One day I was talking to myself as usual, and realized that Latvian has no word for "snowfall". You can try to substitute that with "sniegputenis" (snowstorm), or you can say "snieg sniegs" (it is snowing), but neither of these have the precise meaning. "Sniegputenis" has a connotation of there actually being a snowstorm, while "snieg sniegs" is not a noun. So I propose the word "sniegkritis". Latvian already has "lapkritis" (leaf/falling - falling of the leaves), which describes the process in which tree leaves fall down. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to change leaves to snow.
A quick google search confirms that there are four documents online that use the word "sniegkritis", two of them Latvian, the other two Lithuanian. I think the time has come to unleash the real power of Latvian and start using "sniegkritis" as often as possible. For example:
"Man pietrūkst sniegkriša" (I miss snowfall).
5/12/2008
Sniegkritis
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Probably the two lithuanian ones just make fun of the other two latvian ones. As we laugh about Lidija and Estonians, Lithuanians make fun of us. Sad, but true. They believe we call hedgehog an "adatgalva" (needlehead), and "zirgagalva" is a proper Latvian curseword.
Post a Comment