European Sami People, an indigenous circumpolar group, do have hundreds of words for snow. http://scandinavian.wisc.edu The Sami Language Department of Scandinavian Studies - The University of Wisconsin-Madison retrieved 4/18/2011 / ACIA 2005, Artic Climate Impact Assessment, Cambridge University Press, pp 973 "The Sami recognize about 300 different qualities of snow and winter pasture - each defined by a separate word in their language." --unquote--

No, no, no! These references repeat exactly the same factoid so thoroughly debunked for Eskimos. Sami languages are also agglutinative, so that words are formed in exactly the same basis as Eskimo-Aleut languages: as a concatenation of multiple suffixes that are not "words" in the English sense. 86.143.209.131 (talk) 19:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

As of now, it has not been debunked by scholars for the Sami language, in fact, scholars support the notion. In English, you can look here: "In the list presented by Jernsletten, there are 175-180 basic stems on snow and ice." This paper by Dr. Ole Henrik Magga has a list of WORDS, so you can argue that "skárta" and "skáva" have the same stem. But the work by Jernsletten is based on stems, not words. That's over 100 word stems around snow and ice. (Jernsletten, N. 1994: Tradisjonell samisk fagterminologi. Festskrift til Ørnulf Vorren. Tromsø Museums skrifter XXV. Tromsø: Tromsø Museum/Universitetet i Tromsø.) Denaar (talk) 04:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me just point out that while the Sami languages were originally (more precisely, Proto-Sami was) indeed agglutinative – though they have developped considerably into the direction of fusional and inflective, see Northern Sami language and especially Skolt Sami language –, they are definitely not polysynthetic, so that you couldn't form a word like "snow that falls on a red T-shirt" in any Sami language. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I believe that this claim should be removed as soon as a good source debunking this claim can be found. It is clearly a similar situation to the Eskimo case debunked by Pullum. However, in the mean time, I have changed the Wkipedia article's claim ("Sami people have hundreds of words for snow) to more closely match the claim made in the cited paper: "Sami people have a rich vocabulary for describing snow and ice." This is a less misleading statement. Joshuamlee (talk) 18:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The inclusion of the Sami stuff was a mistake to begin with, as I argue below. I pulled it out based on the WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEIGHT policies. This article is about the "Eskimo words for snow" hoax, not about just any language which has been said to have words for snow and ice. Benjamin J. Moore (talk) 15:02, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Confusing original research

This article is a chaotic concoction of various citation and mixing of concepts.

The very first sentence is bullshit. Inuit does have many words for different kinds of snow which are absent in English and this is recognized by "boreal science". (So do some other languages. So what? So is with some other words, so what? I don't know about colors of green in some Mwembe language, but I suggest you to open a several textile catalogs from different manufacturers, and you will find huhdreds, no joke, English words for red, shades of.) Yes, it is an urban legend that Esquimo have "hundreds" of words for snow. But the article with this title must focus on the fact and not on a legend (which of course deserves some place in wikipedia, but in a reasonable degree). I will take some time and write something factual and less sensationalist. Lom Konkreta (talk) 23:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I have read with interest angry diatribes bashing stupid professors who teach naive students about this exotic Esqimo. The writers fail to recognize that this is but a metaphor for the common phenomenon of terminological specialization. I may compare with my own experience. Long time ago, as a teenager, I've learned an english say "A cat may look at a king". It hit me as completely stupid trivia. Yes, a cat can, but a dog can as well, and a frog, too. A pidgeon can not only look, but even shit at a king! What is so special in cats? For a week I was going around the school telling everybody how stupid these English are. The same goes here. For some reason Esqimos with their snow struck the chord in people's brains. Lom Konkreta (talk) 00:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Google search shows that people really have fun with it, despite protests of select "Esqimo snow purists". I am sure you will like the following excerpt, regardless it being true or parody:

• Qanuk: snowflake
• Quinaya: snow mixed with Husky poo
• Quinyaya: snow mixed with the poo of a lead dog

And the number of snow words grows, even in English language. I've seen proposals in "snow science" to borrow missing terms for snow from other languages into English. It is a well-known fact of science that to investigate a phenomenon in deep, you must have a good term for it. And in articles about ecologies of boreal forests it is much more convenient to use the word qamaniq rather than "depression in the fluffy snow characteristic for dense forests around the base of a tree". (And you will be surprized to learn about the importance of qamaniq in ecology.)

