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Chapter 16
Franz Boas and Inuktitut Terminology for Ice
and Snow: From the Emergence of the Field
to the “Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax”
Igor Krupnik and Ludger Müller-Wille
Abstract Franz Boas, the “founding father” of North American anthropology, has
long been credited with many pioneer contributions to the field of Arctic anthro-
pology, as a result of his first and only fieldwork among the Inuit on Baffin Island,
following the First International Polar Year 1882–1883. In this new “polar year”
the SIKU project has initiated several studies of the Inuit terminology for sea ice
and snow, including in the areas of Baffin Island once surveyed by Boas, as well as
in the nearby regions of Nunavut, Nunavik, Labrador, and Greenland. Also, in the
past decade the story of Boas’ fieldwork on Baffin Island has become known in full,
in diaries, personal letters, and field notes. This chapter capitalizes on these new
sources: it examines Boas’ knowledge of the Inuit terminology for sea ice and snow
and its value to current discussion about language, indigenous knowledge, the Inuit,
and beyond. It also addresses the so-called Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax debate
of the past decades that misconstrues Boas’ use of the Inuit terms and the analysis
of the contemporary Inuit ice and snow vocabulary.
Keywords Franz Boas ·Inuktitut ·Baffin Island ·Ice and snow terminology
Ever since the special issue of the journal Études/Inuit/Studies dedicated to the cen-
tennial of Franz Boas’ work on Baffin Island (1883–1884) was published 25 years
ago (Freeman 1984), Arctic anthropologists have claimed Boas as the “founding
father” of their discipline. Not only was Boas praised for his pioneer contribu-
tion to the wide range of topics (Cole and Müller-Wille 1984:51–53), his name
was also firmly linked to the first International Polar Year (IPY) 1882–1883,
of which he was rather a post factum beneficiary than a scientific contributor.1
A hundred-and-twenty-five years later, Boas’ link to the first IPY served as a source
of inspiration and a justification for social scientists to argue for their role in the
Fourth International Polar Year 2007–2008 (Krupnik 2003; Krupnik et al. 2005).
I. Krupnik (B)
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA
e-mail: krupniki@si.edu
377
I. Krupnik et al. (eds.), SIKU: Knowing Our Ice,
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-8587-0_16, C
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
378 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
In this current IPY, several projects follow in Boas’ footsteps by exploring polar
peoples’ knowledge and use of the sea ice and/or snow habitats.2SIKU project,
in particular, has initiated several studies of the Inuit terminology for sea ice and
snow, including in the areas of Baffin Island once surveyed by Boas (Laidler et al.
2008), as well as in the nearby regions of Nunavut, Nunavik, Labrador, Greenland,
and elsewhere across the Arctic (see Chapter 1, Introduction; Chapter 17 by Johns
this volume; Chapter 14 by Krupnik and Weyapuk this volume). In addition, volu-
minous new details related to Boas’ fieldwork on Baffin Island in 1883–1884 have
become available over the past 10 years (Harper 2008; Müller-Wille 1998, 2008,
2009; Müller-Wille and Weber Müller-Wille 2006; Müller-Wille and Gieseking
2008). This chapter capitalizes on these new sources; it also examines for the first
time Boas’ knowledge of the Inuit terminology for sea ice and snow and its value
to today’s discussion about language, indigenous knowledge, the Inuit, and related
issues.
In late 2008, one of us (I.K.), while working with Friedrich Erdmann’s
early Eskimo–German and German–Eskimo dictionaries from Labrador (Erdmann
1864–1866), tried to match Erdmann’s Labrador Inuit terms for sea ice with the
Inuktitut words listed in various Boas’ publications, diaries, and short papers (i.e.,
Boas 1888, 1894, 1911; Müller-Wille 1998:273–276). Of those, Boas’ Inuit “dic-
tionary” (lexicon) from Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island (Boas 1894), offered by
far the largest corpus consisting of more than 2,000 Inuit words, and personal and
place names recorded during his work with the local Inuit during 1883–1884. From
these sources, the initial sample of about 20 terms for types of sea ice and associated
phenomena was compiled and translated from the German original. Then the sec-
ond co-author (L.M-W) joined the study leading to a new SIKU research focused
on the early historical lists of Inuit ice and snow terms. Boas’ list of the Baffin
Island Inuktitut terms emerged as a valuable source to compare to both historical
and modern Inuit ice lexicons from the adjacent regions of Canada and Greenland.
This chapter assesses Boas’ material from 1883 to 1884/1894, his relations with
the Inuit, and his grasp of their language and of their snow and sea ice terminology,
specifically. We also address the so-called Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax debate of
the past decades (that misconstrued Boas’ use of the four Inuit terms for snow from
his Baffin Island fieldwork) and approach it from the analysis of the contemporary
Inuit ice and snow vocabularies collected during the SIKU project. We argue that
the latter “debate” is completely misdirected and that the Inuit (Eskimo) have many
more terms associated with the sea ice than with snow.
Franz Boas and Inuit Languages
It is one of the many legacies of Franz Boas that despite having collected and pub-
lished extensive materials on Inuit anthropology, ethnography, and geography, his
degree of linguistic competence and fluency in Inuktitut, the language spoken by the
Inuit he worked with on southern Baffin Island, has been questioned (Harper 2008).
Learning more about his linguistic competence would help evaluate the validity of
the materials he documented and interpreted. In order to understand Boas’ level
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 379
of immersion into Inuktitut, the record of his linguistic engagement can be traced
in archival documents, such as in the Boas Papers in the American Philosophical
Society (APS), in Philadelphia, U.S. and the Hinrich Rink Papers in The Royal
Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as in his publications (Boas 1885, 1888,
1894, 1911).
Although his original research interests were in natural sciences, in particular in
physical geography and cartography, Boas understood fully the necessity of learn-
ing the languages of the people he intended to study and to live with during his
full-year sojourn in the Canadian Arctic, i.e., Inuktitut (in German Eskimoisch at
that time) with the Inuit and English with the American and Scottish whalers. He
had a solid, but passive grounding in classical Greek and Latin, as well as in French.
Due to family connections in New York and private tutoring, Boas obtained func-
tional knowledge of English early on; it was still limited but improving while he
was on Baffin Island. Boas also mentioned that he started to learn Russian during
his first term at university, but that did not seem go far.
More important, in 1881–1883, while preparing for his research in the Arctic, he
began to learn Danish and Inuktitut. He knew very well through his literary studies
that practically all materials concerning Inuit languages, such as grammars and lex-
icons, were published in these languages, mainly on Greenland, except for works
that were written in German and collated by Moravian missionaries who had been
stationed in Greenland and Labrador. Based on Boas’ comments in his letters and
diaries, he made some limited progress in learning Inuktitut. In a letter to his par-
ents in November 1882 sent while he was in Berlin, he stated proudly: “In English,
Danish and Eskimo I am rather diligent.”
Although Boas referred to only a few sources directly, it can be safely assumed
that he had access to the literature in this area in German libraries, mainly at the
University of Göttingen. In the summer of 1881 he went on a trip to Copenhagen
with the purpose of visiting the National Museum and university library to
learn about Inuit culture and language. He left no record of what he actually
achieved.
