Icelandic language

 

member of the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Spoken chiefly in Iceland, where it is the official language, it stems from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings who settled the island in the 9th cent. (see Germanic languages; Norse). The beginning of the modern period of the Icelandic language may be said to date from the translation of the New Testament in 1540 by Oddur Gottskálksson. Before that date the language is considered Old Icelandic, which is classified as belonging to the western branch of Old Norse. Unlike the other Scandinavian languages, Icelandic is noted for its conservatism in grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. For instance, it still has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and four cases for nouns (nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative), which survive from Viking times. Verbs have a highly developed inflectional system. In matters of vocabulary, there has been a strong purist movement for several centuries. For example, instead of directly adopting modern scientific terms, Icelandic renders them by translations or by newly created compounds and expressions formed from native words. Actually, Modern Icelandic has changed so little from its parent language, Old Norse, in the course of the centuries that Icelanders today read the Eddas and sagas of Old Norse literature more easily than the English and the Americans read Shakespeare. One reason for the relative stability and purity of Icelandic is that its speakers lived for centuries in comparative isolation on an island and thus were not much influenced by other languages. The Roman alphabet came to Iceland c.1000, along with Christianity. To it have been added several symbols, including the edh (pronounced as the th in then) and the thorn (pronounced as the th in think). In addition, six letters may take the acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, and ÿ.

Bibliography

See S. Einarsson, Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary (1949); S. R. Anderson et al., ed., Modern Icelandic Syntax (1990).

Icelandic íslenska
Pronunciation:	[ˈistlɛnska]
Spoken in:	Iceland, Denmark, USA[1] and Canada[2]
Region:	Iceland
Total speakers:	300,000
Language family:	Indo-European  Germanic   North Germanic    West Scandinavian     Icelandic
Writing system:	Latin (Icelandic variant)
Official status
Official language of:	Iceland
Regulated by:	Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	is
ISO 639-2:	ice (B)	isl (T)
ISO 639-3:	isl
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Icelandic ( íslenska?) is a North Germanic language, the official language of Iceland and the mother tongue of the Icelandic people. Its closest relatives are Faroese and West Norwegian dialects such as Sognamål.

While most European languages have reduced greatly the extent of inflection, particularly in noun declension, Icelandic retains an inflectional grammar comparable to that of Latin or, more closely, Old Norse and Old English.

Classification

Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. It is the closest living relative of Faroese and along with this and Norwegian it forms the West Scandinavian languages, the descendant of the western dialects of Old Norse. Danish and Swedish make up the other branch, called the East Scandinavian languages. More recent analysis divides the North Germanic languages into insular Scandinavian and continental Scandinavian languages, grouping Norwegian with Danish and Swedish based on mutual intelligibility and the fact that Norwegian has been heavily influenced by East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) during the last millennium and has diverged considerably from both Faroese and Icelandic.

Geographic distribution

The vast majority of Icelandic speakers hail from Iceland. There are about 8,165 speakers of Icelandic living in Denmark,^[3] of which approximately 3,000 are students^[4]. The language is also spoken by 5,655 people in the USA^[1] and by 2,385 in Canada^[2] (mostly in Gimli, Manitoba). 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue^[5], but in communities outside Iceland the usage of the language is declining. Extant Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, which was settled from the 1880's onwards.

Iceland is the only territory where Icelandic enjoys official status. It is also the only official language of the country. Though Iceland is a member of the Nordic Council, the Council uses only Danish, Norwegian and Swedish as its working languages, though it publishes material in Icelandic ^[6]. Under the Nordic Language Convention, since 1987, citizens of Iceland have the opportunity to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. The Convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police and social security offices^[7][8].

The state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. The Icelandic Language Council, made up of representatives of universities, the arts, journalists, teachers, and the Ministry of Culture, Science and Education, advises the authorities on language policy. The Icelandic Language Fund supports activities intended to promote the Icelandic language. Since 1995, November 16 each year, the birthday of 19th century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day^[9][5].

Icelandic is a language nearly without dialects.

