Here is a little more on the their origins below:
From the map:
- From Latin “nix”
- From PIE “snóygʷhos”
- From Proto-Brythonic “argyos”
- From Proto-Albanian “bera”
- From Old Armenian “ձիւն”
- From Ancient Greek “χιών”
- From Slavic “zapadati”
- From Proto-Uralic “lome”
- From Proto-Uralic “kumə”
- From Proto-Basque “eṭhúr”
- From Proto-Turkic “qār”
- From Proto-Kartvelian “tow”
- Others?????
- The words are grouped into categories derived from linguistic ancestors such as:
- Latin “nix”: Influences Romance languages (e.g., French neige, Italian neve, Spanish nieve).
- PIE “snóygʷhos” (Proto-Indo-European): Root of many Germanic (e.g., Schnee, snow, sne) and Slavic terms (e.g., sneg, śnieg, snijeg).
- Proto-Brythonic “argyos”: Found in Celtic languages like Irish (sneachta) and Scottish Gaelic.
- Proto-Albanian “bera”: Unique to Albanian (borë).
- Old Armenian “ձիւն” (dzyun): Used in Armenian.
- Ancient Greek “χιών” (kióni): Seen in Greek.
- Slavic “zapadati”: Influences modern Slavic languages, referring to snow accumulation (e.g., Romanian zăpadă).
- Proto-Uralic “lome” and “kumə”: Appears in Finnish (lumi), Estonian, and other Uralic languages.
- Proto-Basque “eṭhúr”: Reflected in Basque (elurra).
- Proto-Turkic “qār”: Found in Turkish (kar) and nearby Turkic languages.
- Proto-Kartvelian “tow”: Appears in Georgian and related Kartvelian languages.
- Other unknown or unique origins: Represented by terms that do not fit into the above categories.
And here’s the word for snow in various major European languages from the UK Language project (spellings differ slightly from the map above):
- Norwegian: snø
- Swedish: snö
- Danish: sne
- Icelandic: snjór
- Finnish: lumi
- Portuguese: neve
- Galician: neve
- Basque: elurra
- Spanish: nieve
- Catalan: neu
- French: neige
- Italian: neve
- Maltese: borra
- Greek: χιόνι (chioni)
- Turkish: kar
- Romanian: zăpadă
- Albanian: borë
- Belarusian: снег (sneg)
- Bulgarian: сняг (snyag)
- Croatian: snijeg
- Czech: sníh
- Latvian: sniegs
- Lithuanian: sniegas
- Macedonian: снег (sneg)
- Polish: śnieg
- Russian: снег (sneg)
- Serbian: снег (sneg)
- Slovak: sneh
- Slovenian: sneg
- Ukrainian: сніг (snih)
- German: Schnee
- Dutch: sneeuw
- Flemish: sneeuw
- Yiddish: שניי (shney)
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Jeremy Slegg says
What’s supposed to be Luxembourgish is not quite correct: there’s a letter missing, and that is the letter “n”. Instead of “Schéi” (which is what is displayed), it should be “Schnéi”! Please correct it!