So, in a way one sentence in the current article is unwittingly correct: English language does have at least the same number of words for snow as Esqimo! But this is not because the "Esqimo snowword counters" are stupid, rather vice versa. Lom Konkreta (talk) 00:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

dodgy ref

Ref 3 in the intro links to this which says (on page 56) that there 'are hundreds of types of snow for which Sami words exist'. That's not the same as the intro's phrasing: "the European Sami People, an indigenous circumpolar group, do have hundreds of words for snow". To me, there seems to be a slight yet important discrepancy. Also, the article cited isn't exactly written in a 'scientific' way. It's the equivalent of a magazine article. Don't we want something more reliable for the intro?

What is the discrepancy ? Maybe the word for every type of snow is the same eg 'snow' ?

Borat cheese shopping

[5] Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Limits

The article states

"One can create an unlimited number of new words in the Eskimoan languages"

and a footnote quotes a reference saying

"the number of distinct words you can derive from them is [...] simply unbounded"

That is nonsense. The number of derivable words is limited by the number of components that are available to be combined, and the number of ways in which they can be combined. Suppose the language has 100000 words, and 10000 suffixes. Indeed the number of compound words that may be derived could be massive. But it cannot be "unlimited" unless you permit the genesis of entirely new components. The quotation may stand verbatim (although it can be criticised, it cannot be altered), however the article should strictly say

"One can create a practically unlimited number of new words in the Eskimoan languages"

—DIV (138.194.12.32 (talk) 08:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC))

That's not true; the number of sentences in English is not limited by the number of words that are available to be combined. "I believed I can fly" means something different from "I believed I believed I can fly", and each time "I believed" is prepended it means something different. Or "That person is evil and that person is evil." can be expanded by the addition of "and that person is evil" indefinitely. I believe likewise the Aleut languages are flexible enough to extend the words indefinitely with a finite number of compounds.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

He's right.81.178.144.246 (talk) 14:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

However, it is fairly obvious that the number of words can be "unlimited" or "unbounded" only if word lengths can also increase without limit. In practice, there must be a limit beyond which words can no longer feasibly be extended. 86.160.221.37 (talk) 23:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a practical limit for how many morphemes Inuit languages combine on average, but it is defined only by the practicalities of communication, not by any rule - it is the same rule that applies to the practical limites to the length of sentences in English. It is a pragmatic principle and not a grammatical rule.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Also you might coin new word-parts like neologisms.

Also you might pronounce the same spelling differently - I was once puzzled why a tape-recorder had a "wind-speed indicator" on it !

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 02:20, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Just for your information.

Article by writer of "Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax": http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/01/29/humor-detection-module-not-innate/ He claims that his "disproving" was more a joke against people playing with numbers in catchphrase itself rather than vocabulary issue and "disproving the myth". He debates a bit Sepir-Whorf hypothesis, but that's completely different message, ain't it? This whole story, as for me, is not a good basis for little crusade and I believe that whole topic don't deserve distinct article, although it should be somehow presented somewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Cass1an (talk • contribs) 17:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

You are sadly mistaken that this does not deserve its own article. The number of times this idea is brought up in conversation in certain sectors is more than you might be able to believe. Please note that http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/01/29/humor-detection-module-not-innate/ is not the subject of this article, and that the perception is not being referred to as a "hoax" by Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.146.176 (talk) 03:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

X proves X ?

The sentence in the article

Pullum argued that the fact that number of word roots for snow is similar in Eskimoan languages and English proves that there exists no difference in the breadth of their respective vocabularies to define snow.

looks like an argument of the form -

Pullum argued that X proves Y.

X = the fact that number of word roots for snow is similar in Eskimoan languages and English

Y = there exists no difference in the breadth of their respective vocabularies to define snow.

similar proves no difference

Apart from that approximation, isn't that just re-stating the same thing in different words ?
'X proves X' is hard to argue against, but entirely un-edifying.

