Icelandic language
Icelandic | |
---|---|
íslenska | |
Pronunciation | [ˈistlɛnska] |
Native to | Iceland |
Ethnicity | Icelanders |
Native speakers | (undated figure of 330,000)[1] |
Indo-European
| |
Latin (Icelandic alphabet) Icelandic Braille | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Iceland Nordic Council |
Regulated by | Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies[a] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | is |
ISO 639-2 | ice (B) isl (T) |
ISO 639-3 | isl |
Glottolog | icel1247 |
Linguasphere | 52-AAA-aa |
Geographic distribution of the Icelandic language | |
Icelandic (
The language is more
Aside from the 300,000 Icelandic speakers in Iceland, Icelandic is spoken by about 8,000 people in Denmark,[4] 5,000 people in the United States,[5] and more than 1,400 people in Canada,[6] notably in the region known as New Iceland in Manitoba which was settled by Icelanders beginning in the 1880s.
The state-funded
Classification
Icelandic is an
Proto-Germanic
|
| |||||||||
History
This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2019) |
The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100 AD. Many of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally. The most famous of the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the sagas of Icelanders, which encompass the historical works and the Poetic Edda.
The language of the sagas is
The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century, primarily by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask. It is based strongly on an orthography laid out in the early 12th century by a 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 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 archaic features, as the letter ð, had not been used much in later centuries. Rask's standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je[10] and the replacement of z with s in 1974.[11]
Apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since the 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum.[12] Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago. The sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes, but otherwise are intact (as with recent English editions of Shakespeare's works). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand the original manuscripts.
Legal status and recognition
According to an act passed by the
Iceland is a member of the Nordic Council, a forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries, but the council uses only Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish as its working languages (although the council does publish material in Icelandic).[14] Under the Nordic Language Convention, since 1987 Icelandic citizens have had the right to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries, without becoming liable for any interpretation or translation costs. The convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police, and social security offices.[15][16] It does not have much effect since it is not very well known and because those Icelanders not proficient in the other Scandinavian languages often have a sufficient grasp of English to communicate with institutions in that language (although there is evidence that the general English skills of Icelanders have been somewhat overestimated).[17] The Nordic countries have committed to providing services in various languages to each other's citizens, but this does not amount to any absolute rights being granted, except as regards criminal and court matters.[18][19]
Phonology
Consonants
All Icelandic stops are voiceless and are such distinguished by aspiration.[20] When at the beginning of the word stops are realised post-aspirated, but pre-aspirated when occurring within a word.[21][b]
Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | (m̥) | m | (n̥) | n
|
(ɲ̊) | (ɲ) | (ŋ̊) | (ŋ) | ||
Stop
|
pʰ | p | tʰ | t
|
(cʰ) | (c) | kʰ | k | ||
Continuant
|
sibilant | s |
||||||||
non-sibilant | f | v | θ |
ð
|
(ç) | j | (x) | (ɣ) | h | |
Lateral | ( l̥ ) |
l
|
||||||||
vibrant | (r̥) | r
|
- /n̥ n tʰ t/ are laminal denti-alveolar, /s/ is apical alveolar,[22] /θ ð/ are alveolar non-sibilant fricatives; the former is laminal, while the latter is usually apical.[23]
- A phonetic analysis reveals that the voiceless lateral approximant [l̥] is, in practice, usually realised with considerable friction, especially word-finally or syllable-finally, i. e., essentially as a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ].[24]
Scholten (2000, p. 22) includes three extra phones: [ʔ l̥ˠ lˠ].
