Language is an extraordinary form of communication for human beings, thanks to it we have been able to create such complex societies with vast knowledge and cultural capital. But sometimes it is necessary to leave practicality aside a little and rather enter the realms of the sublime and there it is, the opportunity to describe reality with truly beautiful words. The writer Robert Mcfarlane has compiled a list of words that describe nature in a way that we are not used to.
He is a nature writer who has decided to counteract the evolution of language that today is assigned to technology. Instead, he thought that he could give us a list of words that are part of the slang of farmers, fishermen, shepherds, walkers and all those people who live surrounded by nature.
Many of the words collected by Mcfarlane are in different languages and even in languages from different regions of Europe.
Words that describe nature
Afèith: Of Gaelic origin that describes a course resembling a fine vein that runs through peat during the dry summer.
Ammil: It comes from Devon, a region in the southwest of England and refers to the thin film of ice that covers leaves, branches and blades of grass when a frost occurs.
aquabob: Although it sounds like a fad, it is actually a variant of English to refer to icicles, which are ice formations in the shape of a pointed cone as a result of water runoff.
Earring: Used to describe a sharp-edged mountain ridge, often found between two .
Caochan: It is a word of Welsh origin referring to a thin moorland stream obscured by vegetation so that it is practically hidden from view.
Crizzle: Northamptonshire verb for freezing water evoking the sound of natural activity too slow for the human ear to detect.
eit: Gaelic word describing the practice of placing quartz stones in streams so that they shine in the moonlight to attract salmon in late summer and fall.
Feadan: Small stream running from a moorland lake.
goldfoil: Coined by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, describing a sky illuminated by lightning in “zigzag marks and wrinkles.”
Landskein: Term coined by a painter in the Western Isles that refers to the braid of blue lines on the horizon on a misty day.
Pirr: Term used in Shetland to refer to the light breath of wind.
Rionnach maoimmeans: Of Gaelic origin, it describes the shadows cast over the moors by clouds moving across the sky on a bright, windy day.
Shivelight: A word created by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins for spears of sunlight piercing a forest canopy.
Smeuse: An English noun for the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal.
Teine biorach: Will-o’-the-wisps that run over the heather when the moor burns in summer.
Zawn: Cornish term for a chasm in a cliff broken by waves.
Zwer: The onomatopoeic term for the sound a flock of partridges makes when taking flight.