I have for a long time thought about the influence of the environment on the dress one wears. Lately I have added language to these contemplations. It has now occurred to me to take two different societies – different with respect to the environment – and compare to see what the influence is. The two should be vastly different and so I put one at the pole and one at the equator. Lets say Eskimos and people from the Arab peninsula.
Eskimos live in a cold climate with the possibility of a day being one year long. Half a year daylight and half a year night. Their clothes must protect them from the cold and be impervious to snow, ice, and wind. These requirements will express themselves in the language in the form of communicating snow and ice conditions, where to hunt, how to proceed on the ice using dogs and sleds and other information on how to get along.
Arabs live in a desert area and have very well defined days and nights each being about 12 hours long. Every where is sand which is blown by the wind and the dust can travel many miles (think of the hamsin in Israel). Dress needs to protect the hair from all that dust, the clothes should protect from the very bright sun and still be able to keep the bearer cool. The language consequently has to express the condition of the desert, where to find water and how to get there from here.
Eskimos do not need a well defined time frame like the Arabs, nor clothes to keep them cool. On the other hand an Arab can not survive in the clothes worn where the Eskimos live.
I think by putting it in this way you, the reader, can get an idea of why these differences are dictated by the environment and are conducive to the preservation of live.
Eskimos live in a cold climate with the possibility of a day being one year long. Half a year daylight and half a year night. Their clothes must protect them from the cold and be impervious to snow, ice, and wind. These requirements will express themselves in the language in the form of communicating snow and ice conditions, where to hunt, how to proceed on the ice using dogs and sleds and other information on how to get along.
Arabs live in a desert area and have very well defined days and nights each being about 12 hours long. Every where is sand which is blown by the wind and the dust can travel many miles (think of the hamsin in Israel). Dress needs to protect the hair from all that dust, the clothes should protect from the very bright sun and still be able to keep the bearer cool. The language consequently has to express the condition of the desert, where to find water and how to get there from here.
Eskimos do not need a well defined time frame like the Arabs, nor clothes to keep them cool. On the other hand an Arab can not survive in the clothes worn where the Eskimos live.
I think by putting it in this way you, the reader, can get an idea of why these differences are dictated by the environment and are conducive to the preservation of live.
