Julia Webster Ayuso at Noema:
The nine Sámi languages still in use have an extensive vocabulary for snow — everything from åppås, untouched winter snow without tracks; to habllek, a light, airy dust-like snow; and tjaevi, flakes that stick together and are hard to dig.
Their terminology to describe reindeer is even more intricate and is used to classify the animals according to sex, age, color, fertility, tameness and more. For example, a reandi is a male reindeer with long antlers, ruvggáladat is a reindeer that has run away from the herd, and čearpmat-eadni is “a female reindeer that has lost its calf of the same year but is accompanied by the previous year’s calf.”
But reindeer herders like Utsi have noticed how quickly their language is fading alongside their changing landscape. Though Northern Sámi is his mother tongue, he is keenly aware of the gaps in his vocabulary — words that don’t seem to make it from one generation to another. “When you talk to someone older today, they have a richer language. They have more words about nature, about formations in nature, animals and reindeer especially. They certainly have more snow words,” said Utsi, who is also a former chair of the language board and vice president of the Sámi Parliament of Sweden. “It’s a source of sorrow for me.”
More here.
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