In Monday's class, Alan mentioned the myth about eskimos having lots of words for snow. Language Log has just posted some cartoons related to this theme as well as a spoof list of 'eskimo words for snow' and some links to places where the 'truth' is explained (roughly, you can either say that whichever group of 'eskimos' you pick, they don't have more words for snow than English people do, or that they don't have more words for snow than they do for anything else)
This is very interesting. One time I was watching a movie with a group of friends, and one of characters was involved with an Eskimo but they were not exactly getting along very well, then the Eskimo says to him angrily "and by the way, we have only one word for snow". I was laughing loudly while all my friends were staring at me :)
Posted by: Mai | October 13, 2005 at 02:30 PM