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MORE THAN A HUNDRED WORDS FOR SNOW

MANY PEOPLE HAVE probably heard about the discussion of whether Inuit really do have a hundred words for snow. Anthropologists and linguists have cast doubt on the idea, regarding it as a romantic perception of Indigenous people’s traditional knowledge. I don’t know the truth about the Inuit vocabulary for snow, but I reckon that people living in such close contact with snow and ice actually do need a detailed vocabulary for it. What I do know for sure, though, is that there is one people with many more than a hundred words for snow: the people I grew up with on the Finnmarksvidda.

Language experts like Nils Jernsletten,¹⁷ professor of languages; Ole Henrik Magga,¹⁸ better known as an Indigenous politician and the first president of the Sami parliament; and associate professor Inger Marie Gaup Eira¹⁹ have collected and analyzed Sami snow terminology. According to Magga, the North Sami language (the most widespread form of Sami) contains 175 to 180 root words for “snow” and “ice.” Once you factor in derivations, inflections, and variants of these roots—for example, the noun njeadgga means “drifting snow,” while the verb njeadgat means “to drift” and the adjective njeadgi refers to a type of weather involving snowdrifts—the number of words for snow and ice adds up to around a thousand.

This finding also applies in other Sami languages, such as Lule Sami (named for the Lule river valley in Sweden). The reindeer herder Johan Rassa was born in a lavvu in the mountains of northern Sweden in 1921 and was one of the last bearers of a rich tradition of knowledge about snow in the Sápmi region, known as Sábme in Lule Sami. The author Yngve Ryd spent five winters speaking to Rassa about snow and the Lule Sami terminology. His book, based on Rassa’s knowledge, explains more than three hundred words related to snow and ice, together with the context in which they were used. This rich terminology was one aspect of the reindeer-herding Sami people’s adaptation to snow, which dominated the landscape for seven to eight months of the year: “A highly detailed knowledge of snow and ice previously went hand in hand with the business of reindeer herding. Weather, wind, and snow used to be everyday topics of conversation.”²⁰

One reason why knowledge of snow was so vital, as reflected in this compendious vocabulary, was that snow—how much snow, what kind of snow, and so on—could drastically alter living conditions for humans and animals: “People’s reliance on snow and ice shifts between extremes, and this may have contributed to the rich vocabulary. It might snow in such a way that it is a struggle to move even a few hundred meters, and yet snow can also provide such good skiing conditions that one can easily whizz along for a couple of dozen kilometers.”²¹ People used so many words about snow and snow conditions because they were talking about snow from different points of view, in different situations. The topic was never snow as an “objective,” physical entity but snow as one approached it, used it, and had to adapt to it. It was how snow fell in autumn, in winter; how it remained on the ground from winter through to spring. It was how snow behaved in relation to people and animals, restricting their movements or grazing possibilities—a vocabulary about snow that grew through practice.

There are many reasons why snow conditions are extremely important for reindeer and their herders. First of all, as mentioned earlier, for much of the year the reindeer must find their food—reindeer lichen—by digging beneath the snow. So it is vital for them to do this where it is possible to dig through the snow, which is difficult if it has previously thawed and then refrozen. And while snow is a unique insulating material when it is light, owing to the air inside and between the snow crystals, both ice and snow that is more akin to ice are a different matter entirely. The snow also determines how reindeer and people can travel. In some kinds of snow, movement can be almost impossible, while in others it is child’s play. And this doesn’t just apply to deer and people: predators such as wolves and wolverines also rely on snow conditions—a fact that reindeer herders must take into account. Reindeer and wolves thrive in different types of snow.

All of this—not to mention the properties of snow—changes through the seasons and so there are different words for autumn snow, winter snow, and spring snow. The mountain Sami actually have eight seasons: autumn, autumn-winter, winter, spring-winter, spring, spring-summer, summer, and autumn-summer—and to a great extent, they are defined by the snow conditions. There can, for example, be many kinds of winter: gassadálvve, thick snow winter, is everybody’s nightmare, while sekkadálvve means a winter with little snow. Skárkkadálvve is a winter with icy snow that has frozen to the reindeer lichen.²²

Over the year, the snow changes and different words are used depending on when and how the snow settles: the first snow that doesn’t thaw on the surface but remains on the ground until spring is called dálvvevuodo. Very thin snow on the ground is called biera. The first proper snowfall that is suitable for travel is called doavgge. When a good 16 inches of snow have fallen, people speak of dálvvemuohta, winter snow. “What this means is: that’s enough now; we don’t want any more snow.”²³ Words are also applied to the landscape according to snow conditions. Areas where it snows a lot are called atsádahka or just atsát. The opposite of atsát is sekkas: an area where it snows less. This kind of thing is good to know when, for example, people are planning to set up camp or a reindeer enclosure.

