In:The Linguistics of Temperature
Edited by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
[Typological Studies in Language 107] 2015
► pp. 537–569
Temperature terms in Nganasan
Published online: 11 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.17bry
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.17bry
This paper deals with the temperature expressions in Nganasan, a Samoyedic language spoken in the extreme north of Russia. Despite a very harsh climate with temperatures that may fall under -60°C, extreme temperature values are not lexically expressed in Nganasan: there are no dedicated means of expressing them. A life-threatening frost is referred to simply as ‘very cold’. Instead the domain of medium values is elaborated in more detail, with at least three independent and apparently non-derived terms.
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