1 thousand words for reindeer?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:14:20 -0500, Barnhart <barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM> wrote:

>In a recent article in The Independent:
>
>"Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words
>By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
>
>28 November 2004
>
>Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at
>a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the
>temperate species flocking up from the south.
>
>They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more
>than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is
>only now venturing north of the treeline. ...."
>
>This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration.  More
>mythology about "snow words" I suspect.

Yes, this is the "<bignum> words for snow" meme with some new twists.  The
"~1,000 words for reindeer" part apparently came from this article:

     http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6530026/
     As ice melts, Arctic peoples at loss for words
     Languages don't reflect species, weather shifts
     By Alister Doyle
     Updated: 2:57 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2004

     REYKJAVIK, Iceland - What are the words used by indigenous peoples
     in the Arctic for "hornet," "robin," "elk," "barn owl" or "salmon?"
     If you don't know, you’re not alone.
     [...]
     "I know about 1,200 words for reindeer — we classify them by age,
     sex, color, antlers," said Nils Isak Eira, who manages a herd of
     2,000 reindeer in north Norway.

The "no word for robins" part has been making the rounds, recently
appearing in a quote from Sen. John McCain in the New York Times.
Geoffrey Pullum has an entry on the Language Log about McCain's comment:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001647.html

The origin of this one is a CBC Radio report in September 2000 called "No
Word for Robin: Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic."  You can read a
summary of the report here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010510_canadianarctic.shtml

And here are audio links:

<http://media.cbc.ca:8080/ramgen/radio/programs/thismorning/audio/tm_cartyi000914.rm>
(Part 1)
<http://media.cbc.ca:8080/ramgen/radio/programs/thismorning/audio/tm_cartyii000914.rm>
(Part 2)

At the beginning of Part 2, an Inuit bird enthusiast named Roger Kuptana
tells the interviewer, Bob Carty, about a sighting of a red-breasted
robin. Carty helpfully prompts, "What's the word in your language for
'robin'?"  Kuptana replies, "I don't know if there's a word in Sachs
Harbour for robin. They're so rare here, we don't have names for them."
That was enough for Carty to name his report "No Word for Robin".

The appeal of this meme is obvious-- we all know that those Eskimos have a
zillion words for snow, but now with global warming that's all melting
away.  In place of snow come things that they don't have words for.


--Ben Zimmer