Listener Question: Snow Words Ask Dave a weather question

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. Today we have a listener question about the word....snow.

"My name is Juliette Dages. And I listen to 89.1...WEVO. I have understood that Eskimos have something like 20-some different words for snow depending on whether its loose snow or granular snow or sleet or whatever and I wondered if you'd care to comment a little bit more about that and why its important to them."

That's pretty much right, Juliette. While the English language only has one word for snow, it does have plenty of adjectives that can be tacked onto snow so we can be a little more descriptive, like granular, frozen granular, packed powder and even a type of snow that really isn't snow at all; machine-made.

Now, there are actually seventeen words in the Inuit language that describe snow in different conditions. I'll avoid injuring myself by not trying to pronounce any of these words. So I asked Doris Anderson, an Inupiaq from the Kobuk River village of Shungnak to pronounce some of the words in Inupiaq with the English translation:

Now to hear more Inupiaq words for snow, be sure to visit our website, which is weathernotebook.org. And if you have a weather question you'd like to have answered on The Weather Notebook, give us a call toll-free at 1-888-724-6001. Our show is underwritten by Subaru, with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.