Evert and Weezin (and any other linguists)

There was a humorous article on SNOW today, and it brought up one of the folklore things about there are hundreds of words for "snow" in some languages.

How many words are there in English?

snow
light snow
powdery snow
heavy snow
wet snow
dry snow

then all the euphamisms: white stuff, cold stuff, wet stuff, packed powder

then all the conditions: blizzard, flurries, squall, lake effect (maybe only here in the Great Lakes region)

But in all this, only one word: snow.

How about in some of the Scandinavian languages that you know Evert? How do they compare?

Weez, do you know any of the Eskimo words?

Just curious.

Latin
nix - snow
ningit - it is snowing
nivalis - snowy

For that matter, sort of along the same subject lines, I wonder if there are different words for flake (snowflake, dandruff flake, bran flake, etc.).

nives - snowflake

What's "snow"? (I just came in from outside with a light jacket and it reached 64 today.) I know I'm asking for it - probably will have major blizzard next week.

GW out of curiosity I looked up dandruff and bran flake in my Latin dictionary and something interesting came up for both; furfur.

We get the word furfuraceous (means something like made from scaly particles or bran like) from furfur, dandruff id described as fufuraceous.

I think I'll stick to using the word dandruff though, "His coat was covered in furfurcation" would sound dreadful in a novel!

NJ, feel free to come here to get a reminder! No, nothing at all like Albany or the Northeast, but we got 4" the last couple days :( I am almost house-bound (and hating it!)

Corn snow ~~~ a texture of spring powder at high altitude.

Adam.

Nieve = Spanish

Neige = French

Neve = Italian

Schnee = German.

That's all the languages we know in our house.

I'd love to learn the Chinese / Japanese / other Aisian words for snow.

Adam.

In Bahasa Indonesia snow = salju

ice = es

ice cream = es krim :D

In Dutch snow = sneeuw

ice = ijs

Ice cream = ijsje : D

Southern Hillbilly: LookkeetharWhatdaheckisit!"

'His heart is like icy broth'.
Cannot remember the reference of this expression.

Here are two Chinese sayings for snow.
1.ÌìÉÏÆ®×Ŷìë´óÑ©.
The sky is floating about goose feather-like snowflakes.
2.ÈðÑ©Õ×·áÄê.
A timely snow promises a good harvest.

Lupine, Finnish isn't a Scandinavian language, it's Finno-ugric ;)

In Finnish snow is Lumi - as you remember you can check the spelling from http://www.mikropuhe.com/demo.asp?a=mikropuhe.com

Then there is pakkaslumi - that's what we call snow when it isn't wet, when we are under 0 C or 32 F.

Suojalumi is wet snow. That's when we are over 0 C.

I don't know if there is any other that kind of words? Well, icy snow is jäinen lumi.

I will post more later if any comes to my mind, I must go delivering the papers now.

kar - in turkish

I sent and e-mail to Paintedlady, I hope she knows some words in Swedish.

All I know, in Swedish snow is snö, and ice is is. In Finnish ice is jää.

Jää also means "stay". We have some funny words like this (homonymes)

F.ex.

kurkku - means "a cucumber" and "throat"
kuusi - means "a spruce" and "six"
palaa - means "comes back" and "burns" (Hän palaa = He/she burns/comes back ;))

Hmmm, interesting...

I sent an e-mail to my niece asking for Hawaiian word for snow; haven't gotten an answer yet (her grandparents are Hawaiian). Yes, it does snow in Hawaii, on top of the volcanoes.

Evert, how about Lapland? Do you know any of the dialects?

Still waiting for Weezingreen to find this thread (I told her about it in Chat last night).

Swedish only have one word that I can think of for snow, and that is snö.
You can add words to snö without a hyphen or a space to discribe it like
blötsnö.......wet snow
nysnö.........new snow

I know the Eskimos have many words for snow.

Great interesting thread you started, Lupine!
Don't ya'll forget the vaudeville words...

♫ There's SNO bizness like Show bizness like SNO bizness I know...♫ ;>)


This message was edited Wednesday, Jan 8th 10:50 PM

Lupine, sorry, I can't speak Samí.

I remembered these...

First snow - ensilumi :)
New snow - uusi lumi