Intellectual effects of environment

Intellectual effects of environment may appear in the enrichment of a language in one direction to a rare nicety ofexpression; but this may be combined with a meager vocabulary in all other directions. The greatest cattle-breeders amongthe native Africans, such as the Hereros of western Damaraland and the Dinkas of the upper White Nile, have an amazingchoice of words for all colors describing their animals—brown,dun, red, white, dapple, and so on in every gradation of shadeand hue. The Samoyedes of northern Russia have eleven ortwelve terms to designate the various grays and browns oftheir reindeer, despite their otherwise low cultural development?The speed) of nomads has an abundance of expressions for cattle in every relation of life. It includes differentwords for breeding, pregnancy, death, and slaughtering inrelation to every different kind of domestic animal. The Magyars, among whom pastoral life still survives on the low plainsof the Danube and Theiss, have a generic word for herd,csorda, and special terms for herds of cattle, horses, sheep,and swine. While the vocabulary of Malays and Polynesians is especially rich in nautical terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of western Asiafrom the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four differentterms for four kinds of mountain passes. A daban is a difficult, rocky defile; an art is very hi^i and dangerous; a bel isa low, easy pass, and a kutal is a broad opening betweenlow hills.