There were three authors whose works Boas most likely consulted and studied
for the purpose of becoming familiar with the Inuit and, in particular, their lan-
guage. Friedrich Erdmann (1810–1873), a Moravian missionary who worked in
Labrador, compiled extensive “Eskimo–German”3(1864) and “German–Eskimo”
(1866) dictionaries, which was later translated into English and revised by Edmund
James Peck (1850–1924) in (1925). Samuel Kleinschmidt (1814–1886), also a
Moravian missionary who was born and stayed all his life in Greenland, published
an exhaustive and seminal grammar (1851) and a Greenlandic–Danish dictio-
nary (1871) expanding on two earlier dictionaries published in the late 1700s.
Kleinschmidt’s two books put Greenlandic on a solid footing as a written language.
Lastly, Hinrich Johannes Rink (1819–1893), geologist, geographer, ethnologist, lin-
guist, and administrator in Greenland, wrote in detail about the Inuit and Greenland
in Danish and English (1866, 1871, 1875 and, after Boas’ research, 1887). Boas
was to establish direct contact with Rink in 1885, sending him Inuit texts and word
lists for his review and corrections (Rink 1887:39), visiting him in Copenhagen, and
maintaining correspondence with him until Rink’s death in 1893.
380 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
During his 1883–1884 stay on Baffin Island, Boas expanded his efforts to learn
Inuktitut by associating with James S. Mutch, the Scottish manager of the Kekerten
whaling station at Kingua Fjord, Cumberland Sound. Mutch was fluent in Inuktitut
and functioned as a translator and facilitator between the Inuit and Boas for a long
time thereafter (Harper 2008). From the start, Boas kept word lists in alphabetical
order, systematically mapped and collected place names, and recorded stories and
legends in Inuktitut. Some of this original linguistic material is in the archives of the
Royal Library (Rink Papers) in Copenhagen and the APS (Boas Papers), but it has
not been studied extensively.
In his own estimation, Boas did not feel that he had acquired satisfactory exper-
tise in Inuktitut and sought all the help he could get from knowledgeable people.
Here Hinrich Rink became the person who helped him the most in his effort to
overcome his linguistic shortcomings offering friendly advice with regard to trans-
lation, interpretation, and orthography. Recognizing his limitations, Boas wrote to
Rink in April 1885:
You overestimate my knowledge of the Eskimo language, because my understanding of the
songs is immensely deficient, some of them I almost do not understand at all; those which
I master according to their content, I know due to the thorough narrations by the natives....
Some unintelligible words might have originated from the erroneous recognition of the
sounds on my part, which happens easily when knowledge of a language is incomplete....
Indeed, I feel that I am in no way up to this task.4
Franz Boas’ Publications of Original Inuit Linguistic Material
Today, the name of Franz Boas is strongly associated with the emergence and devel-
opment of the linguistic study of aboriginal languages in North America. Therefore,
in retrospect, it is curious that he, despite some major personal efforts, published
few of the original Inuit texts or even word lists. The publications were restricted to
listing of place names, personal names, or vocabularies/lexicons (Boas 1885, 1888,
1894) with translation into German, but without any assessment or interpretation.
The materials Boas included in “The Central Eskimo” (1888), particularly on reli-
gion, traditions, and arts, are solely presented in English except for a glossary of
Inuit terms with derivations (1888:659–666). Still neither yet edited nor published,
the Rink Papers in Copenhagen contain Inuit texts of tales (myths) recorded and
transcribed by Boas in his own handwriting, which he sent to Rink for examination
in 1885.
Clearly, Boas was reluctant to publish the original Inuit texts. However, he
included a detailed list of Inuit place names (toponyms) he had collected in his
cartographic survey and from published maps (1885), which remains a lasting and
important source and heritage of Inuit geographical knowledge to this day. Then
in 1894, 10 years after his return from Baffin Island, he published a list of Inuit
words, with some conjugations and derivations, place names, and personal names
(ca. 2,200 entries), with German translation. This list most likely comprised all that
he had collected during his stay with the Inuit on Baffin Island. He cross-checked
his list with the sources from Greenland and Labrador mentioned earlier and
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 381
demonstrated a closer linguistic relationship between Labrador and Baffin Island
Inuktitut than with Greenland.
In order to understand Boas’ reason for publishing this list in 1894, it is useful
to refer to his short introduction in which he provided some explanation regarding
the “dialect” of the Inuit on southern Baffin Island. Boas’ linguistic recording was
the first ever that was carried out to such a broad extent in that particular region
of the Inuit homeland. In that way the word list is of special historic interest both
linguistically and culturally, particularly with respect to human–environmental rela-
tions and interactions as experienced by the Inuit during the 1880s. Although Boas
stated explicitly his intention to go deeper into a linguistic discussion of the Inuit
languages at a later stage, this intention never materialized. His mentor in Inuit lan-
guages, Hinrich Rink, who had seen the original list had died in 1893, just before it
was published.
As Boas wrote in his introduction (1894:97, English translation by Ludger
Müller-Wille):
The following material was collected during a journey to Baffin Land during the years of
1883 and 1884. The dialect, to which this material refers, is spoken in Cumberland Sound
and in the parts of the west coast of Baffin Bay lying somewhat farther north. The dialect
is closer related to the one in Labrador than to the one in Greenland, which should not
surprise us since the customs and traditions of these tribes are also more similar to the ones
of Labrador than of Greenland.
I have hesitated long with the publication of the material collected by me because it is
in many respects deficient and imperfect. These are the results of an initial journey and the
collector’s insufficient experience shows the material’s lacunae and imperfection. During
my whole journey I was not fully aware of the importance of linguistic studies since I
believed, that the studies by missionaries in Greenland and Labrador provided a sufficient
image of the Eskimo language, and therefore concentrated on geographic and ethnological
problems. Only after my return it became apparent, when I tried to get the obtained texts
translated, what the ancient texts, the peculiar secret language of the angakut [shamans] and
the dialectical variations offered for an interesting study.
After careful consideration it seems to me that the collected material still offers enough
new insight to justify its publication.
The present article includes collected vocabulary that is compared with the lexicon from
Labrador and Greenland. A subsequent article is to contain the texts, phonetics, grammar
and a discussion of the vocabulary.
I have used the orthography developed by missionaries in Greenland, however, the long
vowels are presented only by their lengths. The accents within the words are provided often.
ThevelarkisexpressedbyqandtheGermanchlikeinBachisrenderedbyχ. All other
letters are pronounced like in German.
List of Words and Place Names: Ice, Snow,
and Related Phenomena
The following list of the Inuktitut words and names related to ice and snow pre-
sented in alphabetical order has been taken directly from Boas’ publications along
with his original German translation (1885:90–95; 1894). The English translation
from German marked by slashes is by Müller-Wille partially based on a prelimi-
nary translation by Krupnik in 2008. Words beginning with a capital letter are place
382 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
names. The abbreviations for the provenance of words used by Boas (1894) are
as follows: G. – Greenland (based on Kleinschmidt 1851, 1871; Rink 1866, 1871,
1875, 1887), L. – Labrador (based on Erdmann 1864, 1866). In the few cases where
Boas uses the Greek letter χit is replaced here with the standard q.
