Fifty Words for Snow
Author(s): Nancy Campbell
Snow. In Japan it is Yuki-onna - 'a goddess'. In Icelandic, Hundslappadrífa - 'flakes as big as a dog's paw'. In Hawai'ian, snow is hau - 'mother of pearl', but also 'love'.
Every language and culture has its own words for the feathery, jewel-like flakes that fall from the sky. From Iceland to Greenland, mountain top to frozen forest, school yard to park, snow is welcomed, feared, played with and prized.
In this lyrical, evocative and beautiful book, Arctic traveller and award-winning writer Nancy Campbell digs deep into the meanings, etymologies and histories of fifty words for snow from across the globe. Held under her magnifying glass, each of these linguistic snow crystals offers a whole world of myth, culture and story.
Review: 'Pithy, clear-eyed... like so many magical portals, offering fleeting but fascinating glimpses into unfamiliar worlds.' Scotsman;
'A miraculous snow bank of niveous names and knowledge as delicate and multifaceted as the flakes it celebrates. A glittering cloud of Inupiaq, Icelandic, compound Maori, Finnish, Scots, Thai, Hebrew, American Sign Language.' - Dan Richards, author of Outpost: A Wild Journey to the Ends of the Earth
Product Information
Nancy Campbell received the Royal Geographical Society Ness Award in 2020 for a decade-long creative response to the polar environment, which began during a winter as Artist in Residence at the most northern museum in the world on Upernavik in Greenland. Her books include Fifty Words for Snow, a Waterstones Book of the Month, The Library of Ice: Readings in a Cold Climate, and the poetry collection Disko Bay. She was appointed Canal Laureate in 2018, writing poems for installation across the UK waterways from London Docklands to the River Severn. Her memoir Thunderstone: Finding Shelter from the Storm describes making a home in an old Buccaneer caravan between the River Thames and the Oxford Canal, where she still lives.
General Fields
- :
- : Elliott & Thompson, Limited
- : Elliott & Thompson, Limited
- : December 2020
- : {"length"=>["7.992"], "width"=>["5.512"], "units"=>["Inches"]}
- : books
Special Fields
- : Nancy Campbell
- : Hardback
- : 2012
- : English
- : 551.5784
- : 224
