Words as culture

• Falling frozen precipitation
  • lumi — snow
  • pyry — snow shower
  • myräkkä — snowstorm
  • rae — hail
  • räntä — sleet
  • tuisku — snow shower with strong wind
  • laviini — a small avalanche
• Frozen precipitation mixed with water
  • hyhmä — snow floating on top of water
  • loska — very wet snow; snow, water and mud mixed together
  • sohjo — slush; snow and water mixed together
• Frozen precipitations over large expanses of water
  • ahto — pack-ice (broken and refrozen ice)
  • ahtauma — a formation of pack-ice
  • jää — ice
  • kide — ice crystal
  • kohva — gray ice formed from wet snow
  • paanne — multi-layered ice (typically waves crash on top of another and freeze)
  • railo — pressure ridge in ice
  • röpelö — uneven ice
  • tökkö — ice with frost on top
• Frozen precipitation over land
  • iljanne — a thin layer of snow atop ice
  • hanki — a even layer of snow on the ground, especially if it is enough for skiing
  • huurre — rime; granular frost, like the frost ice you find in a freezer
  • härmä — frost
  • kinos — snow drift; a loose pile of snow, especially one formed by wind
  • kaljama — a thick layer of ice on the ground. Something that made me fall from my bike many times, actually
  • kuura — hoarfrost; frozen dew
  • nietos — a large, hard pile of snow (could be refrozen)
  • nuoska — snow that packs well into a snowball, usually formed when powdery snow melts a bit
  • polanne — a hard layer of compacted snow
  • tykky — large chunks of snow, especially when frozen onto trees
  • viti — freshly fallen powdery snow
• After being violated by animal or Man
  • avanto — a hole in ice
  • jotos — reindeer tracks in snow
  • latu — a ski trail in snow
  • rannio — a reindeer path in deep snow
• Onomatopoeic verbs for walking over snow
  • nirskua
  • narskua
  • kirskua
  • nitistä
  • narista

On the darker side

Japanese — leaving this world for the next

When Peters went on a business trip to Japan, he learned a few interesting things. Some, like the high price of cantaloupes, still true decades later.

• Japanese game shows feature people being subjugated to various abuses, for example, crawling through compartments of rodents and snakes. The best survivor receives a small trophy.
• Japan has full employment, including greeters who push the "open door" elevator button for hotel guests.
• Avenues in Tokyo are numbered in sequence of their encircling the Imperial Palace at the heart of the city. And buildings are numbered in the order they were erected. So #23 10th Avenue could be miles away from #24 10th Avenue. So you need to not only know the address, but to know which section of town, where you're going.
• When Peters walked to and from work from the hotel and admired all the neon signs heading back in the evening, he had no idea he was strolling through the heart of Tokyo's "red light" district. Might be some conclusions to be drawn.
• Cantaloupes are so expensive that ordinary ones cost $10–$20. More expensive ones can easily cost $80&ndash$100 and are packed in beds of straw in boxes and given as gifts. Yubari King↗ melons have sold for tens of thousands of dollars at auction.
• At least back then, the Japanese smoked like proverbial smoke stacks.
and
• He also discovered the Japanese have a specific word for "death by overwork."

In Japanese culture, death isn’t an end — it is a profound transition laden with spiritual, aesthetic, and social meaning. Hence so many words for different ways to die, like seppuku (ritual suicide) or shinjū (lover’s suicide). These terms show how much weight Japanese culture places on the manner someone passes from this life. Whether a matter of honor, sacrifice, or even tragedy, how death occurs shapes how people are remembered. It’s all tied to Japan’s history with samurai, Buddhism, and the belief that a life’s value is often judged by its final gesture.

Verbs for dying include (in katakana↗):

• くたばる (kutabaru) — to kick the bucket, to drop dead, to bite the dust
• この世を去る (kono yo o saru) — to leave this world, to depart from this life, a more poetic expression
• 仏になる (hotoke ni naru) — to pass away, to become a Buddha, an idiomatic expression often used in a formal context such as expressing condolences
• 来世に行, to pass away, go to the next world
• 心中 (shinjū) — double suicide, a lover's suicide pact
• 亡くなる (nakunaru) — a polite and formal way to express the concept of someone passing away
• 天国へ行く (tengoku e iku) — to go to heaven, to go to paradise, in a religious context
• 風になる (kaze ni naru) — to become the wind, i.e. transcendence in death
• 死亡（する） (shibou suru) — to die, used more in a medical context
• 天に召される (ten ni mesareru) — to be called to heaven, to be taken by God

Death by specific causes include (in kanji↗):

• 過労死 (karoushi) — death from overwork
• 事故死 (jikoshi) — death by accident
• 病死 (byoushi) — death due to illness or medical condition
• 交通事故死 (koutsuu jikoshi) — death in a traffic or transportation accident
• 溺死 (dekishi) — death by drowning
• 火災死 (kasai shi) — dying in a fire
• 凍死 (toushi) — death from cold or freezing
• 飢餓死 (kiga shi) — death from starvation
• 心臓発作 (shinzou hossa) — death from a heart attack
• 肺炎死 (haien shi) — death from pneumonia
• 脳卒中 (noushukketsu) — death from a stroke
• 老衰 (rousui) — death from old age or senility

German — angst

Studying Jean-Paul Sartre, a requirement in engineering college (!) humanities, was one of the most mind-numbing experiences of Peters' academic life. In Sartre's building upon Heidegger, Angst arises when we confront our radical freedom — the terrifying realization that we are condemned to choose with no predetermined path or excuse ("man is condemned to be free" — Existentialism and Human Emotions).

In German thought, Angst is more than some sort of mundane fear. It is a profound existential and philosophical concept, reflecting the human condition in the face of uncertainty, freedom, and the unknown. The abundance of terms for different shades of anxiety — Weltschmerz (world-weariness), Torschlusspanik (fear of closing doors), Zukunftsangst (fear of the future) — reveals a cultural and intellectual tradition deeply engaged with inner turmoil. Rooted in German Romanticism, psychoanalysis, and 20th-century existentialism, these distinctions underscore how Germans have historically scrutinized emotional and psychological states with stereotypical Germanic precision. The linguistic richness around Angst mirrors a worldview where introspection and the metaphysical are subjects of art, literature, and philosophy.

Emanating from the works of Kafka, Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger, Angst joined the English idiom when it became clear English lacked a word to encompass the concept. Personally, we are disappointed that despite Shakespeare touching on the concept in works like Hamlet and Macbeth, he never coined his word for Angst.

From A to Z:

• Angst — a general feeling of unease, fear, or anxiety
• Flugangst — fear of flying
• Höhenangst — fear of heights
• Platzangst — claustrophobia
• Prüfungsangst — exam anxiety or test anxiety
• Sozialangst — fear of social situations
• Todesangst — fear of death
• Torschlusspanik — fear of closing doors
• Verlustangst — fear of losing something or someone
• Versagensangst — fear of failure
• Zukunftsangst — fear of the future

We must pay homage to borrowings besides angst which are wending their way into the English lexicon:

• Schadenfreude — finding joy or satisfaction in the misfortune or failure of others
• Weltschmerz — a sense of disillusionment with the world and the emotional pain that comes with it, that is, angst over the state of the universe versus its desired state
• and concluding on a positive, Gemütlichkeit — a sense of warmth, friendliness, and coziness

So,... what do words say about your culture?