Boas must have collected as much as he could possibly obtain and grasp. The
resulting collection was clearly influenced by his own experience of living and
traveling extensively with the Inuit for a period of 12 months, which were most
of the time defined by ice and water. Furthermore, it should be noted that the list
includes several hundred toponyms and personal names that are normally not part
of a lexicon.
Ice
a’jorang Spalt im Eise (Sprungspalt, nicht die Spalten am Ebbestrande)/crack in
the ice (extensive crack, not the cracks in the low tidal flats)/L. ajorak.
A’jorang die Spalte/the crack/
Aqti’nirn wo das Eis vor der Flussmündung schmilzt/where the ice melts in front
of the mouth of a river/
Angmaritung das Offene, nicht Ueberfrorene/the open one, not frozen over/L.
angmarok.
Angmartung das Offene (nicht überfrorene)/the open one (not frozen over)/
igjijug dick, dickes Eis/thick, thick ice/L. ivjo’vok,G.ivssuvoq.
imakti’nirn Eis auf schmelzendem Schnee, stark genug Schlitten zu tragen/ice
over melting snow, strong enough to carry a sled/
ivu’dnirn Grundeis am Strande/ground ice on the beach/,L. ivuvok – Eis treibt am
Strande übereinander/ice piling upon the beach/
kaqvaq Packeis /pack ice/L. kackvak.
manitu¯
a’dlu hügeliges Land, rauhes Eis/hillocky land, rough ice/
mase’lirang dünnes Eis, das sich im Frühjahre auf dem Schnee bildet, nasses
Moos/thin ice that is formed on the snow in spring, wet moss/L. masalerak.
miso’majung in’s Meer reichender Gletscher/glacier reaching into the sea/G.
misugpa – er taucht es sein/he dips it into [something]/
nilang Süsswassereis/freshwater ice/L. nillak,G.nilak.
penartua’dlu Wasser steht auf dem Eis/water on ice/
piqalu’jang Eisberg/iceberg/L. Pekkalujak.
Piqaluirtung reich an Eisbergen/abundant with icebergs/
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 383
qaqbang mehrjähriges Eis, Packeis (siehe kaqvaq)/multi-year ice, pack ice (see
kaqvaq).
qati’dinrn das Eis am Strande im Herbste, das bei Fluth schwimmt, bei Ebbe
strandet/the ice on the beach in the fall that floats at high tide and is stranded at low
tide/L. kattinek.
qavirpi’jung Grundeis/ground ice/G. qaungoq.
qu’gnirn Spalte im Grundeis/crack in the ground ice/L. Kongnek.
quta’rong Eisfuss an einer Steilküste/ice foot at a steep coast/
s¯
ı’ko Eis/ice/L., G. same.
Sikosuilaq das Eislose/[location is] free of ice/
sikoqa’ngenut über das Eis/across the ice/
siko’qoang 1-1 1/2 Fuss dickes Eis im Herbste/1 to 1 1
/2ft of thick ice in the fall/
s¯
ı’koaq dünnes Eis beim ersten Gefrieren/thin ice formed by the first frost/
siku’kulu kleine Stücke Treibeis/small pieces of drift ice/
sik¯
u’liaq dünnes Eis an der Eiskante im Winter/thin ice at the ice edge during the
winter/
Sikos¯
u’ilaq das Eislose/[place] without ice/
sin¯
a’ seine Kante, Eiskante/his edge, ice edge/
Sirmilling mit einem Gletscher versehen/place where there is a glacier/
si’rming dünnes Eis, Firn, Gletscher/thin ice, firn, glacier/L. sermek,G.sermeq.
tu’vang dickes Wintereis/thick winter ice/L. tuvak.
tuvarea’qtung dickes Eis im Spätherbste /thick ice at the end of the fall season/
Snow
aqilokoq weich gefallener Schnee/softly fallen snow/(G. aqipoq – es ist weich/it
is soft/), L. akkiilokàk.
apun liegender Schnee/snow on the ground/L. aput,G.aput; aput (Boas 1911:25).
Auqardnelling mit im Frühling schmelzenden Stellen/with spots that thaw in the
spring/
ikijuq, ikiv¯
u’ Wind höhlt Schnee aus /wind hollows out snow/
mauja weicher Schnee/soft snow/L. maujak (derives from G. mauvoq – er sinkt
mit den Füßen ein/he sinks in with his feet/).
384 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
Maujatung Reich an weichem Schnee/abundant with soft snow/
piegnartoq der Schnee ist gut zum Schlittentreiben/the snow is good for driving
sled/L. piarngnartoq.
pi’rtsirpoq der Schnee treibt/drifting snow/L. perkserpok,G.Persoq; piqsirpoq
(Boas 1911:26).
qaneq fallender Schnee/falling snow/L. kannek,G.qanik.qa’nerpok – es schneit
/it is snowing/, qana (Boas 1911:26).
Qimi’sung Schneewehe (?)/snowdrift (?)/, Hundsfell (?)/dogskin(?)/(see
qimu’qdjung).
Qimissung die Schneewehe/the snowdrift/
qimu’qdjung Schneewehe/snowdrift/L. kimuksuk;qimuqsuq (Boas 1911:26).
savujua’rtuang Schneeblock/snow block/(from savik – Messer/knife/).
siorp¯
a’lirpoq Athem gefriert zu Eis/breath freezes to ice/
Related Phenomena
agdlu Seehundsloch/seal’s breathing hole through the ice/L. aglo,G.agdlo.
Audnerbing Wo man nach Seehunden kriecht/where one crawls for seals [on the
ice]/
aunerpoq er kriecht auf dem Eis nach Seehunden/he crawls over ice for seals/L.
Aungniarpok.
igdlu Schneehaus/snow house/L. igloo,G.igdlo.
Igdluviaujang das einem Schneehaus Ähnliche/the one similar to a snow house/
Sarbartijung reich an Stromschnellen/abundant in currents/[referring to open
places in sea ice, i.e., polynya], from sarbaq – starke Strömung im Meer/strong
sea current/
taglun Schneeschuhe/snowshoes/L. taglut.
tilu’qtun Schneeklopfer/snow beater/L. tillukt˜
ut,G.tilugtût.
ukiuq Winter/winter/L. okkiuk,G.ukioq.
¯
u’toq Seehund auf dem Eise bei seinem Loche liegend/seal on the ice basking at
its [breathing] hole/L. otok, G. utoq.
The terminology on ice, snow, and related phenomena that Boas recorded in the
1880s showed that the Inuit knowledge of their physical environment was detailed,
precise, and intricate. Boas understood the importance of this socioecological
setting. Therefore, his linguistic record is a testimony of these complex
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 385
human–environmental interactions at a particular period in Inuit history.
Furthermore, by looking at terms from Labrador and Greenland, Boas detected
variations and similarities to demonstrate connections among various Inuit groups.
Of particular interest are the toponyms that included references to ice and snow,
and which are in their content consistent from region to region in the Arctic (cf.
Müller-Wille 1985; Müller-Wille and Weber 1983). From the material available it
cannot be determined if Boas put a particular emphasis on collecting ice and snow
terminology; however, this specific vocabulary was an important part of the general
Inuit lexicon and could not be overlooked. As historic material, this word list, which
in Boas’ eyes was a humble effort, is an important record for the development of
Inuit linguistics and for our contemporary understanding of the Inuit (and other
Arctic people’s) knowledge of ice, snow, and related phenomena.
