Fake news of snow

By BECKY NELSON
Bramblings
I just shoveled out our walkway at home and then scooped a few snowdrifts of snow away from the critter barn and the front of our store. I don’t know about you but I sure am sick of snow. I pray for snow every winter to support our snowplow route, then I curse snow every winter because of the additional work, physical strain and just plain obnoxious nature of snow cleanup.

My husband is fond of saying that Eskimos have 100 words for snow. I get tired of hearing this, as well, as it is usually followed by his profane words for the snowstorm at the time. The last few snowstorms have been very different in texture, so I could understand if Eskimos did have several words for the stuff. The last storm was pretty light and fluffy. The storm before was wet and cement-like. We have had sloppy snow, pelletized snow, wind-driven snow and have a nice snowpack right now. This is important, we think (circumstantial evidence) for syrup production, as it seems to insulate the maple trees and keep them producing sap a bit longer when it warms up.

As for the Eskimo and 100 words for snow, it is fake news. According to my mini-research, the Arctic native people (Inuit and Yupik) in Alaska, Siberia, Greenland and Canada speak four distinct Yupik languages and the Inuit speak several dialects of the Inuit language from west to east. A third language, Sireniskski, is “virtually extinct,” according to the Alaska Native Language Center (ANLC) at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and was spoken in Siberia. The ANLC states that Alaska alone is home to at least 20 distinct indigenous languages that reflect the diverse cultural heritage of Alaskan native peoples. So, with three separate languages and multiple dialects all lumped into “Eskimo,” there are sure to be at least a few words for snow. But just like English, there are only a few roots. For us, it is snow, and to that we add words like heavy, fluffy, light, sticky, slushy, sleety, wet, dry, blowing, drifting, deep, shallow … If you compare apples to apples or snow to snow, we probably have just as many words as “Eskimos,” with snow, slush and drifts all referring to snow, but not really a different meaning for snow.

According to the ANLC, there are three distinct snow words in Yupik. One is used for falling snow or snowflakes and is probably as close to a single snow word as there is (qana), one for snow on the ground or snowpack (aput), one for drifting snow or snowstorm (piqsirpoq) and one for snowdrift (qimuqsuq). Hmmm…we have several corresponding words if you get technical, and only one single word for “snow” just as the natives have, eh? An article on the ANLC website notes that Time Magazine, the New York Times “… and elsewhere refer to the quantity of words for snow in Eskimo languages and often pull numbers out of thin air, nine in one case, one hundred in another. … It has achieved this status without the benefit of reference to linguistic facts but based on the assumption that these facts must be found someplace, all despite the existence of published sources of Eskimo lexicon that have been accessible for decades.” In other words, it is fake news, myth, urban legend and unsubstantiated hearsay that Arctic Native Peoples have 100 words for snow.

It seems that this urban legend and myth of many Arctic native words for snow began in 1911 when Franz Boas published a work called “Handbook of American Indian Languages.” I even shy away from using the word “Eskimo” as well, as that is a controversial moniker among northern natives much as “Indian” is among other Native American peoples. Also according to the ANLC, “although the word ‘Eskimo’ is commonly used in Alaska to refer to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world, the name is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean ‘eater of raw meat.’”

Perhaps we should be less concerned with how many words for snow are used in native languages and more concerned with our perceptions, biases against and continuation of unfounded myths and derogatory beliefs about native peoples and any ethnic groups in our naivety, insensitivity and callousness. Let’s share real news, real facts, real beliefs and stop passing along the fake stuff without some research to back up the rhetoric that we believe and then re-interpret much like in the old “telephone” game of my youth. Facts are easily twisted and influenced and then regurgitated and reinterpreted in forms very far from reality.

Meanwhile, keep shoveling and plowing, because snow by any other name is still snow.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, N.H.: [email protected]