For Kendra
Kendra, who is a lector in Old Norse at UCLA but a linguist by training and a good friend of mine, urged me to go the Sigurdur Nordal Institute talk tonight. The speaker, and the topic, were of special interest to her, but since she's in Los Angeles, and not here in Iceland, she sort of gently suggested I should go. I told Rosa (the folklorist) afterwards that I was happy I did, since the talk was quite good. Because Kendra wanted a report, all of my other blog readers will get one as well.
Þórarinn Eldjárn's talk was entitled "Það kalla ég íslensku"; the title was supposedly a direct quote of something Sigurður Nordal said once in regard to the poetry of Hallgrímur Pétursson. His general point was that there was an overly conservative element in regard to the treatment of the Icelandic language, like for instance Sigurður using Hallgríms poetry as the only proper guide. But Þórarinn had examples where actually, those policing the language were often overly zealous, like for instance a professor in the 50s who gave a student very low marks for using the word "handklæði" which he said was nothing but a cheap Danish loan word. The student then demonstrated that actually it was in use in Njalls saga manuscripts, so, it had to count as an authentically Icelandic word. Þorarinn had an even more amusing example, where he himself was sure "ad fara erlendis" was not proper Icelandic, and then he read those exact words in one of Hallgríms poems! He then talked generally about the problem of establishing authority in regard to language usage, but that there was a tendency in Iceland to look for precedence in the old cannon. There is also a tendency to think any changes to the language must be some polluting element from without, like English loan words, or whathaveyou. But he suggested that actually, there could be native language change happening all on its own; he gave the example of a valley in Iceland were people had started changing verbs that end in -a into verbs that end in -i, such that one would not say, "eg laga mat" but rather "eg lagi mat".
The standard should not be that one uses the language as formally and properly as every other famous Icelander ever has, in such a way that the language is kept in a fossilized box, but rather, that one love the language to such an extent that one is willing to play with it, explore its boundaries and associations, stretch its capabilities. He said this is what Strindberg did with Swedish, and it is what good authors should do. He said such authors tala gott mál, even if they are perhaps not using goða íslensku.
Anyhow, that was what I got out of it. Plus on a totally selfish note, I always love going to lectures at the Norræna hús, since I gave my first lecture in Iceland there almost a decade ago now, and it was a really great experience.
Þórarinn Eldjárn's talk was entitled "Það kalla ég íslensku"; the title was supposedly a direct quote of something Sigurður Nordal said once in regard to the poetry of Hallgrímur Pétursson. His general point was that there was an overly conservative element in regard to the treatment of the Icelandic language, like for instance Sigurður using Hallgríms poetry as the only proper guide. But Þórarinn had examples where actually, those policing the language were often overly zealous, like for instance a professor in the 50s who gave a student very low marks for using the word "handklæði" which he said was nothing but a cheap Danish loan word. The student then demonstrated that actually it was in use in Njalls saga manuscripts, so, it had to count as an authentically Icelandic word. Þorarinn had an even more amusing example, where he himself was sure "ad fara erlendis" was not proper Icelandic, and then he read those exact words in one of Hallgríms poems! He then talked generally about the problem of establishing authority in regard to language usage, but that there was a tendency in Iceland to look for precedence in the old cannon. There is also a tendency to think any changes to the language must be some polluting element from without, like English loan words, or whathaveyou. But he suggested that actually, there could be native language change happening all on its own; he gave the example of a valley in Iceland were people had started changing verbs that end in -a into verbs that end in -i, such that one would not say, "eg laga mat" but rather "eg lagi mat".
The standard should not be that one uses the language as formally and properly as every other famous Icelander ever has, in such a way that the language is kept in a fossilized box, but rather, that one love the language to such an extent that one is willing to play with it, explore its boundaries and associations, stretch its capabilities. He said this is what Strindberg did with Swedish, and it is what good authors should do. He said such authors tala gott mál, even if they are perhaps not using goða íslensku.
Anyhow, that was what I got out of it. Plus on a totally selfish note, I always love going to lectures at the Norræna hús, since I gave my first lecture in Iceland there almost a decade ago now, and it was a really great experience.
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