History

Main article: History of the Icelandic language

The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. Many of them are actually based on material like poetry and laws, preserved orally for generations before being written down. The most famous of these, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are without doubt the Icelandic Sagas, the historical writings of Snorri Sturluson and eddaic poems.

The language of the era of the sagas is called Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse, the common Scandinavian language of the Viking era. Old Icelandic was, in the strict sense of the term, Old Norse with some Celtic influence. The Danish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 has had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, which remained in daily use among the general population and Danish was not used for official communications. The same applied to the U.S. occupation of Iceland during World War II which was gradually withdrawn in the 1950s.

Though Icelandic is considered more archaic than other living Germanic languages, important changes have occurred. The pronunciation, for instance, changed considerably from the 12th to the 16th century, especially of vowels.

The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century, by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask primarily. It is ultimately based heavily on an orthographic standard created in the early 12th century by a mysterious document referred to as The First Grammatical Treatise by an anonymous author who has later been referred to as the First Grammarian. The later Rasmus Rask standard was basically a re-creation of the old treatise, with some changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions, such as the exclusive use of k rather than c. Various old features, like ð, had actually not seen much use in the later centuries, so Rask's standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th century changes are most notably the adoption of é, which had previously been written as je (reflecting the modern pronunciation), and the abolition of z in 1974.

Written Icelandic has, thus, changed relatively little since the 13th century. As a result of this, and of the similarity between the modern and ancient grammar, modern speakers can still understand, more or less, the original sagas and Eddas that were written some eight hundred years ago. This ability is sometimes mildly overstated by Icelanders themselves, most of whom actually read the Sagas with updated modern spelling and footnotes — though otherwise intact.

Linguistic purism

Main article: Linguistic purism in Icelandic

During the 18th century, the Icelandic authorities implemented a stringent policy of linguistic purism. As a result of this policy, some writers and terminologists were put in charge of the creation of new vocabulary to adapt the Icelandic language to the evolution of new concepts, and thus not having to resort to borrowed neologisms as in many other languages. Many old words that had fallen into misuse were updated to fit in with the modern language, and neologisms were created from Old Norse roots. For example, the word rafmagn ("electricity"), literally means "amber power" from Greek elektron ("amber"), similarly the word sími ("telephone") originally meant "cord" and tölva ("computer") combines tala ("digit; number") and völva ("seeress").

Phonology

Main article: Icelandic phonology

Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor dialectal differences in sounds. The language has both monophthongs and diphthongs, and consonants can be voiced or unvoiced.

Voice plays a big role in the pronunciation of many consonants. For most Icelandic consonants, there are voiced and unvoiced counterparts. However, b, d, and g are never voiced in Icelandic. These letters only differ from p, t and k because p, t and k become aspirated when they are the first letter of a word; b, d and g do not.

Consonants

Consonant phones

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	pʰ	p			tʰ	t			cʰ	c	kʰ	k	ʔ
Nasal	m̥	m			n̥	n			ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s		ç	j	x	ɣ	h
Trill							r̥	r
Lateral approximant							l̥  l̥ˠ	l lˠ

The voiced fricatives [v], [ð] and [ɣ] are not completely constrictive and are often closer to approximants than fricatives.

Vowels

Monophthongs	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-close	ɪ • ʏ
Open-mid	ɛ • œ	ɔ
Open	a

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right of the dot represents a rounded vowel.

Diphthongs	Closer component is front	Closer component is back
More open component is mid	ei • øy	ou
More open component is fully open	ai	au

Grammar

Main article: Icelandic grammar

Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages, and resembles Old Norwegian before its inflection was greatly simplified. Modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders —masculine, feminine or neuter. There are two main declension paradigms for each gender: strong and weak nouns, which are furthermore divided in smaller paradigms for declension, according to many criteria (sound-shifts, consonant clusters etc.) Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases, and for number in the singular and plural. T-V distinction ("þérun") in modern Icelandic seems on the verge of extinction, yet can still be found, especially in structured official address.

Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. There are three voices: active, passive and middle (or medial); but it may be debated whether the middle voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own. They have up to ten tenses, but Icelandic, like English, forms most of these with auxiliary verbs. There are three main groups of verbs in Icelandic: -a, -i, and -ur, referring to the endings that these verbs take when conjugated in the first person singular present. Some Icelandic infinitives end with the -ja suffix. For many verbs that require an object, a reflexive pronoun can be used instead. The case of the pronoun depends on the case that the verb governs.

The basic word order in Icelandic is subject-verb-object, but because of how diverse the inflection of words is, the word order is fairly flexible.

Vocabulary

Main articles: Icelandic vocabulary and Icelandic name

Early Icelandic vocabulary was largely Old Norse. The introduction of Christianity to Iceland in the 11th century brought with it a need to describe new religious concepts. The majority of new words were taken from other Scandinavian languages; kirkja (‘church’) and biskup (‘bishop’), for example. Numerous other languages have had their influence on Icelandic: French for example brought many words related to the court and knightship; words in the semantic field of trade and commerce have been borrowed from Low German because of trade connections. In the late 18th century, language purism started to gain noticeable ground in Iceland; since the early 19th century, language purism has been the linguistic policy in the country (see linguistic purism in Icelandic). Nowadays, it is common practice to coin new compound words from Icelandic derivatives.

Icelandic names differ from most Western family name systems by being patronymic (and sometimes matronymic) in that they reflect the immediate father (or mother) of the child and not the historic family lineage. Iceland shares a common cultural heritage with the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Icelanders, unlike other Scandinavians, have generally continued to use their traditional name system, which was formerly used in all of Scandinavia.

Writing system

Main articles: Icelandic alphabet and Icelandic orthography

The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters which no longer exist in the English alphabet: Þ,þ (þorn, anglicized as "thorn") and Ð,ð (eð, anglicized as "eth" or "edh"), representing the voiceless and voiced "th" sounds as in English thin and this respectively. The complete Icelandic alphabet is:

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A	Á	B	D	Ð	E	É	F	G	H	I	Í	J	K	L	M	N	O	Ó	P	R	S	T	U	Ú	V	X	Y	Ý	Þ	Æ	Ö
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a	á	b	d	ð	e	é	f	g	h	i	í	j	k	l	m	n	o	ó	p	r	s	t	u	ú	v	x	y	ý	þ	æ	ö

It should be noted that accented letters, such as á and ö, are considered to be separate letters and not variants of their derivative vowels. The letter é was officially adopted in 1929 replacing je,^[10] and z was officially abolished in 1974.

Cognates with English

As Icelandic shares its ancestry with English, there are some cognate words in both languages; each have the same or a similar meaning and are derived from a common root. Phonological and orthographical changes in each of the languages will have changed spelling and pronunciation. But a few examples are given below.

English word	Icelandic word	Spoken comparison
apple	epli	listen?
book	bók	listen?
high	hár	listen?
house	hús	listen?
mother	móðir	listen?
night	nótt	listen?
stone	steinn	listen?
that	það	listen?
word	orð	listen?

Examples

The following is an extract from Kvennafræðarinn (Elín Briem, 1889); a recipe book (page pictured right):

“

Smjörið er brætt og hveitið smátt og smátt hrært út í það, þangað til það er gengið upp í smjörið. Síðan er mjólkinni smáhellt út í, og hrært stöðugt í, til þess ekki fari í kekki. Þegar mjólkin er gengin upp og grauturinn orðinn vel jafn og saltið komið í, skal taka hann ofan. Með honum er borin saftblanda eða mjólk, einnig steyttur sykur og kanel.

”

Which translates approximately as:

“

The butter is melted and the flour stirred into it slowly but surely, until it has blended with the butter. Then the milk is slowly poured in, and stirred constantly, so it doesn’t get lumpy. When the milk has blended well and the porridge has become steady and salt has been added, it should be taken off. It is served with a fruit juice mixture or milk, even stirred sugar and cinnamon.

