ABSTRACT
Cultures all over the world have concepts in their language that relate psychological states to states of the environment. The Hopi have used the word koyaanisqatsi to describe conditions where human life is disintegrating and out of balance with the world. The Portuguese use the word saudade to describe a feeling a person has for a loved one, perhaps a loved place, that is absent or has disappeared. People in the front line of environmental change are now telling their stories of distress in the face of unwelcome disturbance to their home environments. As they tell of their experiences, words and concepts in their native languages reveal deep culturally-defined relationships to nature. The Baffin Island Inuit of the Arctic have recently applied the word uggianaqtuq to the changing climate and weather. The word means to behave unexpectedly or in an unfamiliar way and has connotations of a ‘friend acting strangely’ or in an unpredictable way. But now it is the Arctic weather that has become uggianaqtuq to them.
