Over 100 words for snow?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/11/2009 12:07 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
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>Geoffrey Pullum has shown that this claim is utter bullshit. BTW, are
>you merely exaggerating for effect WRT "over 100 words"?

No, the source I quoted says "over a hundred".  But it's a (1987)
book on female felony in colonial Massachusetts, so perhaps the
author can be excused.  (She uses "snow" among "Eskimos" as an
analogy to the terms used in Puritan Massachusetts to refer to sexual
misconduct -- the large number indicates the significance of concern.)

>  I certainly
>hope so, because, when I first heard this claim, ca.1950, it was that
>the Eskimaux had *eight* words for various *concrete manifestations*
>of snow," but *no* term for the concept, "snow," in the *abstract,*
>such as exists in the languages of all civilized people.

Seriously, though, I can imagine why there might be no "Eskimo" word
for the "abstract concept" of snow.  Snow is very important to
"Eskimos", so "snow" would be too ambiguous.  Just like "stepgrandparent".

Joel

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