Pullum seems to fail to say whatever he is trying to say, but then I am not a linguist - can they not communicate clearly with lesser mortals ? He seems to fall into the trap of agreeing so strongly that people assume he disagrees violently.

Trying to extract substance from Pullum's original "influential and humorous, and polemical, essay" (as this Wiki article describes it !) - [6]

Eskimos and their multiple words for snow ... the story is unredeemed piffle

Martin unsuccessfully tried to slay the myth

hundreds of words for different grades and types of snow ... how primitive minds categorize the world so differently from us

all Boas says there is that just as English uses ... a variety of forms of water (liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam)

so Eskimo uses the apparently distinct roots

1. aput 'snow on the ground'
2. qana 'falling snow'
3. piqsirpoq 'drifting snow'
4. qimuqsuq 'a snow drift'

Eskimo uses different words - English uses modifications of 'snow' but not modifications of 'water' - falling water, water on the ground, running water.

Whorf is quoted as saying that Eskimos need different words for different kinds of snow

Pullum alleges Whorf inflates the 4 words above to at least seven, while omitting to mention the ~4 English words - snow, slush, sleet, blizzard

Other media sources quote various numbers up to 200 for Eskimo words for snow

Parts of Eskimo words can be combined, so you could make an infinite number - not much point in counting

Pullum points out that it is not surprising if Eskimos have a large number of words for snow

... but "even beach bums have only one word for sand"

If you hear someone saying Eskimos have many words for snow, say you only know of 2 (qanik, aput) and demand that they tell you all the others !

If Pullum's real opinion is that counting doesn't matter, then insisting "There are only two" would count as an early example of Trolling. Not the best way to 'bury' a topic if that was really intended. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.137.93.171 (talk) 07:43, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Trying to extract substance from Pullum's response in Chronicle.com to criticism by Cichocki and Kilarski (C&K) -

C&K had read a humorous opinion column ... and mistaken it for a refereed research paper

Pullum's motive was to draw attention to Martin's work

snow terms ... hold no lessons for us concerning language and cognition

So maybe the message after all is that there is no message !
If not snow-words, what is important to linguistic relativity ?
Spin (public relations) ?

How do we start agitating for this whole page to be deleted ?
Guaranteed it would return - should we contract it to a stub ?
--195.137.93.171 (talk) 07:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

What? No way! It's not necessarily a myth, but it's a very interesting and thoroughly disputed linguistic claim, on which there are very few balanced sources. Wikipedia would be derelict in its Encyclopedic duties to not provide this insight. The fact that you are not a linguist might indeed be your problem, if you think that Pullum's statement is merely a case of X proves X. Number of root words vs. number of actual words is at the very heart of this matter, which in some sense is what makes it so interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.146.176 (talk) 03:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I mean, it's definitely not a hoax. But I guess part of the problem here is that the Whorf work in the 1940's says some very un-careful things, which could be construed, actually, as a derogatory idea-- the Eskimo people have no concept of the common origin of snow. He uses the word "unthinkable", to be precise, to refer to the idea that Eskimos could adopt a single word to refer to all types of snow, and that's serious hyperbole at best, and defamatory at worst. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.146.176 (talk) 04:02, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

somewhat tangential, but:

isn't there a similar assertion as to (something like) Arabic or Berber words for sand? i didn't come up with anything in a "words for sand" search... TheNuszAbides (talk) 17:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

well, that didn't take long. just a red herring from someone(s) who heard the snow vocab generalization and made a sloppy extrapolation. TheNuszAbides (talk) 17:39, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Move should be reversed

Perhaps the move of this article should have been discussed before being implemented. The name of the meme is "Eskimo words for snow". The fact that some editors may find it politically incorrect is of no account. If I knew how to reverse the move, I would do it. --Pfold (talk) 11:29, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Boas' quote