Boas’ Contribution to Inuit Terminology of Ice
and Snow: Present-Day Perspective
Boas’ interest in the Inuit terminology for sea ice and snow was by no means
accidental if one recalls his background in physics and geography and the topic
of his doctoral dissertation, “Contributions to Understanding the Color of Water”
(1881). While going over various Inuit dictionaries in preparation for his Baffin
Island trip, Boas certainly became aware that the Inuit had many more terms for
ice and snow than were available in his native German (or other European lan-
guages). Erdmann’s German Labrador Eskimo dictionary with its 17 terms for
various types of “ice” (Eis), plus a dozen more terms for ice-associated phenom-
ena, and 8 terms for snow (Erdmann 1866:65, 163) could have been an obvious
source of inspiration. Other prospective source, besides several Danish dictionaries
of the West Greenlandic/Kalaallisut (see earlier), might have been Émile Petitot’s
(1876) French–Eskimo dictionary from the Mackenzie Delta, with its 12 terms for
ice and 13 terms for snow. It comes as no surprise that Boas, a meticulous field-
worker, produced an Inuktitut lexicon from Cumberland Sound that included more
than 30 terms for ice and related phenomena and more than a dozen terms for snow.
Boas’ Inuktitut terms for ice and snow can be assessed following the same pro-
cedures we applied to contemporary sea ice and snow vocabularies collected for
the SIKU project (see Chapter 14 by Krupnik and Weyapuk this volume). First, ice
terms should be studied separately from the snow terms, since they use different
stems and refer to different phenomena. Second, the analysis is more productive
when the terms are organized and compared within certain typological groups, such
as “young ice,” “shore-fast ice, “pressure ridges,” and “layered ice”. Third, cultural
and human-/animal-associated terms should be treated separately, since they are
often built as “derivatives,” due to the patterns of word formation in the Eskimo/Inuit
languages.
During his Baffin Island trip, Boas had ample opportunity to hear many Inuktitut
words for ice and snow, thanks to his prolonged dog sled and boat trips with Inuit
386 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
Table 16.1 Terms for young ice and freeze-up formations in some historical and contemporary Inuit/Inuktitut/Inupiaq Ice vocabularies
Cumberland Sound:
(Boas 1894)
Pangnirtung:
(Laidler 2007)
Labrador:
(Erdmann 1864,
also Peck 1925)
Igloolik:
(Aporta 2003)
Nunavik:
(McDonald et al.
1997)
West Greenland
(Taverniers 2009)
Barrow
(Brower 2008)
qati’dinrn
ice on the beach in
the fall that floats at
high tide and is
stranded at low tide
siko’qoang
1 to 1 ½ ft thick
ice in the fall
atuqsaruqtuq
when the ice is thick
enough to walk on
iluvaliajuq
the first film of ice
that starts forming
nutaaminiq
newly formed ice in the
fall, about a week old
qainngu
ice ledge formed by
water overflowing and
refreezing
qillirusijuq
an early stage of ice
formation, when ice
begins forming along
the edge of the
shoreline
qinnuaq
slushy suspension in
the water, the beginning
of ice formation
quppirquaq
very thin sheet of ice
that looks like an oil
slick on top of the
water
sikuallaajuq
big plates of new ice;
traditional term for
pancake ice
qaingok
the ice on the banks,
shores
kinuak/kKinnuak
thin ice when the
water begins to freeze
kinnuarpok
the water becomes ice
kinnumarllerpok
it is making strong
ice; it is freezing hard
(lit. it is making full-
grown ice)
sermek (E)
new ice on the boat,
etc.
illuvaliajuq
the sides of the river
when it starts to
freeze
qainnguq
when the shorelines
start to freeze
qinnuaq
primary ice formation
on the shores when
the sea starts to freeze
qinuaq
soft or slushy snow in
the water
qinulimajuviniit
the ice that is caused
by the snowfall when
it begins to freeze
quasalimajuq
crystal-free fall
freeze up, so it
becomes slippery
quvviqua
strip of ice on the
water, when the sea
ice is about to freeze
agutitaat
thin layers of new ice
akgutitak, akgutinik
slushy mixture of ice
and snow frozen into
flexible ice
minguirniq
slush ice
milutsinik
snow-soaked water that
freezes at the floe edge
qainguniq, qainguq
slush washed ashore
that freezes on the
beach
qinuq
slush ice formed
along shorelines and
at the floe edge
qiqngurusirtuk
new ice formed from
slush in narrow water
bodies, like inlets
qaiquit
new ice
putatak
new ice, puttaq,
autumn floating ice,
the first ice floating in
nutarneq
recently formed sea
ice.
qaanngoq
icefoot, a narrow
fringe of ice attached
to the coast
qinuuvoq
there is slush
sikorlaaq
recently formed sea ice.
sikuarllaaq
dark nilas (a thin elastic
crust of ice) few
millimeters thick.
arguqtabniq
newly formed thin
ice collecting on the
downwind side of a
polynya or lead
atibnibaq
new ice forming a
smooth apron around
pre-existing ice
ibnigluq
thin young ice broken
up or crushed and
refrozen as found in
cracks
imuniq
crushed young ice
caused by moving ice
kaniqtaq
slightly refrozen ice
pieces but fragile;
this ice will quickly
spread out when it is
stepped on
mayuqtitaq
slush ice pushed onto
the shore with wraps
frozen into waves
misajhak
slushy top of young
saltwater ice
mubaliq; mubajjiq
slush ice on sea
mubrak
slush ice
qaivabniq
flat round cakes of ice
frozen together
qinu
slushy ice
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 387
Table 16.1 (continued)
sī’koaq
thin ice formed by the
first frost
sikū’liaq
thin ice at the ice
edge during the
winter
sikuaq
new, thin brittle sheet
of ice; the first
continuous layer of ice
sikujuq
the water has frozen
over; there is no more
open water
sikuluqtuq
bad, thin, dangerous ice
sikurataaq
sea ice that has just
recently formed
sikutaq
first ice to form in bays,
inlets, and heads of
fjords
sikuvaliajuq
early process of the ice
formation; first layers
of ice starting to form
sikuvaalluuti
the first ice that forms
and stays until the
following year
sivaujanguaq
pancake ice
uiguaq
new ice that forms
along the lead edge, “an
extension”
sikkoak
quite thin ice
sikkoarpok
there is quite thin ice
sikkulliak
fresh (new) ice on the
shore (or anywhere),
young
sikkovok
it gets ice
sikkolauvok
it is frozen over
siva
fresh ice; (grease
ice?, also cod oil)
sikuaq
new ice forms on the
bays; first stage of
freeze up
singniqsaq
similar to qinu but
much more solid, so
that one can travel
through
sikuliaq
new ice on which it is
possible to walk
tuqujaktinniq
the area of the newly
formed ice that is
darker than the rest
uiguaq
new ice formed at the
edge of the floe edge
uiguaviniq
when the new ice
uiguaq becomes older
sikuak
very thin layers of
new ice that are
formed on a calm day
sikulirutit
new ice, freshly frozen
from part saltwater and
part freshwater along
shorelines and within
inlets.
