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From: floyd@polarnet.com (Floyd Davidson)
Subject: Re: The Old 'Words for Snow' thing (what it's really about)
Message-ID: <347cd$920f.2da@PolarNet>
Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 18:32:15 GMT
References: <5d8a07$nma@darla.visi.com> <5f92eq$fe8@news.rain.net> <5f9s01$3b3$1@joe.rice.edu> <3319D11E.15CC@noln.com>
Reply-To: floyd@polarnet.com
Organization: __________
Lines: 43

In article <3319D11E.15CC@noln.com>, Paris Flammonde  <tarot@noln.com> wrote:
>
>COMMENT: Intriguing stuff, but as a very incidental aside, what is the 
>relationship to the "Eskimo not having a single word for snow, rather 
>many, for a variety of applications" and our having so many words for 
>percipitation descending from the sky: rain (mist, drizzle, downpour, 
>thunderstorm, in sheets, etc.),  sleet, snow of various types and 
>densities, hail of different sizes and descriptions, but no word that 
>really represents any and all of these phenomena--certainly mere 
>percipitation will not do.  On the other hand, one might suggest that 
>while we have an entire panorama of words for different strengths and 
>conformations(?!) of air movements they all might be categorized as 
>"wind."<P>  Flamonde    tarot@noln.com

English and Eskimo languages both tend to have a rich variety of
words for many things, and I would think that a look at the
history of the two languages would make it obvious why that is
so, and point up that it is for different reasons in those two
language sets.

Eskimo languages are at least about 8000 years old, and
historically are and have been spoken by groups of people who
geographically are spread from Siberia to Greenland for much of
the time that the languages have existed.  The amazing
characteristic is how close the various languages have remained,
and the variety is perhaps less than would be expected instead
of more.

English is perhaps not nearly as old, but has been exposed to an
extreme number of "invading" languages as first the rest of the
world invaded England, and then England invaded the rest of the
world.  The number of borrow words in modern English is perhaps
greater than the number of words originating with the language.

The variety of words is to be expected, given the history...
and has nothing to do with Whorf's concepts of word relationships.

Floyd



-- 
Floyd L. Davidson          Salcha, Alaska         floyd@tanana.polarnet.com