I'm a little bit suprised on the quote. The Handbook of North American Indians is publised since 1978. Franz Boas as written an introduction to the Handbook of American Indian languages published in 1911. Searching in google books ( http://books.google.de/books?id=evpvURqT8TcC&pg=PR5&dq=%22Introduction+to+The+Handbook+of+American+Indian+Languages%22&hl=de&sa=X&ei=1ouqT7Bs9NvhBN3dyLcJ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=snow&f=false ) I found at the reprint at p. 22 / 23 (in the original pp. 25 / 26) the following sentences which looks as the original quote for me:

To take again the example of English, we find that the idea of WATER is expressed in a great variety of forms: one term serves to express water as a LIQUID; another one, water in the form of a large expanse (LAKE); others, water as running in a large body or in a small body (RIVER and BROOK); still other terms express water in the form of RAIN, DEW, WAVE, and FOAM. It is perfectly conceivable that this variety of ideas, each of which is expressed by a single independent term in English, might be expressed in other languages by derivations from the same term. Another example of the same kind, the words for SNOW in Eskimo, may be given. Here we find one word, aput, expressing SNOW ON THE GROUND; another one, qana, FALLING SNOW; a third one, piqsirpoq, DRIFTING SNOW; and a fourth one, qimuqsuq, A SNOWDRIFT.

BTonY (talk) 16:04, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: Boas has re-used the sentences in his work The Mind of Primitive Man pp. 145 / 146 (also publised in 1911, in the second edition the "snow" part can be find on p. 211). On p. V he wrotes

I have also utilized a small part of the Introduction of my "Handbook of American Indian Languages"

BTonY (talk) 15:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

This is great bibliographic research. It is of course the 1911 Handbook that is meant - lets just change it.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The article says that "Whorf referred to Eskimo languages having three words for snow." But where did he? In the reference article (Science and Linguistics) Whrof wrote

We have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, wind- driven flying snow — whatever the situation may be. To an Eskimo, this all-inclusive word would be almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and so on, are sensuously and operationally different, different things to contend with; he uses different words for them and for other kinds of snow.

(Here from the re-print in Readings in social psychology. 1949, pp. 216-217. The first print was in Technology review (MIT). 1940:42, pp. 229-231).

Reading this I would say Whorf paraphrases Boas and but he is quite vague about concrete numbers or words, so that he is suggestive of Eskimos having many word for snow. BTonY (talk) 12:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, he suggests many words and concetualizations.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"The claim that Eskimo languages have an unusually large number of words for snow is a widespread idea first voiced by Franz Boas and often used as a cliché when writing about how language may keep us more or less alert to the differences of the natural world." They didn't write that to show that language "keeps us alert", but to show that culture is shaped ENTIRELY by the environment and not by innate factors. 197.228.46.66 (talk) 01:06, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Entirely? I think that is a gross overinterpretation of Boas' stance on the role of environment in shaping language. Clearly he saw it as highly important, but it would be very much not his style to make asbolutist and categorical statements, about issues that basically cannot be empirically demonstrated.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:46, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Sami is irrelevant per WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEIGHT

I just pulled out the Sami example from the introduction. Here it is, for reference:

In contrast, the European Sami People, an indigenous circumpolar group, do have a rich vocabulary for snow and ice.

I am pulling this out not on a whim, but relying on the WP:NOTABILITY and WP:WEIGHT policies. The point here is this. The "Eskimo words for snow" story arguably deserves its own article based on well-known and high profile publications by the anthropologist Laura Martin and the linguist Geoff Pullum. These sources are cited in the article and thus establish the notability of the Eskimo words for snow story. In other words, the primary notability of this topic has been established by (1) the many outrageous claims that have been made about Eskimo (Inuit) words for snow and (2) the subsequent debunking of this story in high-profile publications of these claims by scholars like Laura Martin and Geoff Pullum. The combination of those two factors is what makes the article notable, and it is also what should inform the shape and content of the article. It should be primarily about the claims made about Eskimo words for snow, and the hoax these claims were subsequently shown to be.

That is why the Sami stuff doesn't belong. It is not notable; its notability has not been shown in the same way as the Eskimo story. Plus by including the Sami stuff in the introduction of the article with an "in contrast" clause, it is given undue weight. As the Undue weight policy notes, "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." Based on this, the Sami story doesn't deserve any mention. It has not been mentioned at all in reliable sources on the subject of Eskimo words for snow.

