The 80

One of the linguistic quirks that one might even call a dialectical distinguishing mark for Californians is that we put a The in front of road names. To demonstrate this in a sentence: Last night I was driving on the 80 through the Sierra Mountains.

Which is also a true sentence, not just a linguistic utterance. It is also true that I was very grateful to have had six years of driving in Iceland, and up and down Reykjanesbraut, to boost my confidence while navigating the 80 in the midst of a snowstorm.

I suspect there are also Reykjavík dialectical markers. I' reading an Icelandic book right now, which means I occasionally encounter words I don't know.  All the words ive needed to look up have not been in the dictionary.  The author
is either using such modern Icelandic that it isn't in the dictionary, or making words up a la Laxness, or speaking Reykjavíkese.

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