Snow terminology also varies depending on whether snow is being discussed in relation to people or reindeer, as different things are then relevant in each case. If a person is the yardstick, you can speak of gámamuohta, which means shoe snow. That’s when there is not much snow and it just about reaches the top of your shoes. Vuottamuohta is snow that reaches your shoe bands. Vargga buolvvaj is snow that comes almost to your knees. Buolvvamuohta is snow at knee height, while badárádjmuohta is snow that reaches your buttocks. Masses of snow are called giedavuolmuohta: snow that comes up to your armpits. But the most important measure for people is tjibbemuohta, snow up to your shins, the same snow depth as doavgge. It is a special event when tjibbemuohta arrives: “Now it has snowed tjibbemuohta. We can’t walk anymore; it’s time to get out the skis.”²⁴

Snow terminology is different when reindeer are the yardstick. The most important word is tjievttjemuohta: this means snow that reaches to the knees of the reindeer’s hind legs. It’s a bit deeper than doavgge, toward 16 inches. With tjievttjemuohta, the reindeer’s hooves can touch the ground, so they can still walk and travel with relative ease. There is also a special word—doalli—for when the snow covers an old track, where the reindeer can gain a better foothold—and they seem to have a special sense that helps them to find their way to such places.

There are different words for falling snow: single snowflakes are called muohtatjalme, which translates literally as “snow eyes.” Big soft snowflakes are called tsihtsebelaga, while the driest, lightest snow that can fall in winter is habllek. The flakes are so big and weightless, sometimes they almost refuse to fall. While humans can cope with this snow, it is dangerous for animals, which can actually be suffocated by it. This is why it was common to hunt fox when there was habllek. A little new snow, say 1 or 2 inches deep, that settles on top of previous snowfall is called vahtsa. Loahtte is a heavy snowfall of 8 inches or more. Larkkat occurs when there has been a heavy fall of dry snow that has stopped quite abruptly. The worst precipitation is sleet, slabttse. This is problematic because it can’t be brushed off like dry snow but sticks to clothes and other places, making people wet.

A lot also happens to snow when it has settled, and then its name changes. Thin and slightly icy snow on the ground is called skártta. Tjalssa is soft snow that is trampled solid and freezes to the earth. Nearest the ground, the snow gradually turns into sänásj, large, coarse, icy grains that look like coarse-ground salt. It can also become tsievve, hard snow where the reindeer don’t dig. This kind of snow can almost bear the weight of a person without skis and the reindeer float on top of it, whereas åbådahka, or simply åbåt, is thick winter snow that is very soft and loose. Åbåt creates extremely difficult conditions. In the old days, people hunted wolves when there was åbåt, because then the wolves would become exhausted. Dáhapádahka means that conditions are so poor it is impossible to travel at all, while siebla is snow that has thawed and is wet all the way through to the ground, a typical spring phenomenon. Siebla cannot bear any weight: the skis sink straight through it. When siebla freezes it becomes tjarvva, a proper snow crust.

But the navigability of terrain is not the only important thing. For hunters—and hunting was (and remains) an important part of the mountain Sami livelihood—it is important for skis to move silently across the snow. So conditions that allow skis to glide quietly and softly, what we call “silk conditions” in Norwegian, are known in Lule Sami as linádahka.

The mountain Sami also had a rich vocabulary for ice, because in their world it was vitally important to be able to move over streams, rivers, and other water, so people needed to have words that told them whether the ice could bear the weight of people and animals. The first very thin ice to form on the lakes in autumn is called gabdda. It is barely one twenty-fifth of an inch thick. Álmasjjiegŋa is “people ice,” which can bear the weight of a person on foot, while hässtajiegŋa is ice that can bear a horse.

As with so much other traditional knowledge, this Sami snow terminology is disappearing. Fewer people are involved in reindeer husbandry, and since reindeer herders use snowmobiles rather than draft reindeer these days, perhaps they think they don’t need this “old-fashioned” knowledge. But the many snowmobile accidents, not least those where avalanches are triggered, may well suggest that modern-day reindeer herders could also benefit from a bit of knowledge of snow. Would it help to have a special word for ice that can bear the weight of a snowmobile? Perhaps the technicians waxing skis for the Norwegian cross-country team would also find it helpful to have a course in Sami snow terminology to avoid waxing blunders.

But this is about a lot more than an advanced vocabulary, rich in tradition, that is on the point of extinction. What we are now seeing vanish is also a lifeworld—the world of the Snow Queen—to which this language belongs and which it describes.