Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited.
The claim that Eskimo languages have words for different types of snow is well-known among the public, but has been greatly exaggerated through popularization and is therefore viewed with skepticism by many scholars of language. Despite the prominence of this claim, to our knowledge the line of reas...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org/ark:/13030/qt2qb5722d 2023-05-15T16:07:29+02:00 Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. Regier, Terry Carstensen, Alexandra Kemp, Charles e0151138 2016-01-01 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qb5722d unknown eScholarship, University of California qt2qb5722d https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qb5722d public PloS one, vol 11, iss 4 Humans Snow Semantics Inuits Female Male General Science & Technology article 2016 ftcdlib 2020-01-24T23:56:20Z The claim that Eskimo languages have words for different types of snow is well-known among the public, but has been greatly exaggerated through popularization and is therefore viewed with skepticism by many scholars of language. Despite the prominence of this claim, to our knowledge the line of reasoning behind it has not been tested broadly across languages. Here, we note that this reasoning is a special case of the more general view that language is shaped by the need for efficient communication, and we empirically test a variant of it against multiple sources of data, including library reference works, Twitter, and large digital collections of linguistic and meteorological data. Consistent with the hypothesis of efficient communication, we find that languages that use the same linguistic form for snow and ice tend to be spoken in warmer climates, and that this association appears to be mediated by lower communicative need to talk about snow and ice. Our results confirm that variation in semantic categories across languages may be traceable in part to local communicative needs. They suggest moreover that despite its awkward history, the topic of "words for snow" may play a useful role as an accessible instance of the principle that language supports efficient communication. Article in Journal/Newspaper eskimo* inuits University of California: eScholarship |
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University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
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unknown |
topic |
Humans Snow Semantics Inuits Female Male General Science & Technology |
spellingShingle |
Humans Snow Semantics Inuits Female Male General Science & Technology Regier, Terry Carstensen, Alexandra Kemp, Charles Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
topic_facet |
Humans Snow Semantics Inuits Female Male General Science & Technology |
description |
The claim that Eskimo languages have words for different types of snow is well-known among the public, but has been greatly exaggerated through popularization and is therefore viewed with skepticism by many scholars of language. Despite the prominence of this claim, to our knowledge the line of reasoning behind it has not been tested broadly across languages. Here, we note that this reasoning is a special case of the more general view that language is shaped by the need for efficient communication, and we empirically test a variant of it against multiple sources of data, including library reference works, Twitter, and large digital collections of linguistic and meteorological data. Consistent with the hypothesis of efficient communication, we find that languages that use the same linguistic form for snow and ice tend to be spoken in warmer climates, and that this association appears to be mediated by lower communicative need to talk about snow and ice. Our results confirm that variation in semantic categories across languages may be traceable in part to local communicative needs. They suggest moreover that despite its awkward history, the topic of "words for snow" may play a useful role as an accessible instance of the principle that language supports efficient communication. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Regier, Terry Carstensen, Alexandra Kemp, Charles |
author_facet |
Regier, Terry Carstensen, Alexandra Kemp, Charles |
author_sort |
Regier, Terry |
title |
Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
title_short |
Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
title_full |
Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
title_fullStr |
Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Languages Support Efficient Communication about the Environment: Words for Snow Revisited. |
title_sort |
languages support efficient communication about the environment: words for snow revisited. |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qb5722d |
op_coverage |
e0151138 |
genre |
eskimo* inuits |
genre_facet |
eskimo* inuits |
op_source |
PloS one, vol 11, iss 4 |
op_relation |
qt2qb5722d https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qb5722d |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1766403599782379520 |