sikutak
new ice that forms
from sikuak, once
inlets are frozen
sikutait
solid ice in small inlets
or bays formed before
the land-fast ice
sikuliak
newly formed ice with
no snow on top; safe to
walk or travel on.
ukiurjait
new ice that forms
from sikuak;
uiguaq
smooth, solid
extension ice
sikuaq
dark nilas (a thin
elastic crust of ice)
1–5 cm thick.
sikujartuaarpoq
sea ice forms and
becomes thicker (on
several days)
sikujumaataarpoq
sea ice delays in
forming
sikunippoq
floating pieces of sea
ice arrive (moved by
wind or current) when
the sea was ice-free
sikuliaq
recently formed sea ice
sikulaaq
recently formed sea ice
sikuaq
thin ice, dangerous to
walk on
sikullabruaq
new thick ice
approximately 2.5 ft
thick and thicker
sikuliaq
young ice formed
around edge of old
solid ice on open lead
iiguaq
ice extension
Cumberland Sound:
(Boas 1894)
Pangnirtung:
(Laidler 2007)
Labrador:
(Erdmann 1864, also
Peck 1925)
Igloolik:
(Aporta 2003)
Nunavik:
(McDonald et al.
1997)
West Greenland
(Taverniers 2009)
Barrow
(Brower 2008)
388 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
companions. His travels also exposed him to the richness of the Inuit environmental
knowledge, such as the many names for winds, directions, constellations, and other
natural phenomena (Boas 1888/1964:235–236). Boas’ interest in Inuit place names
and personal names, many of which were built by using various base terms for ice
and snow, could likewise have offered insight into the Inuit perspectives on ice and
snow formation. What is most striking in Boas’ list of Inuktitut ice and snow terms
from Baffin Island is that it is not very extensive, particularly the snow list.
More than 30 Cumberland Sound Inuktitut ice terms recorded by Boas form
a rather skeletal, albeit a solid, vocabulary particularly when arranged by major
typological groupings (Appendix). Boas did document many basic terms, but several
key words are missing. Overall, the remarkable richness of the Inuit ice terminol-
ogy is barely visible in his material. Boas’ list is particularly thin in the “young ice,”
“ice floes/drifting ice,” and “spring melting, breakup” categories, when compared
with Erdmann’s dictionary of 1864 and several modern ice vocabularies collected
for the SIKU project (Table 16.1). Boas’ list lacks many ice terms that are familiar
to today’s residents of the Cumberland Sound area (see Laidler 2007; Laidler et al.
2008). The small number of derivative terms and words for human activities asso-
ciated with the sea ice in Boas’ lexicons from 1885 and 1894 is also noteworthy. In
many contemporary lists collected for the SIKU project such terms contribute up to
25–30% of the total.
The limited nature of Inuktitut ice terminology collected by Boas supports our
assessment that he did not achieve sufficient fluency in Inuktitut during his fieldwork
and that he was recording the terms in a context of his traveling and learning rather
than via a systemic survey. Also, he might have lacked good interpreter(s) to reach
out to knowledgeable local collaborators or elderly experts, in the way the collection
of indigenous terminologies is usually done today.
The same is also true with regard to Boas’ much shorter list (13 entries) of
the Cumberland Sound Inuktitut snow and snow-associated terms. Several contem-
porary Inuit/Eskimo snow lexicons (see Table 16.2) range from 20 to 35 terms,
i.e., West Alaskan Yup’ik (Woodbury 1991, based upon Jacobson 1984), Barrow
Inupiaq (Brower 2008), Inuvialuit/Siglutun (Lowe 1984), Copper Inuit (Lowe
1983); Nunavik Inuktituk (Dorais 1996: 145), Thule Inuit (Fortescue 1991), West
Greenlandic (Fortescue 1984). More extensive lists feature up to 60–80 terms, like
Siberian Yupik (Vakhtin and Emelyanova 1988:24–27), St. Lawrence Island Yupik
(Walunga 1988; Womkon Badten et al. 1987), Barrow Inupiaq (Sturm 2009a, b),
historical Labrador Inuttut (Erdmann 1864/Peck 1925). The largest known list, com-
piled from the Nunavik Inuktitut dictionary (Schneider 1985), has more than 100
terms, including numerous derivative forms.
When those contemporary lists are organized in major typological groups, like
“types of snow on the ground” (Table 16.2), “falling and drifting snow,” “snow
forms,” “snow-associated phenomena,” “human activities associated with snow,”
it becomes obvious that Boas missed several critical terms, particularly related to
the snowstorm and snowfall patterns (3 words versus 18 words in Erdmann/Peck’s
Labrador dictionary), terms to describe forms built on the snow surface by wind
blowing and accumulation (3 terms only), melting and freezing, and the like. Many
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 389
Table 16.2 Number of terms for major types of snow and associated phenomena in historical and
contemporary Eskimo/Inuit vocabularies
Snow
on the
ground
Falling
snow,
snowfall
Snow on
ice and
water
Snow
forms
Othersa
(including
derivatives) Total
Inuktitut, Cumberland Sound,
1883 (Boas 1894)
33 −32 11
Inuttut, Labrador 1850s
(Erdmann 1864/Peck 1925)
12 18 −323 56
Siglitun, Mackenzie Delta,
1860s (Petitot 1876)
10 3 −− 114
Kalaallisut, West Greenland,
1970s (Fortescue 1984)
611 32 9 31
Yupik, St. Lawrence Island,
1980s (Walunga 1988)
15 3 13 4 21 56
Central Alaska Yup’ik
(Jacobson 1984/Woodbury
1991)
73 736 26
Siberian Yupik, 1970s (Vakhtin
and Emelyanova 1989)
12 24 −815 59
Inuktitut, Nunavik, 1970s
(Schneider 1985)
26 23 −4 53 106
Inupiaq, Barrow, 1990s
(Brower 2008)
16 3 5 5 7 36
Inupiaq, Barrow, 2000s (Sturm
2009b)
17 8 1(?) 15 18 59+
aIncluding terms for hail, frost, rime, snow crystals; human activities associated with snow.
terms that are familiar to today’s residents of the Cumberland Sound area are not
in Boas’ list, like apputtattuq, snow that accumulates on the newly formed ice and
causes its thinning; kiviniq, wet snow sinking into the sea ice; qissuqaqtuq,snow
that has frozen/hardened at night and is good for travel (Laidler et al. 2008). The
most logical explanation, again, is that Boas did not have adequate access to local
experts who could have helped expand his snow list.
It is no wonder that Boas was humbled by the quality of his Cumberland Sound
Inuktitut lexicon. He was in no rush to publish it, and he did so only 10 years after
his initial fieldwork. Evidently, only the death of Hinrich Rink in 1893 and/or a tem-
porary break in correspondence with James Mutch (1847–1931), Boas’ only solid
contact in Baffin Island (Harper 2008), finally convinced Boas that his material
could not be improved any further. The appearance of the Cumberland Sound
lexicon in the Vienna-based Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft
(Proceedings of the Anthropological Society), with an abridged introduction and
no analysis, was Boas’ acknowledgment that it was the most he could produce from
that field trip.
