Humans huh....
What do you mean you can't see a thing?
What do you mean the meadow is more like the Siberian tundra today??
What do you mean you don't want to go any further???
If you were closer to the ground and had four paw drive you wouldn't get blown over....
The Inuit really do have more than 50 words for snow* I mostly have two. Good and Bad.
Obviously there are subtle and not so subtle differences , but these can be mostly described with the redundantly expressive use of very as an adjective.
Yesterday we had very good snow.
Today we had very very bad snow.
But the Inuit I imagine have a life blended betwixt harsh reality and poetic wonder. When Franz Boas met them a century and a half ago life had probably followed a similar pattern for millenia. Long dark nights under the northern lights, the crackle of fire and an all encompassing whiteness. If the knowing and naming of a thing brings man close to mastery, then surely fifty words wouldn't ever be enough? But if each of those words could mean so so much more, if each word can be embedded with a deeper sense, if the very saying of the word can give it purpose - then surely we're approaching the realms of true poetry.
Ive said before that dinliltya is a oft used favourite.
Today we had tlapa, skrimiya, krikaya, pentsla
and some ones I don't know,
And I think you'll agree
there is love in the naming of snow.
*The so called Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax theory was just poor science. Many of the nomadic tribes the North speak dialects morphed by solitude from common base polysythetic languages Inuit or Yupic, where a core word is expanded to give it meaning. But across the cold lands where the snow holds sway all the ancient peoples have many many words to describe an adversary they so clearly love.
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