Word-final voiced consonants are devoiced pre-pausally, so that dag ('day (acc.)') is pronounced as [ˈtaːx] and dagur ('day (nom.)') is pronounced [ˈtaːɣʏr̥].[25]
Vowels
Icelandic has 8 monophthongs and 5 diphthongs.[26] The diphthongs are created by taking a monophthong and adding either /i/ or /u/ to it.[27] All the vowels can either be long or short and is based on a length rule, vowels in open syllables are long, and vowels in closed syllables are short.[28]
Front | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|
plain | round | ||
Close | i | u | |
Near-close | ɪ | ʏ | |
Open-mid | ɛ | œ | ɔ |
Open | a |
Front offglide |
Back offglide | |
---|---|---|
Mid | ei • œi [œy][c] | ou |
Open | ai | au |
Grammar
This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2019) |
Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages, and resembles Old Norwegian before much of its fusional inflection was lost. 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, and these are further divided into subclasses of nouns, based primarily on the genitive singular and nominative plural endings of a particular noun. For example, within the strong masculine nouns, there is a subclass (class 1) that declines with -s (hests) in the genitive singular and -ar (hestar) in the nominative plural. However, there is another subclass (class 3) of strong masculine nouns that always declines with -ar (hlutar) in the genitive singular and -ir (hlutir) in the nominative plural. Additionally, Icelandic permits a quirky subject, that is, certain verbs have subjects in an oblique case (i.e. other than the nominative).
Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases and for number in the singular and plural.
The basic word order in Icelandic is
- Ég veit það ekki. (I know it not.)
- Ekki veit ég það. (Not know I it.)
- Það veit ég ekki. (It know I not.)
- Ég fór til Bretlands þegar ég var eins árs. (I went to Britain when I was one year old.)
- Til Bretlands fór ég þegar ég var eins árs. (To Britain went I, when I was one year old.)
- Þegar ég var eins árs fór ég til Bretlands. (When I was one year old, went I to Britain.)
In the above examples, the conjugated verbs veit and fór are always the second element in their respective clauses, see verb-second word order.
A distinction between formal and informal address (T–V distinction) had existed in Icelandic from the 17th century, but use of the formal variant weakened in the 1950s and rapidly disappeared.[30] It no longer exists in regular speech, but may occasionally be found in pre-written speeches addressed to the bishop and members of parliament.[30]
Vocabulary
Early Icelandic vocabulary was largely
In 2019, changes were announced to the laws governing names. Icelanders who are officially registered with non-binary gender will be permitted to use the suffix -bur ("child of") instead of -son or -dóttir.[36]
Language policy
A core theme of Icelandic language ideologies is grammatical, orthographic and lexical purism for Icelandic. This is evident in general language discourses, in polls, and in other investigations into Icelandic language attitudes.[37] The general consensus on Icelandic language policy has come to mean that language policy and language ideology discourse are not predominantly state or elite driven; but rather, remain the concern of lay people and the general public.[38] The Icelandic speech community is perceived to have a protectionist language culture,[35] however, this is deep-rooted ideologically primarily in relation to the forms of the language, while Icelanders in general seem to be more pragmatic as to domains of language use.[39]
Linguistic purism
Starting in the late 16th century discussion has been ongoing on the purity of the Icelandic language, the bishop Oddur Einarsson wrote in 1589 that the language has remained unspoiled since the time the ancient literature of Iceland was written.
The changes brought by the purism movement have had the most influence on the written language, as many speakers use foreign words freely in speech, but try to avoid them when writing. The success of the many neologisms created from the movement has also been variable as some loanwords have not been replaced with native ones.[42] There is still a conscious effort to create new words, especially for science and technology, with many societies publishing dictionaries, some with the help of The Icelandic Language Committee (Íslensk málnefnd).[43]
Writing system
The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of three old letters that no longer exist in the
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 |
The letters with diacritics, such as á and ö, are for the most part treated as separate letters and not variants of their derivative vowels. The letter é officially replaced je in 1929, although it had been used in early manuscripts (until the 14th century) and again periodically from the 18th century.[10] The letter z was formerly in the Icelandic alphabet, but it was officially removed in 1974, except in people's names.[11][44]
See also
- Basquewhalers)
- Icelandic exonyms
- Icelandic literature
- Icelandic name
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ Icelandic at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
- ^ Icelandic language at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
- ^ Barbour & Carmichael 2000, p. 106.
