[lit-ideas] No word for robin?

Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at a 
loss for words. 
They simply do not have names in their languages for the temperate species 
flocking up from 
the south.

They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more than 
1,000 words 
for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is only now venturing north 
of the 
treeline. The Inuit are reduced to describing it as "the bird with the red 
breast" in their 
language, Inuktiut, said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairwoman of the Inuit 
Circumpolar 
Conference, the top elected representative of the people worldwide. Nor, she 
said, are there 
words for salmon, hornets and barn owls, all of which are appearing in the 
Arctic for the 
first time. "We can't even describe what we are seeing," she added.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=587568

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com


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