Note, finally, that his is not an issue about citation or reliable sources per se; we can agree that the Sami stuff has been cited alright and is based on reliable sources. But the grounds for inclusion are lacking; the facts aren't notable and by including them we would be giving undue weight to them. Benjamin J. Moore (talk) 11:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I have re-included the information in the section referencing the opposing pov put forward by Robson in the New Scientist article. It is relevant in the sense that it is stated in context of that counter-argument, and that the overall argument is a proxy for disputes around the so-called Sapir-Whorf 'hypothesis', the bashing of which is transparently the main motivation behind Pullum's otherwise entirely unresearched and academically contentless article. An article which, less we forget contains such gem-like passages such as "Snow in the traditional Eskimo hunter's life must be a kind of constantly assumed background, like sand on the beach. And even beach bums have only one word for sand. But there you are: the more you think about the Eskimo vocabulary hoax, the more stupid it gets." Which is flippantly ignorant to the point of verging on racism (when was the last time a beach bum was killed by getting his/her evaluation of beach sand wrong?). The notion that Pullum's piece of snark represents either a "debunking" or a piece of serious scholarship is the real undue weight in this article, imo. But the latter remains legitimately present due to its "well known and high profile", if not its intrinsic worth or validity. But definitely such a shoddy piece is not worth leaving unchallenged. I thank the editorial board of New Scientist for remedying this lacunae Helvetius (talk) 17:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

"Which is flippantly ignorant to the point of verging on racism..." To bring "racism" into play here is what is "flippantly ignorant": whether Pullum is right or wrong, "racism" has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Of course, this commenter used the weaselly "verging on," but that just allows one to fling an accusation of racism while denying having done so. GeneCallahan (talk) 19:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

References

The Big Picture?

It's been years since I personally researched this, and I'm too lazy to do it now, but ... doesn't this fit into the Big Picture in disputes over language and human nature? On the one side, you have the Chomskian view that language is genetically encoded so at a fundamental level all languages have the same structure. On the other side, you have the relativist view that cultures drive language, and cultures are very different from one another, so we would expect languages to be likewise. That was Boaz' point., You could call this the anthropology versus linguistics argument. Then there is behavioral psychology, and its take on verbal behavior, which might lean toward the relativistic view on such matters. Should we have a take on THIS anywhere in this article? --Christofurio (talk) 15:36, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it is part of the larger debate on linguistic relativity (which is however not well described as "linguistics vs. anthropology", but "innate universalism avs. social constructionism and relativism" both of which have proponents in both disciplines, linguistics is not just Chomsky, and I would argue Boas was a better linguist than him anyway). We can only include the big picture in so far as the sources about this topic describes that big picture, and then we would have to use the sources terms and analyses. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:31, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality

I think that this article really lacks NPOV and should be looked at with more scrutiny. Judging from the talk page alone you can see that this issue is contentious, many of the individual claims by various sources contained within it are contentious, the title of the article is contentious, and the fact that this page even exists is, to some, contentious. So to me it is clear that this is ripe ground for the subtle creep of POV.

But to list a few specifics, words like "cliché," "humorous," "inflated," "sensationalized," etc. are all examples of words whose use we need to consider carefully before placing in the body of an article on the subject of an already controversial issue. The opening paragraph even unequivocally states that there are an equal amount of words/word roots, when a few lines down it cites studies that say otherwise. This distinction, by the way, between words and word roots, I feel, should be discussed later in the article and structured better. Throwing it out in the intro seems a little distracting. It's an important point to be sure, but bombarding the reader with dilemmas over linguistic technicalities and the parsing of definitions of terms can be overwhelming just a few lines into it. The article as a whole could use some organizational boosting, but that's another issue.