- ^ "StatBank Denmark". www.statbank.dk.
- 2000 US census data.
- ^ Government of Canada (8 May 2013). "2011 National Household Survey: Data tables". Statistics Canada.
- Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. 2001. Archived from the original(PDF) on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- ^ Karlsson 2013, p. 8.
- ^ Thráinsson 1994, p. 142.
- ^ a b Kvaran, Guðrún (12 November 2001). "Hvenær var bókstafurinn 'é' tekinn upp í íslensku í stað 'je' og af hverju er 'je' enn notað í ýmsum orðum?". Vísindavefurinn (in Icelandic). Retrieved 20 June 2007.
- ^ a b Kvaran, Guðrún (7 March 2000). "Hvers vegna var bókstafurinn z svona mikið notaður á Íslandi en því svo hætt?". Vísindavefurinn (in Icelandic). Archived from the original on 29 October 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
- ^ Sanders, Ruth (2010). German: Biography of a Language. Oxford University Press. p. 209.
Overall, written Icelandic has changed little since the eleventh century Icelandic sagas, or historical epics; only the addition of significant numbers of vocabulary items in modern times makes it likely that a saga author would have difficulty understanding the news in today's [Icelandic newspapers].
- Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. p. 1. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
Article 1; National language – official language; Icelandic is the national language of the Icelandic people and the official language in Iceland. Article 2; The Icelandic language — The national language is the common language of the Icelandic general public. Public authorities shall ensure that its use is possible in all areas of Icelandic society. All persons residing in Iceland must be given the opportunity to learn Icelandic and to use it for their general participation in Icelandic society, as further provided in leges speciales.
- ^ "Norden". Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- ^ "Nordic Language Convention". Archived from the original on 29 June 2007. Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- ^ "Nordic Language Convention". Archived from the original on 28 April 2009. Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- ^ Robert Berman. "The English Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency of Icelandic students, and how to improve it". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
English is often described as being almost a second language in Iceland, as opposed to a foreign language like German or Chinese. Certainly in terms of Icelandic students' Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), English does indeed seem to be a second language. However, in terms of many Icelandic students' Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)—the language skills required for success in school—evidence will be presented suggesting that there may be a large number of students who have substantial trouble utilizing these skills.
- ^ Language Convention not working properly Archived 2009-04-28 at the Wayback Machine, Nordic news, March 3, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007.
- ^ Helge Niska, "Community interpreting in Sweden: A short presentation", International Federation of Translators, 2004. Retrieved on April 25, 2007. Archived 2009-03-27 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Árnason 2011, p. 99.
- ^ a b Flego & Berkson 2020, p. 1.
- ^ Kress 1982, pp. 23-24: "It's never voiced, as s in sausen, and it's pronounced by pressing the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, close to the upper teeth – somewhat below the place of articulation of the German sch. The difference is that German sch is labialized, while Icelandic s is not. It's a pre-alveolar, coronal, voiceless spirant.".
- ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, pp. 144–145.
- ^ Liberman, Mark. "A little Icelandic phonetics". Language Log. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
- ^ Árnason 2011, pp. 107, 237.
- ^ Flego & Berkson 2020, p. 8.
- ^ Árnason 2011, p. 57.
- ^ Árnason 2011, pp. 58–59.
- ^ Árnason 2011, p. 58.
- ^ a b "Þéranir á meðal vor". Morgunblaðið. 29 October 1999.
- ^ Brown & Ogilvie 2010, p. 781.
- ^ Karlsson 2013, p. 9.
- ^ Forbes 1860.
- ^ Van der Hulst 2008.
- ^ a b Hilmarsson-Dunn & Kristinsson 2010.
- ^ Kyzer, Larissa (22 June 2019). "Icelandic names will no longer be gendered". Iceland Review.
