Examine of 616 Languages Recognized Which Had Most Phrases For ‘Snow’ : ScienceAlert
Languages are home windows into the worlds of the individuals who communicate them – reflecting what they worth and expertise day by day.
So maybe it is no shock totally different languages spotlight totally different areas of vocabulary. Students have famous that Mongolian has many horse-related phrases, that Maori has many phrases for ferns, and Japanese has many phrases associated to style.
Some hyperlinks are unsurprising, comparable to German having many phrases associated to beer, or Fijian having many phrases for fish. The linguist Paul Zinsli wrote a whole ebook on Swiss-German phrases associated to mountains.
In our recently-published research we took a broad strategy in the direction of understanding the hyperlinks between totally different languages and ideas.
Utilizing computational strategies, we recognized areas of vocabulary which might be attribute of particular languages, to supply perception into linguistic and cultural variation.
Our work provides to a rising understanding of language, tradition, and the best way they each relate.
Our methodology
We examined 163 hyperlinks between languages and ideas, drawn from the literature.
We compiled a digital dataset of 1574 bilingual dictionaries that translate between English and 616 totally different languages. Since many of those dictionaries have been nonetheless beneath copyright, we solely had entry to counts of how typically a specific phrase appeared in every dictionary.
One instance of an idea we checked out was “horse”, for which the top-scoring languages included French, German, Kazakh and Mongolian. This implies dictionaries in these languages had a comparatively excessive variety of
- phrases for horses. As an illustration, Mongolian аргамаг means ” racing or using horse”
- phrases associated to horses. As an illustration, Mongolian чөдөрлөх means “to hobble a horse”.
Nonetheless, additionally it is doable the counts have been influenced by “horse” showing in instance sentences for unrelated phrases.
Not a hoax in any case?
Our findings help most hyperlinks beforehand highlighted by researchers, together with that Hindi has many phrases associated to like and Japanese has many phrases associated to obligation and responsibility.
We have been particularly inquisitive about testing the concept Inuit languages have many phrases for snow. This infamous declare has lengthy been distorted and exaggerated. It has even been dismissed because the “nice Eskimo vocabulary hoax“, with some specialists saying it merely is not true.
However our outcomes recommend the Inuit snow vocabulary is certainly distinctive. Out of 616 languages, the language with the highest rating for “snow” was Japanese Canadian Inuktitut. The opposite two Inuit languages in our knowledge set (Western Canadian Inuktitut and North Alaskan Inupiatun) additionally achieved excessive scores for “snow”.
The Japanese Canadian Inuktitut dictionary in our dataset contains phrases comparable to kikalukpok, which implies “noisy strolling on laborious snow”, and apingaut, which implies “first snowstorm”.
The highest 20 languages for “snow” included a number of different languages of Alaska, comparable to Ahtena, Dena’ina and Central Alaskan Yupik, in addition to Japanese and Scots.
Scots contains phrases comparable to doon-lay, which means “a heavy fall of snow”, feughter which means “a sudden, slight fall of snow”, and fuddum, which means “snow drifting at intervals”.
You possibly can discover our findings utilizing the device we developed, which lets you establish the highest languages for any given idea, and the highest ideas for a specific language.
Language and setting
Though the languages with high scores for “snow” are all spoken in snowy areas, the top-ranked languages for “rain” weren’t all the time from the rainiest elements of the world.
As an illustration, South Africa has a medium degree of rainfall, however languages from this area, comparable to Nyanja, East Taa and Shona, have many rain-related phrases. That is in all probability as a result of, in contrast to snow, rain is vital for human survival – which implies folks nonetheless speak about it in its absence.
For audio system of East Taa, rain is each comparatively uncommon and fascinating. That is mirrored in phrases comparable to lábe ||núu-bâ, an “honorific type of deal with to thunder to carry rain” and |qába, which refers back to the “ritual sprinkling of water or urine to carry rain”.
Our device may also be used to discover numerous ideas associated to notion (“odor”), emotion (“love”) and cultural beliefs (“ghost”).
The highest-scoring languages for “odor” embody a cluster of Oceanic languages comparable to Marshallese, which has phrases comparable to jatbo which means “odor of damp clothes”, meļļā which means “odor of blood”, and aelel which means “odor of fish, lingering on fingers, physique, or utensils”.
Previous to our analysis, the odor phrases of the Pacific Islands had obtained little consideration.
Some caveats
Though our evaluation reveals many fascinating hyperlinks between languages and ideas, the outcomes aren’t all the time dependable – and needs to be checked towards unique dictionaries the place doable.
For instance, the highest ideas for Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German) embody von (“of”), den (“the”) and und (“and”) – all of that are unrevealing. We excluded related phrases from different languages utilizing Wiktionary, however our methodology didn’t filter out these frequent phrases for Plautdietsch.
Additionally, the phrase counts replicate each dictionary definitions and different parts, comparable to instance sentences. Whereas our evaluation excluded phrases which might be particularly more likely to seem in instance sentences (comparable to “girl” and “father”), such phrases might have nonetheless influenced our outcomes to some extent.
Most significantly, our outcomes run the danger of perpetuating probably dangerous stereotypes if taken at face worth. So we urge warning and respect whereas utilizing the device. The ideas it lists for any given language present, at finest, a crude reflection of the cultures related to that language.
Charles Kemp, Professor, Faculty of Psychological Sciences, The College of Melbourne; Ekaterina Vylomova, Lecturer, Computing and Data Techniques, The College of Melbourne; Temuulen Khishigsuren, PhD Candidate, The College of Melbourne, and Terry Regier, Professor, Language and Cognition Lab, College of California, Berkeley
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the unique article.
