I don't think anyone ever posited that it's impossible to describe the differences. Only that some languages optimize for things that they encounter regularly.

With respect to snow and snow-related things, I actually ran into this personally. That thick icy crust on snow that you've described in your comment - it has a dedicated word for it in Russian, наст (nast). It never occurred to me that there isn't an equivalent single word for that in English in 20 years of living in English-speaking countries because it simply doesn't occur in the areas where I live. Until, one day, it did, and I realized that I have to explain-translate it.

(Some other languages that have a dedicated word for that are Polish, Swedish, and Norwegian)

when discussing the Inuit, or way up far north people, it is important to recognise there many indipendently invented technologys, and the language to go with them. I was very surprised one day to encounter snow that would in fact be suitable to cut into blocks and used structuraly.It is not like any other snow and is composed of a wind blown deposit, but I suspect that the exaxt conditions for the creation and bonding of the particles are rare @ the 45th paralell where I live. As to language comanalities and roots, ya sure whatever, it is clear that language is inate, and there are endless spontainious dialects and outright new languages poping up, and at ond point someone had a list of actual languages that had less speakers than klingon. And generational and class cultural boundry's demand some way to keep secrets and invent ways to create a comunication system that allows for planning a friday night after work shindig, blow the roof off, but you still want to sit and chat with grandma.....so

Szreń is a modern construct, unlike in Russian:

https://nck.pl/projekty-kulturalne/projekty/ojczysty-dodaj-d...

Interesting, thank you! I take it this meaning entered the vernacular from weather reports on TV and such?

I'd say even more uncommon, like if you are a skier, ice fisher, or storm chaser you would know.

> That thick icy crust on snow that you've described in your comment - it has a dedicated word for it in Russian, наст (nast)

In Norwegian and Swedish the word is "skare". If I were to translate it to English, I'd just translate it to crust, but it has a similar etymology to English "shear".

I am reminded of the humorous quote from Douglas Adams' novel "So Long and Thanks For All the Fish":

Eskimos had over two hundred different words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your neighbor’s boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night, snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow that despite all your efforts to train them, the huskies have pissed on.

It's funny but makes a decent argument for the same thing you are. Seems perfectly natural to me.

(Also, any excuse to quote Douglas Adams is worth it...)

i can come up with more than 50 words for snow in english without problem. While some of the types you name don't get a word in english many others do.