”

See also

• Icelandic exonyms
• Icelandic name
• Icelandic literature
• Icelandic Sign Language

References

Bibliography

• Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson (1993). Íslensk hljóðkerfisfræði. Reykjavík: Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands. ISBN 9979-853-14-X. 
• Guðrún Kvaran, Höskuldur Þráinsson, Kristján Árnason et al. (2005). Íslensk tunga I–III. Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið. ISBN 9979-2-1900-9. 
• Halldór Halldórsson (1979). "Icelandic Purism and its History". Word 30: 76–86. 
• Kristján Árnason; Sigrún Helgadóttir (1991). "Terminology and Icelandic Language Policy". Behovet och nyttan av terminologiskt arbete på 90-talet. Nordterm 5. Nordterm-symposium: pp. 7-21. 
• Orešnik, Janez, and Magnús Pétursson (1977). "Quantity in Modern Icelandic". Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 92: 155–71. 
• Scholten, Daniel (2000). Einführung in die isländische Grammatik. Munich: Philyra Verlag. ISBN 3-935267-00-2. 
• Vikør, Lars S. (1993). The Nordic Languages. Their Status and Interrelations. Oslo: Novus Press, pp. 55-59, 168-169, 209-214. 

External links

General

• The Icelandic Language, an overview of the language from the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
• BBC Languages - Icelandic, with audio samples
• Icelandic: at once ancient and modern, a 16-page pamphlet with an overview of the language from the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2001.
• Icelandic language at Ethnologue
• Icelandic language at Language Museum
• Icelandic language at The Rosetta Project
• Icelandic language at Omniglot
• University of Iceland (English) (Icelandic)
  • Íslensk málstöð (The Icelandic Language Institute)
  • (Icelandic) Lexicographical Institute of Háskóli Íslands / Orðabók Háskóla Íslands
  • (Icelandic) Íslenskuskor Háskóla Íslands
  • (English) Icelandic Online a free beginner's and intermediate course in Icelandic from the University of Iceland
• An Icelandic minigrammar
• (Icelandic) Iðunn - Poetry society
  • (Icelandic) Bragfræði og Háttatal
• (Icelandic) Daily spoken Icelandic - a little help
• (Icelandic) Mannamál, Some tricky points of daily spoken Icelandic
• Mimir - Online Icelandic grammar notebook
• Thorn and eth: how to get them right
• Verbix - an online Icelandic verb conjugator
• Mentalcode - Icelandic Language Lessons

Dictionaries

• Icelandic-English Dictionary / Íslensk-ensk orðabók Sverrir Hólmarsson, Christopher Sanders, John Tucker. Searchable dictionary from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries
• Icelandic - English Dictionary: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
• Collection of Icelandic bilingual dictionaries
• Old Icelandic-English Dictionary by Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson
• Icelandic dictionary

Iceland-related topics
Subdivisions	Austurland • Höfuðborgarsvæði • Norðurland eystra • Norðurland vestra • Suðurland • Suðurnes • Vestfirðir • Vesturland
History	Timeline • Settlement of Iceland • Icelandic Commonwealth • Age of the Sturlungs • Cod War
Law	Supreme Court of Iceland
Politics	Parliament (Alþing) • President • Prime Minister • Ombudsman • Cabinet • Constitution • Elections • Administrative divisions • Political parties
Geography	Climate • Geology • Glaciers • Volcanoes • Waterfalls • Lakes • Rivers • Transport
Economy	Economic history • Stock Exchange • Icelandic Króna • Banks • Taxation
Military	Iceland Air Defence System • Icelandic Coast Guard • Icelandic Crisis Response Unit • Víkingasveitin
Demographics	Language • Religion • Subdivisions
Culture	Architecture • Art • Cinema • Cuisine • Education • Literature • Media • Music • Public holidays • Sport • Television • Whaling
Symbols	Flag • Coat of arms • National anthem (Lofsöngur)
Iceland portal • WikiProject Iceland

Modern Germanic languages
Afrikaans · Alemannic · Danish · Dutch · English · Faroese · Frisian · German · Icelandic · Limburgish · Low German · Luxembourgish · Norwegian · Scots · Swedish · Yiddish

lij:Lengua islandeisewuu:冰岛文

bat-smg:Ėslandu ruoda

Donate to Wikimedia