Boas clearly learned his lesson. Soon after, he developed a long-term collabo-
ration with two outstanding language and knowledge experts from the Northwest
Coast area, George Hunt (1854–1933) and James Teit (1864–1922). Long-term
390 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
partnerships with Hunt, Teit, and other local collaborators (Henry Tate, Louis
Shortridge, James Mutch) became the basis of Boas’ work in the documentation
of indigenous cultures, texts, languages, and spiritual systems in the later stages of
his professional career (Berman 2001; Rohner 1969).
The Cumberland Sound Inuktitut lexicon of 1894 also testifies to Boas’ pru-
dence as a researcher. Though he inserted, whenever possible, parallels with other
Inuit dialects (Labrador Inuttut, West Greenlandic), he made no effort to expand his
record by adding forms from other sources. Surprisingly, his fieldwork “prudence”
was challenged some 90 years, after the publication of his Inuktitut lexicon from
Cumberland Sound.
“The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax”: A Rejoinder
from the SIKU Project
In 1986, Laura Martin, linguistic anthropologist and specialist in Mayan languages,
produced a short essay titled “Eskimo Words for Snow” (Martin 1986). Martin
traced the origins of what she called “the Genesis and Decay of an anthropological
example,” that is, of the popular belief that the Eskimo have “dozens, if not hundreds
words for snow” to Franz Boas. According to Martin (1986:418), Boas’ quite casual
and not very solid reference to four lexically unrelated words for snow in the Eskimo
(language) (Boas 1911:25–26) was later picked up by Benjamin Whorf (1940) and
was subsequently exploited in dozens of textbooks and popular writings. Through
this repeated and often thoughtless recycling, Boas’ original four terms eventually
“snow-balled” into up to “two hundred” terms for snow that reportedly were known
by the Eskimo.
Martin’s arguments were soon amplified by linguist Geoffrey Pullum, who used
a catchy title, “The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax” for his rejoinder to Martin’s
critics (e.g., Murray 1987). Pullum recycled that title in several subsequent reprints
and online postings, including his book of linguistic essays on other unrelated topics
(Pullum 1989,1990,1991a, 1991b, 1994,1996, 2003). Pullum’s publications stirred
a passionate debate, primarily among linguists and popular writers, that continues
to this day.5Meantime, cohorts of students who have taken classes in Introductory
Linguistics since 1991 have been trained to believe that Pullum and Martin had put
to rest the myth originating from Boas (and Whorf) that the Eskimos had “many
hundred terms for snow.”6Even more, Pullum and his followers argue that the
Eskimo snow vocabulary has roughly the same number of words as English. In
fact, most of the contributors to the “Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax” debate hardly
ever ventured into an Eskimo dictionary and none cited Boas’ Baffin Island lexicon
of 1894, though a few Eskimo linguists took part in the discussion (i.e., Woodbury
1991; de Reuse 1994; Kaplan 2003, 2005).
Our analysis of the Inuit words for ice and snow recorded by Boas may clarify
some misunderstandings common to the “Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax” debate.
First, Boas certainly knew more than the four Eskimo terms for snow that he cited as
an example of the “differences in how the groups of ideas are expressed by specific
phonetic groups in different languages” (Boas 1911:25). We do not know why he
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 391
selected these particular words (aput,qana,piqsirpoq, and qimuqsuq).7He could
have easily picked several more words for snow from his Baffin Island lexicon, like
axilokoq/aqilokoq – “softly falling snow,” mauja – “soft snow on the ground,” pieg-
nartoq – “the snow (which is) good for driving sled,” or from Erdmann’s Labrador
dictionary that had more terms, such as pukak – “crystaline snow,” sakketok –“fresh
fallen snow,” machakit (masak/masayak)–“wet, mushy snow.” Hence, Martin’s
(1986:418) criticism that “Boas makes little distinction among “roots,” “words,”
and “independent terms” is a gross misinterpretation, as Boas was very careful not
to use any derivative snow terms to illustrate his point.
Second, all Eskimo/Inuit languages have many more words for snow and snow-
related phenomena than the four terms cited by Boas. Although none of the known
Eskimo snow lists expands into “many hundreds,” local snow lexicons commonly
feature several dozen terms for types of snow and snow-related phenomena, includ-
ing specific patterns of snowfall and/or snowmelt, forms created by wind and other
agents over the snow surface. For example, there are eight to 12 independent words
for various types of snow on the ground (see Table 16.3).8True, the majority of
the Eskimo/Inuit snow terms are built by adding suffixes to a certain number of
basic stems. Nonetheless, each represents a meaningful and clearly distinguishable
phenomenon to indigenous speakers, very much like the terms “new snow” and “old
snow” or “small” and “medium ice floe” have special meaning to meteorologists and
ice/snow specialists in the scientific nomenclatures (Anonymous n.d.; Armstrong
1958; WMO 1970). This relevance to the language speakers has been completely
lost in the “Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax” debate, whose participants had little
experience with the Eskimo/Inuit knowledge of snow (or ice).
Third, all Eskimo languages possess many more words for various types of sea
ice and associated phenomena than for snow, as first argued by de Reuse (1994)
and Michael Krauss (several personal communications during the 1990s) and amply
illustrated by the SIKU project materials. Most of the 20-some indigenous sea ice
vocabularies collected for the SIKU project feature 60–80 (some of them up to
110–120) terms, including dozens of terms for various types of ice and ice-
associated phenomena (see Chapter 18 by Tersis and Taverniers this volume;
Chapter 14 by Krupnik and Weyapuk this volume; Chapter 17 by Johns this vol-
ume; Laidler 2007). Boas was certainly well aware of that richness and he, perhaps,
would have put himself on a more solid footing had he picked the Inuit terms for ice,
rather than for snow, as an illustration. His own lexicon from Cumberland Sound
features numerous independent terms, like Siku (ice), igjijiuq (thick ice), kakvaq
(pack ice), piqalu’jang (floating iceberg), tu’vang (thick winter ice, shore-fast ice),
nillang (freshwater ice), si’rming (glacier ice), ivu’dnirn (ground ice on the beach),
and many more that are common across the Inuit/Inupiaq language area.