- ^ Kristinsson 2018.
- ^ Kristinsson 2013.
- ^ Kristinsson 2014.
- ^ a b Karlsson 2013, p. 36.
- ^ Karlsson 2013, pp. 37–38.
- ^ Karlsson 2013, p. 38.
- ^ Thráinsson 1994, p. 188.
- ^ Ragnarsson 1992, p. 148.
Bibliography
- Árnason, Kristján; Sigrún Helgadóttir (1991). "Terminology and Icelandic Language Policy". Behovet och nyttan av terminologiskt arbete på 90-talet. Nordterm 5. Nordterm-symposium. pp. 7–21.
- Árnason, Kristján (2011), The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922931-4
- Barbour, Stephen; Carmichael, Cathie (2000). Language and Nationalism in Europe. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-158407-7.
- Brown, Edward Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (2010). Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. Elsevier. OCLC 944400471.
- Forbes, Charles Stuart (1860). Iceland: Its Volcanoes, Geysers, And Glaciers. Creative Media Partners, LLC. p. 61. ISBN 978-1298551429.
- Halldórsson, Halldór (1979). "Icelandic Purism and its History". Word. 30: 76–86.
- Hilmarsson-Dunn, Amanda; Kristinsson, Ari Páll (2010). "The language situation in Iceland". Current Issues in Language Planning. 11 (3): 207–276. S2CID 144856348.
- Karlsson, Stefán (2013) [2004]. The Icelandic language. Translated by McTurk, Rory (Reprinted with minor corrections ed.). London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London. ISBN 978-0-903521-61-1.
- Kress, Bruno (1982), Isländische Grammatik, VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig
- Kristinsson, Ari Páll (1 November 2013). "Evolving language ideologies and media practices in Iceland / Die Entwicklung neuer Sprachideologien und Medienpraktiken in Island / Evolution des ideologies linguistiques et des pratiques médiatiques en Islande". Sociolinguistica (in German). 27 (1): 54–68. S2CID 142164040.
- Kristinsson, Ari Páll (24 October 2014). "Ideologies in Iceland: The protection of language forms". In Hultgren, Anna Kristina; Gregersen, Frans; Thøgersen, Jacob (eds.). English in Nordic Universities. Studies in World Language Problems. Vol. 5. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 165–177. ISBN 978-90-272-2836-9.
- Kristinsson, Ari Páll (2018). "National language policy and planning in Iceland – aims and institutional activities" (PDF). Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Institute for Linguistics. Budapest: 243–249. ISBN 978-963-9074-74-3.
- Kvaran, Guðrún; Höskuldur Þráinsson; Kristján Árnason; et al. (2005). Íslensk tunga I–III. Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið. OCLC 71365446.
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi. 92: 155–71.
Ragnarsson, Baldur (1992). Mál og málsaga [Language and language history] (in Icelandic). Mál og Menning.
- Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur (1993). Íslensk hljóðkerfisfræði [Icelandic phonology]. Reykjavík: Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands. ISBN 9979-853-14-X.
- Scholten, Daniel (2000). Einführung in die isländische Grammatik. Munich: Philyra Verlag. OCLC 76178278.
- Flego, Stefon; Berkson, Kelly (8 July 2020). "A Phonetic Illustration of the Sound System of Icelandic". ResearchGate.
- Thráinsson, Höskuldur (1994). "Icelandic". In König, Ekkehard; Van der Auwera, Johan (eds.). The Germanic languages. Routledge language family descriptions. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-05768-4.
- Van der Hulst, Harry (2008). Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 377. OCLC 741344348.
- Vikør, Lars S. (1993). The Nordic Languages. Their Status and Interrelations. Oslo: Novus Press. pp. 55–59, 168–169, 209–214.
External links
- The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
- Íðorðabankinn, dictionary for technical words.
- Collection of Icelandic bilingual dictionaries