Icelandic Language

ICELANDIC LANGUAGE. Closely akin to Norwegian, Old Icelandic was spoken in Iceland and in Greenland. A volu minous literature dates from the first half of the 12th century, written in the Latin alphabet and adapted to the special require ments of this language. No traces are found of any older runic literature. The runic monuments (about 45) are almost worth less from a philological point of view. The oldest, which date from the early 13th century, are later than the oldest manuscripts in the Latin alphabet.

Form of the Language.

The oldest form of the Icelandic language is preserved in the later manuscripts of the 13th cen tury, which contain poems by the oldest Icelandic poets, the metrical form having been the means of preserving the ancient language.

Two of the oldest and most essential characteristics of Ice landic as opposed to Norwegian are the more complete vowel assimilation ( fionosto, pionasto) ; and the retention of initial h before r (hreinlega, rceinlega), l and n. Other differences, some of which occur at this period, others a little later, are—in Icel., lengthening of a, o, u before l f, lg, lk, lm and 1p (as Icel. hdl f r, Norw. and oldest Icel. hal fr, half) • later still, also of a, i, a and y before ng and nk; Icel. th and ey for older 0 and ˘y (as in Icel. dcema, lieyra, Norw. and oldest Icel. d˘ma, to deem, h˘yra, to hear) ; Icel. termination of end plur. of verbs in 6 (f) or t, but Norw. often in –r (as Icel. takiJ, –t, Norw. takir, you take). At the middle of the 13th century the written language undergoes material changes. Thus in unaccented syllables i now appears for older e, and u (at first only when followed by one or more con sonants belonging to the same syllable) for o; the passive ends in –z for –sk. Other differences from Norwegian are now completely established. With the beginning of the 14th century there appear several new linguistic phenomena: a u is inserted between final r and a preceding consonant (as in rikur, mighty) ; 4 (pronounced as an open o) passes into o (the character o was not introduced till the i6th century), or before ng, nk into au (as long fioll, pronounced lasing Oil); e before ng, nk passes into ei; a little later a passes into ie, and the passive changes its termination from –z, oldest –sk, into zt (or zst) (as in kallazt, to be called). The post-classical period of Old Icelandic (1350-153o) already shows marked differences that are characteristic of Modern Icelandic; kn has, except in the northern dialects, passed into hn, as knutr, knot; as early as the 15th century we find ddl for ll and rl (as falla, pronounced faddla, to fall), ddn for nn and rn (as horn, pron. hoddn, horn), and a little later the passive ends in –st, e.g., kallast, to be called.

Dialects.

Dialectical differences do not occur to any great extent in the Old Icelandic literary language. To what extent the language of Greenland differed from that of Iceland we cannot judge from the few runic monuments which have come down to us from that colony.

Modern Icelandic.

The speech of modern Iceland has de veloped quite naturally from the ancient tongue. It bears a strong resemblance to the modern Scandinavian tongues, espe cially Norwegian. With the tendency in recent years toward uni formity in speech among the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, this rapprochement has become more marked and a fluent speaker of what is sometimes called Dano-Norwegian would have little difficulty in speaking and understanding modern Icelandic. The semi-vowels are modified in certain well-defined ways (Icelandic liuorn is Norw. lifom), and vocalic assimilation is still strong in Icelandic, whereas it tends to become lost in Norwegian. There is increasing vigour in the modern Icelandic as evidenced by the steady growth of publications. (See ICELANDIC LITERATURE.)