Lastly, contrary to Pullum’s much-reiterated claim based on the comment by
Woodbury (1991), the English vocabulary for snow and related phenomena is clearly
inferior to those recorded in several Eskimo/Inuit languages and dialects. The terms
for snow and associated features are almost universally produced in English by using
the stem “snow” plus additional stem or a separate word with another meaning, i.e.,
“snowstorm,” “snowdrift,” “snowflake,” “snowball,” “snow-bank,” “snowcap,” and
“snowfall”.9The examples Pullum cited (following Woodbury) to illustrate many
392 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
Table 16.3 Boas’ Inuktitut terms for snow on the ground compared to historical and modern Inuit vocabularies
Baffin Island
(Boas 1894)
Labrador
(Erdmann 1864)
Nunavik
(Schneider 1985)
West Greenland
(Fortescue 1984)
Barrow
(Sturm 2009b)
Inuvik
(Lowe 1984/2003)
apun
snow on the ground
aqilokoq
softly fallen snow
aput
snow (generally)
akkilokak
soft snow, not hard
aniu
snow for making water
apijaq
snow covered by bad
weather
aput, aputi
snow on the ground
aqilluqaaq
mixed snow and water that
is thawing
atsaakatsaaq
snow good for making a
giant snowball
isiriartaq
snow that falls yellow or
reddened
katakartanaq
snow with a hard crust that
gives way under footsteps
kavisirlaq
snow rendered rough by
rain and freezing
kinirtaq
anything, including dump
snow that is compact
because soaked
mannguq
melting snow
mannguumaaq
snow softened by warm
weather
masak
snow soaked in water, wet
snow falling from the sky
apirlaat
new-fallen snow
aput
snow (on ground)
aput masannartuq
slush/wet snow on
ground
mangiqqak
hard snow (also
manngikaajaaq)
aniu
snow, soft snow
aniuvak
hard packed snow in a
gully
apivaaluqqaaq
first snow of the year
apun
snow cover
auktaaq
melting snow
imaktinniq
very wet snow, slush
isrriqutit
diamond dust or ice
crystals in the air
masayyak
damp snow
aniu
packed snow to make
water
apilaraun
first snow layer in
fall
apun
snow lying on a
surface
aqiluraq
light soft snow
maqayak
watery mud or snow
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 393
Table 16.3 (continued)
mauja
soft snow
piegnartoq
snow is good for driving
sled
machakit
wet snow (also
porcelain, china,
earthenware)
mangokpok
the snow is soft,
watery
mauja
soft deep snow
maujak
soft snow
pukak
snow looking like salt,
not cleaving together
kersok
crust on the ice in the
spring
kerksokak
frozen crust of the
snow
kersokpok
frozen snow, in which
there are tracks
sakketok
fresh fallen snow, not
blown or drifted
matsaaq
snow soaked in water, half
melted on the ground
matsaaruti
wet snow prepared for
pouring on a sled runner so
as to ice them thickly
maujaq
any ground that gives
under one’ steps: mud,
marsh, soft snow
pukaangajuq
snow that is sufficiently
crystallized, good enough
to make a snow house
pukak
crystalline snow that breaks
down, separates, and looks
like rough salt
piirturiniq
thin coat of light, soft
snow deposited by a snow
flurry on an object, ice
qannitaq
snow recently fallen to the
ground
qiasuqaq
snow that had thawed and
is refrozen with an iced
surface
qiqumaaq
snow whose surface is
frozen
qirsuqartuq
snow that thawed freezes
stiff and hard
nittaalaaqqat
hard grains of snow (pl.)
pukak
snow crust
putsinniq/puvvinniq
wet snow on top of ice
qinuq
rotten snow/slush on sea
nutabaq
fresh powder snow
nutaaq
soft new snow
nuturuk
good snow for making
snow house; firm, yet
not too hard
pukak
bottom layer of the
snow cover, made up of
large loosely bonded
crystals, easily broken
up
qiqsruqqaq
glazed snow
sixxigruk
old icy snow, extra-
hard
masak
mushy, waterlogged
snow
mauya
deep soft snow
misak
wet snow
pukak
sugar snow
Baffin Island
(Boas 1894)
Labrador
(Erdmann 1864)
Nunavik
(Schneider 1985)
West Greenland
(Fortescue 1984)
Barrow
(Sturm 2009b)
Inuvik
(Lowe 1984/2003)
394 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
independent English stems for snow are mostly faulty.10 The only independent terms
for snow in today’s English from Pullum–Woodbury’s list are “blizzard” (severe
snowstorm), “avalanche” (a borrowing from French), and “hardpack.”11
If we are to count independent stems only, the diversity of the English snow
nomenclature is indeed quite limited, compared not only to the Inuit/Eskimo but
also to several other languages, including Indo-European ones, spoken by peo-
ple having greater exposure to snow and severe winter conditions. In Russian,
for example, most snow-related terms are built, like in English, by using the
stem sneg/snezh (“snow”) with various added suffixes or independent stems, i.e.,
snegopad (snowfall), snezhinka (snowflake), snezhok (snowball), snezhnik (leftover
snow in summer on the mountain slope), snezhura (wet mushy snow, close to the
Inuit qinu), snezhnitsa (melted water from snow). In addition, Russian has several
more independent terms for snow, such as porosha (first light snow on the ground),
sugrob (heap of snow), nast (snow crust), naduv (pile of blown or drifted snow),
zastruga (snow wave, linear-shape snowdrift), pozemok (low-level snowdrift), pro-
talina (open ground where the snow has melted).12 Russian speakers use four
independent terms for various types of snowstorm or blizzard, including metel’
(the most common word), viyuga (strong snowstorm, usually with a connotation
of noisy blowing wind), buran (loan from Turkic, violent snowstorm, usually in the
open space, like the steppe), and purga (loan from Finnish purka, prolonged and
violent snowstorm commonly seen in northern parts of Russia and Siberia). This
illustrates that some languages with more (or longer) exposure to snow and/or sea
ice than English naturally develop detailed and meaningful terminologies for those
phenomena that are of practical value to its speakers, even if some linguists claim
otherwise.
Conclusions
It is obvious that during and after his fieldwork on Baffin Island, Boas was aware
of his limitations in communicating with the Inuit and was reserved in assessing the
value of his field material. Like many scientists on a first trip to a new area, he tried
to overcome these limitations by traveling extensively across the terrain with local
companions and by focusing on Inuit settlement patterns and mapping of local tribal
groupings, place names, mobility, and land use. In his later research, Boas used
a very different approach in forging long-term collaborations with locally based
experts who were fluent in indigenous languages and had access to knowledgeable
elders. This is also the approach used by many SIKU teams for this project.
It is not surprising that the number of local Inuktitut terms for ice and snow that
Boas recorded on his first and only field work among the Inuit was, perhaps, less
than one-third of what is known to today’s speakers. The message from the first to
the fourth IPY 125 years later is clear. It is not how much or how long we travel
over the Arctic terrain that defines the quality of our material, but rather the depth of
our collaboration with local experts and the amount of information they are willing
to share with us. Six generations after Boas’s fieldwork, and despite many transi-
tions in the Inuit lifestyles, there is a tremendous pool of environmental expertise
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 395
in many local communities, including that on ice and snow habitats. In many areas
people still have a full command of rich indigenous terminologies that are often
more extensive and nuanced than those developed by ice and snow scientists for
their research.
Unlike Boas, we may rely these days not only on observations and recordings
made by local partners and indigenous cultural specialists but also on the data col-
lected at community meetings or stored in local schools and heritage curricula;
and on the use of electronic maps and other modern digital technologies mastered
by many of today’s northern residents. These and other new resources have been
actively employed to document indigenous knowledge and use of sea ice in modern
polar communities during the SIKU project.
Lastly, Boas’ recording of the Inuit terms for ice and snow had little relevance to
what 100 years later became known as “The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.” This
entire story is a misnomer and it is based on the misunderstanding of Boas’ legacy.
Also, this debate has little to contribute to the study of Inuit knowledge of snow and
ice, except that it subjects this knowledge to misinterpretation and condescending
boasting. So, if some linguists and journalists are interested in counting someone’s
“words for snow” we have a message for them. Please switch to another language!
