COLD COMFORT
How Nancy Campbell’s snowy sojourn in Greenland set her on a linguistic odyssey, bringing her inspiration and consolation in troubled times
Adecade ago, I was offered a job at the most northerly museum in the world, on a small rocky island off the west coast of Greenland. I went happily, hoping to escape the distractions of the city amid the Arctic’s white noise. I soon found that life in the snow is not always silent. That winter, as I got to know the island community, I learnt the local dialect, which enshrines knowledge vital for survival in the harsh climate. And yet, many Arctic languages are now as endangered as the dramatic landscapes they describe.
A few winters later, my partner Anna suffered a major stroke, one consequence of which was severe aphasia. Her words began to return slowly, but in fragmentary and often puzzling forms. From studying culturewide language loss, I saw its heartbreaking personal aspect – and the power that the ability to access even a single word can bring.
With my own opportunities for travel curtailed, I decided to focus my energies on discovering some of the different vocabulary for ‘snow’ used around the world. I began with a single Greenlandic word that, to me, encapsulates the changes happening in the Arctic. Traditionally, Inuit hunters would journey for vast distances across the ice, carrying supplies on their sled. There was no need to bring drinks, when snow could be melted in a pan over the fire; thus, the word immiaq, meaning melted ice or snow, also began to refer to drinking water. In the 20th century, imported drinks were known as immiaq too. Today, it’s officially the word for beer, and is even the name of a brewery in the country’s capital, Nuuk.
Iceland has many words for snow: mjöll, for example, is snow that has just fallen, while hundslappadrífa, or ‘snowflakes big as a dog’s paw’, denotes large flakes that cluster together in calm weather, softening the bleak landscape. Children say this kind of snow is ideal for making snowballs, and it is celebrated in a song by the nation’s most famous band, Sigur Rós.
A mist of snowdrops is a welcome sight across Europe and the Middle East at the end of winter, a sign of new life every spring. The flowers are described as a ‘drop’ of snow in English, but in other cultures, it is the green shoots that determine the name: in French, they are perce-neige (snow-piercers); and in Turkey – which has at least 11 of the world’s 20 species – they are kardelen, a compound of kar (snow) and delen (which broaches). Just as their appearance in our garden had given me hope after the grim winter of Anna’s hospitalisation, in resurrecting some of these linguistic gems, I grew to appreciate the complexity and beauty of language anew. ‘Fifty Words for Snow’ by Nancy Campbell (£12.99, Elliott & Thompson) is out now.
THE LOCAL DIALECT ENSHRINES KNOWLEDGE VITAL FOR SURVIVAL IN THE CLIMATE