Overall, while the presentation of evidence seems to mostly be impartial, the way the article is written seems to lean more towards the opinion that it is a "myth." I just wanted to read the article to learn more about the debate, and was surprised by how POV the wording is.--Lord Sephiran, Duke of Persis (talk) 02:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The reason it leans towards the view that it is a myth is because the literature leans towards considering it a myth. Neutrality doesnt mean representing each side equally, but representing the state of the literature.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The central issue with the concept of "Eskimo words for snow" is that the idea of "numbers of words" in a language simply doesn't apply to agglutinative languages - the expectation that you can apply this pseudo-scientific counting system to any language with any kind of morphology is based on ignorance alone, and needs to be corrected as early in the article as possible. Everything else is just scene-setting and extra detail. This neutrality tag wouldn't be accepted for a moment on articles about other scientific claims with no basis in fact - if anything the article gives too much credence to goalpost-moving counter-arguments in my view. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 03:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Who made the rule that the idea of number of words doesnt apply to agglutinative languages? Also are you aware that most languages use agglutination in their word formation?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's no rule, of course, and sure I'm aware, but trying to abbreviate things here. I don't think the counting of words applies easily to any language - are swim, swam and swum different words? How about be, is and are? But the more agglutination, the harder it gets - and with highly-agglutinative languages the very idea becomes ridiculous. That's the point I'm making. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 08:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• The POV tag should be removed as it seems to be based on a misunderstanding of what neutrality is. The article should represent the literature on the topic, and weigh the representation of differing views according to their weight in the literature. The vast majority of sources agrees that the way that the "Eskimo words for snow" example has been used it is a myth. That is why the article should make this clear.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 08:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Your assertion is based on a false pretense. Naturally, neutrality means not taking a side. The fact that more of the literature leans towards one side over another is not inconsistent with neutrality; it's a reflection of fact. However, this is not an academic journal review, it's an encyclopedia article. The point of a neutral article is to present both sides fairly, without bias, whether one has an advantage or not. Yet, the word choice in the article is clearly biased at points, and in others, strangely contradictory. While some literature supports the notion, others do not. You can't come down on one side simply because it has a plurality of research, which, in the event, does not seem to be the case here anyway. And it certainly does not excuse the pejorative framing of the opposing side under any circumstances.

While it isn't inexcusable to say something like "Many academics say that X is a myth," it is not acceptable to simply say "X is a myth." An encyclopedia's place is not to agree with academics, but to report on the issue, and let readers decide for themselves based on the evidence presented by both sides. By agreeing with one side, you forgo neutrality. There is no "misunderstanding of what neutrality is" except on your part. Nor do you have the right to independently judge what types of studies are or are not scientific. This notion of there being many Eskimo words for snow, whether correct or incorrect, was held as the standard until fairly recently. That is why this article exists in the first place, to represent the debate over what is the fact of the matter. By simply discarding one side, you invalidate the purpose of this article's existence in the first place. By simply discarding one side, you reveal the very bias to which I was referring. Until the POV issue is resolved, the tag should not be removed.Lord Sephiran, Duke of Persis (talk) 03:26, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

While I agree with you on you "Many academics say..." point, I disagree about your comments on neutrality. The Wikipedia:Neutrality article has sections (WP:VALID and WP:BALANCE) which differ from your perspective, referring to a "false balance". The article states that "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence." This is not the same as representing every viewpoint equally. If it seems that the academic consensus tips towards this being (at least something of) a myth, then we should weight the WP article in that direction. Wolfdog (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

what?

this article is a bit confusing. and one of the citations is just a note saying the ice is a word for snow, and implying that pack snow is a name for snow. How does rearranging sentences create new words? I think part of this article is poorly exploring some complex grammatical concepts. Really it should be basic. There should be two parts, the urban legend, and the actual Eskimo words for snow. The second part requires a knowledge of a second language, so I will focus on the first. The urban legend, has variants with the number of words between 7 and 100 (maybe more?). This should be mentioned in the lead. Since this legend seems to have a clear origin, we can know what language is meant by Eskimo. The veracity of the legend can be measured two ways, does an Eskimo language have X number of words for snow, or does an Eskimo language have an unusually large number of words for snow. 98.206.155.53 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC).

6 years later the word list is still missing. Perhaps if the list is published it wont be any longer only Eskimo list - since other may adopt to use it. Is the Eskimo words list a kind of ethnic secret? 99.90.196.227 (talk) 19:01, 5 February 2017 (UTC)