The uniqueness and history of the Icelandic language

Table of Content

Wikilatief - Icelandic is a Northern Germanic language derived from The Ancient Norse West. 

Ancient Western Norse is an Ancient Norse dialect spoken in Norway, and the Isles of Northern Europe.

Iceland flag

Icelandic is considered as the most conservative Germanic language today.

In this case, conservative means language that has not undergone much change from its original form. 

Read too : Why do the countries in the European Continent have such a small area?

English is considered conservative in the phonological system (because it still retains consonants 1 and ð), but is innovative in terms of vocabulary. 

German is considered conservative in paramasastra (it retains three genders and four cases), but is innovative in phonological and vocabulary systems. 

Meanwhile, Icelandic is conservative in its paramasastra, phonological system, and vocabulary.

Icelandic

Iceland map

This is because of the movement of language purism by Icelandic society since the 19th century until now. This purism is inseparable from the nationalism of Icelandic society. 

Iceland was originally a member of the Kalmar Unit since 1397 until its dissolution in 1523. 

Soon after, Iceland became a Danish-Norwegian member until the union disbanded in 1814. 

Read too : How did the British dress in 1600-1700?

After that, Iceland became part of the Kingdom of Denmark until the issuance of the Danish-Iceland unification law allowing the Kingdom of Iceland to be sovereign, but still in a personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark. 

The seeds of this purism movement have been emerging since the 18th century, but the movement was only quite massive in the 19th century. 

This purism was done for the first time by removing absorption words from the Danish language and replacing them with words rooted in Old Icelandic or Old Norse. Danish itself is actually a North Germanic language derived from Eastern Norse. 

However, it has a very strong influence on The Low Saxon German, both in terms of vocabulary, and in phonology. 

This makes common words found in other languages not to be found in Icelandic, for example:

account: reikningur (has the same root as the word account)

social media: samfélagsmiðill [samfélag (community) + miðill (media)]

oxygen: súrefni

police: lögregla [lög (law) + regla (rules)]

president: forseti

In paramasastra, Icelandic still maintains a system of three genders and four cases like German. In addition, Icelandic still retains a complete conjugation of its verbs. 

Pronomina and its copules in Icelandic are; ég er (I am), þú ert (you are), hann/hún/það er (he/she/it is), við erum (we are), þið eruð (you (pl) are), þeir/þær/þau eru (they (m)/(they (f)/they (n) are).

For nouns, this language has three genders and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and datif).

Unlike German whose inflection lies only in the article, the inflection for the case in Icelandic, lies at the end of the word. Icelandic also distinguishes strong nouns (ending with consonants) and weak nouns. 

I'm not going to explain in full the whole declassity of the noun because this answer is going to be very long. However, gender in Icelandic can be determined through its sy ending;

masculine; -ur, -i, -ll, or -nn;

feminine; -a, -ing or -un; Dan

Neutral; endings other than those mentioned earlier.

Icelandic also does not have indy articles (such as a/an in English) and only has articles of course. 

The article is certainly in this language indicated by the sydan. The s endings will vary according to their gender, such as;

lead (education) → lead (the education) (f)

kona (a woman) → konan (the woman) (f)

líf (life) → lífið (the life) (n)

maður (a man) → maðurinn (the man) (m)

þorp (a village) → þorpið (the village) (n)

That's what icelandic introductions look like. Iceland is indeed a unique country because Iceland is a fairly liberal country in terms of society, but quite conservative in maintaining tradition. 

This of course has a positive impact in the preservation of the Icelandic language. 

Although it has only 314,000 speakers, it is not considered endangered because it is not eroded by the dominance of English and other foreign languages. 

Please note that Danish and English are two languages required for education in Iceland. 

Related : Why is Iceland covered in vast green grass while Greenland is covered in ice?

Foreign languages are mandatory to learn in order to compete with the outside world, but never forget their own mother language.