Thanks for sharing! I'm going to show my hubbie. I was laughing so hard my nose hurts now
Inuit may have many words for the varying aspects of snow, but I guarantee if an English speaker needs them, we'll cheerfully put them in our user dictionary.
I totally agree, however it is actually true that the Inuit language (50,000 dialects) that exist do not have an abnormally large amount of words for snow. Some people say there is no one language but a series of groups overlapping.
I think there was an argument somewhere that one of the first papers stated that the Inuit had four words for snow that each meaning "falling snow", "snow on the ground", "snow drift" and "drifting snow" or blowing snow"...I can't remember which of the last two it is. Another researcher expanded the list but some say it is because they did not understand the structure of the language.
I think there are about four or five words.
English is just crazy, however I can't seem to grasp any other language. I guess I just don't have constant exposure to it/them.
quote:
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If Dad is Pop, how come! Mom isn't Mop?
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reminds me of when my oldest daughter was just learning to talk. She started calling her grandfather (my father) Pop Pop. My mom said that she just wanted Skye to call her anything but changed her mind for some reason when she became Mop Mop for a few days.
That is just so sweet!
English doesn't borrow words from other languages. It follows other languages into dark alleys, beats them up, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
We drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway.
Isn't that just crazy?
My parents live (well my mum is back for a bit) in Northern Manitoba on a reserve and they say the people there are really isolated from the outside world. No surprise, but what did surprise me was there are people who don't know Cree and rely on English, but they only know a handful of words. They of course of deeper problems. Most can't understand how to string together a sentence or understand the meaning of a word. I can't imagine not having the ability to speak at the level of a five year old in the only language I know. Some can do partial Cree and English, but to an outsider make no sense at all. Two or three of the older people try to learn, but they get very frustrated with the 'silly white man words'.
AND, to make matters even more bizarre, a competent English speaker can usually read through the English work of non-native speakers and not only get the gist of the the message, but may even have trouble figuring out how to make it 'proper' English! (I have a Greek speaker I'm BRing for on a different forum. I know what she's trying to express, but for the life of me, I can't always figure out how to make it a 'normal' English phrase. And I dare you to find another language that would allow the term 'BRing' to fly!)
I totally agree! Craziness I tell you, CRAZINESS!