The Norwegian Sámi, who tend to their reindeer herds over the northernmost realm
of Europe, reportedly have 100 words for snow (Magga 2006).
Acknowledgments We are grateful to our colleagues, Claudio Aporta, Ernest S. Burch, Jr., Louis-
Jacques Dorais, Ives Goddard, and Michael Krauss for many valuable comments to the first draft of
this chapter. Mark Halpern was a source of inspiration on many issues related to the “Great Eskimo
Vocabulary Hoax” debate. Matthew Sturm shared with us his lexicon of the Inuit/Inupiaq terms for
snow collected among knowledgeable elders in Barrow, Alaska; and Noel Broadbent shared and
translated the Swedish list of ice terms from Edlund’s dissertation (2000). Our colleagues in the
SIKU project – Claudio Aporta, Ron Brower, Gita Laidler, and Pierre Taverniers – kindly offered
Inuit ice vocabularies they collected in 2003–2008 in Igloolik, Barrow, Pangnirtung, and Qeqertaq,
respectively, for our comparative analysis with Franz Boas’ 1894 lexicon. All shortcomings in
interpreting the Inuit knowledge or ice and snow are of our own.
Notes
1. Boas went to his first fieldwork in Baffin Island in June 1883 on board the supply ship
Germania sent to bring home the scientific personnel of the German IPY station at Kingua
Fjord. His work was supported by the German Polar Commission that was in charge of the
German research activities during IPY 1882–1883. Boas also benefited from some supplies,
equipment, and logistics left behind by the German IPY expedition (Cole and Müller-Wille
1985:41–45).
2. SIKU (#166); ELOKA (Exchange of Local Knowledge in the Arctic, #187); EALAT (#399);
Inuit, Narwhal and Tusks (#164), and others.
3. Throughout this chapter, the term “Eskimo” is used when referring to historical sources from
the 1800s and 1900s and also when applied to the entire “Eskimo” language area that includes
both the Inuit/Inuktitut/Inupiaq and Yupik/Yup’ik languages. In all other cases, indigenous
residents of the Canadian Arctic are called Inuit and their language, Inuktitut.
4. Franz Boas/Hinrich Rink, Minden/Copenhagen, April 28, 1885; also A. F. Elsner (Moravian
missionary to Labrador)/Franz Boas, Bremen/Minden, June 26, 1885; both in the Rink Papers,
Archive of The Royal Library, Copenhagen. Translation from the German by L. Müller-Wille.
396 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
5. See De Reuse (1995); Derose (1999/2005); Fayhee (2009); Halpern (2008); Kaplan (2005);
Liberman (2003, 2006); Muldrew (1997/2000); Pullum (2003, 2004); Woodbury (1991,
1994). For the most thorough and balanced review of the various terminologies for snow,
including the origins of the “Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax” – see Mergen (1997:159–182).
6. See, lecture, “Language and Thought,” by Colin Phillips, University of Delaware,
11.04.1999 http://www.ling.udel.edu/colin/courses/ling101_f99/ lecture18.html (accessed
April 28, 2009).
7. Aput is the most general Inuit term for snow on the ground; qana (?) evidently is the wrong
form for qaneq, “falling snow” (Boas 1894:104); piqsirpoq (pi’rtsirpoq in Boas 1894:110)
refers to the process of snow blowing or drifting under the force of wind (Germ. der Schnee
treibt – Boas 1894:110); qimuqsuq means “snowdrift,” or rather, a wavy surface built by the
snowdrift.
8. Most of those terms, like aniu (soft snow good for drinking water), apun (the most gen-
eral term for snow), aqilluqqaq/aqilluraq (light soft snow), masak (mushy, water-logged
snow), mauya/mauja (deep soft snow), pukak (crystalline snow), qiqsruqqaq (glazed snow)
are common across the Inuit/Inupiaq/Inuktitut area.
9. As Mark Halpern rightly points out (personal communication, August 4, 2009), many English
words involving “snow” do not describe the type of snow but refer to something else, like
“snowball” is not a kinds of snow, but a kind of ball, just as “meatloaf” is not a kind of
meat but a kind of loaf. Same applies to snow goose, snowmobile, snowbird, snowbell,
snowplow, etc.
10. English words like “powder,” “crust,” or “dusting” cannot be associated with snow without
special context. “Sleet” is more a term for “freezing rain” or ice pellets, rather than snow;
and “slush” is used for all kinds of mushy substances, besides partly melted snow and ice,
including soft mud, and paper pulp (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slush).
11. The latter, besides being a definition for compacted snow (http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/hardpack), is commonly used for any firm ground (hardpack soil)
or even for special brands of bag-packs and bicycles.
12. All explanations of the Russian snow terms are from Murzaev (1984).
Appendix: Franz Boas’ List of Cumberland Sound Ice Terms
(1894) by Major Groupings
Ice
s¯
ı’ko ice/ L., G. same.
Young Ice
qati’dinrn the ice on the beach in the fall that floats at high tide and is stranded at low tide/L. kattinek.
siko’qoang 1to11
/2ft of thick ice in the fall
s¯
ı’koaq thin ice formed by the first frost
sik¯
u’liaq thin ice at the ice edge during the winter
Pack Ice, Old Ice
kaqvaq pack ice/L. kackvak.
qaqbang multi-year ice, pack ice (see kaqvaq).
tu’vang thick winter ice/L. tuvak.
tuvarea’qtung thick ice at the end of the fall season
16 Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax 397
Land-Fast Ice
qavirpi’jung ground ice/G. qaungoq.
quta’rong ice foot at a steep coast
Pressure Ridges, Rafted and Layered Ice
igjijug thick, thick ice/L. ivjo’vok,G.ivssuvoq.
ivu’dnirn ground ice on the beach/, L. ivuvok /ice piling upon the beach/
Various Ice Forms
manitu¯
a’dlu – hillocky land, rough ice/
Cracks, Leads, Polynyas
a’jorang crack in the ice (extensive crack, not the cracks in the low tidal flats)/L. ajorak.
A’jorang Place name: the crack
Aqti’nirn Place name: where the ice melts in front of the mouth of a river/
Angmaritung Place name: the open one, not frozen over/L. angmarok.
Angmartung Place name: the open one (not frozen over)/
qu’gnirn crack in the ground ice/L. Kongnek.
sin¯
a’ his edge, ice edge
Ice Floes, Floating/Drifting Ice
piqalu’jang iceberg/L. Pekkalujak.
Piqaluirtung Place name: abundant with icebergs
siku’kulu small pieces of drift ice
Spring Ice Melt
imakti’nirn ice over melting snow, strong enough to carry a sled/
mase’lirang thin ice that is formed on the snow in spring, wet
moss/L. masalerak.
Other Types of Ice and Ice-Related Phenomena
miso’majung glacier reaching into the sea/G. misugpa – he dips it into [something]/
nilang freshwater ice/L. nillak,G.nilak.
penartua’dlu water on ice
Sirmilling Place name: place where there is a glacier/
si’rming thin ice, firn, glacier/L. sermek,G.sermeq.
Derivatives
Sikosuilaq Place name: [location is] free of ice/
sikoqa’ngenut across the ice/
Sikos¯
u’ilaq Place name: [place] without ice/
398 I. Krupnik and L. Müller-Wille
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