Thehistory of theIcelandic language began in the 9th century when thesettlement of Iceland, mostly byNorwegians, brought a dialect ofOld Norse to the island.
The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100, the oldest single text beingÍslendingabók followed byLandnámabók. Some of the poetry, such as theEddas, that were written down a little later nevertheless contain older language because poetic language was kept in memory unchanged over sometimes a remarkably long time. The most famous of these, written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are without doubt theIcelandic Sagas, the historical writings ofSnorri Sturluson, and thePoetic Edda.
The language of the era of thesagas is called Old Icelandic, a dialect of (Western)Old Norse, the common Scandinavian language of theViking Age. TheDanish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, which remained in daily use among the general population: Danish was not used for official communications.
Though Icelandic is considered morearchaic than other living Germanic languages, especially in itsmorphology and other grammatical aspects, as well as in itslexicon, the language has nevertheless been subject to some important changes. The pronunciation, for instance, changed considerably between the 12th and 16th centuries, especially that of vowels.
Nevertheless, written Icelandic has changed relatively little since the 13th century. As a result of this, and of the similarity between the modern and ancient grammar, modern speakers can still understand, more or less, the originalsagas and Eddas that were written some 800 years ago. This ability is sometimes mildly overstated by Icelanders themselves, most of whom actually read the Sagas with updated modern spelling and footnotes—though otherwise intact.
Most of theoriginal settlers ofIceland came fromWestern Norway, bringing with them the westerndialect of Old Norse. Due to its geographic isolation and consequent lack of influence from otherstratum languages, the development of the language was entirely independent. However, it would be wrong to suggest that the language that was brought to Iceland was completely homogeneous; even though most of the settlers were from western Norway, there were a number from other parts of the country and also from otherScandinavian countries. Therefore, the language that grew up in Iceland was influenced by all of theNorwegian dialects of the time. The close intermingling of the people of the island, especially at theAlþingi (the general meeting that took place at the beginning of each summer atÞingvellir) contributed to even out the differences between the various dialects: traits common to all dialects were reinforced, while the most marked differences gradually disappeared. Although it is not known exactly how the language developed, modern Icelandic has evolved less than otherScandinavian languages. The unique development of Icelandic, which eventually resulted in its complete separation from Norwegian and the other Scandinavian languages, began with thelandnám or first settlement. Icelandic has lost all trace of the tonal nature of early Scandinavian languages, traces of which are noticeable in modern Norwegian and especiallySwedish. Research has been carried out to identify certain traits of the language, for example the so-calledpreaspiration, but the results were inconclusive. Icelandic shares such characteristics with two other languages:Faroese and theSwedish spoken inFinland.
The period from 550 to 1050 is called the Scandinavian or "Common Nordic" period. During this time, a notably unified common language was spoken throughout Scandinavia. The key position ofDenmark as the focal point of the whole area meant that the language was often simply called "Danish" (dǫnsk tunga).[1] Even though the first hints of individual future developments were already identifiable in different parts of the vast region, there were no problems withmutual intelligibility.
With regard to thedǫnsk tunga spoken in Iceland, there are no written documents from this period. Ancient Scandinavianrunes were certainly widely known but were never used to write onpapyrus (exceptCodex Runicus) or skin. Few runic inscriptions have been found and nearly all are dated after 1200.
The period from 1050 to 1350 is known asOld Scandinavian,Old Nordic, orNorse. There are numerousmanuscripts and documents dating from this period, which allows researchers to characterize Icelandic from this period accurately.
All of the documents use the Latin alphabet, which was introduced to Iceland in the 12th century. Laws were transcribed ontovellum for the first time in 1117–1118. The first manuscripts among those still in our possession date back to the second half of the 12th century. Sometime in the latter half of the 12th century theFirst Grammatical Treatise (Fyrsta Málfrœðiritgerðin) was composed, a highly original description of the language unique in Europe at the time. The treatise was concerned with the sounds of the language; it described the internal workings of thephonological system in much the same way as modernlinguistic methodology. The manuscript, today kept inReykjavík at theHandritastofnun Íslands ('Manuscript Institute of Iceland') is a later copy of the original text. Three other grammatical treaties were composed in the following decades.
Although the oldest manuscripts date back to around 1150, they show structures that were in use from around 900. This is particularly true of the ancientepic poetry, which, due to its metric structure and oral tradition, conserved notably archaic forms. Between 1050 and 1350 Icelandic began to develop independently from otherScandinavian andGermanic languages; it is particularly conservative in itsinflectional morphology and notably homogeneous across the country. From the manuscripts it has not been possible to determine whetherdialects ever existed in Iceland; all indications suggest that from the outset the language has maintained an extraordinary level of homogeneity.
Around 1300, the Danish language saw a very rapid evolution in both itsphonology and itsmorphology. Given that changes to a spoken language are often only recorded later in the written language, it is probable that in spoken Danish these changes occurred around 1250 and perhaps even earlier. The rapid evolution of Danish (a simplification comparable to that seen betweenOld English andMiddle English) gave rise to a marked difference between the north and south ofScandinavia. In 1350 Danish assumed characteristics that are still seen in the language today.
Norwegian andSwedish developed more slowly, but show equally notable differences from Icelandic, which is always more conservative and has maintained even to this day many common Scandinavian features.
In Norwegian a kind of vocalic harmony developed, in which a syllable after a stressed syllable with ahigh vowel ([i],[u]) exhibited only a high vowel (systir 'sister', cf. Icelandicsystir), while a syllable after a stressed syllable with amid vowel ([e],[o]) showed only amid vowel (broþer "brother", cf. Icelandicbróðir). Such innovation was only accepted in eastern Norwegian and in Swedish (Mod. Norwegian, Swedishbro[de]r), while in Icelandic there is no trace of it.
With regard toconsonants, Continental Scandinavian languages and most other Germanic languages lost the series offricatives/θ,ð/, which were retained only in Icelandic and English (which shows here a notably archaic phonological trait). They were replaced with the correspondingdentals/t,d/ (Norwegian, Swedishtung "heavy"smed "smith", cf Icelandicþungr,smiðr (modern Icelandicþungur,smiður).
Icelandic is the only Germanic language to have conserved the word-initial consonant sequences⟨hl, hr, hn⟩, at least from a graphic point of view (their pronunciation is in part modified by the desonorization of the second consonantal element): Icelandichljóð,hrafn,hneta, cf Englishloud,raven,nut, Swedishljud,ramn (toponymic only),nöt,GermanLaut,Rabe,Nuss.
Again along with English, Icelandic is unusual among Germanic languages to have conserved, if only at a local level, the pronunciation[xw] of the word-initial consonantal cluster⟨hv⟩: Icelandichvað,hvalur[ˈxwaːð,ˈxwaːlʏr], more commonly[ˈkʰvað,ˈkʰvaːlʏr]. In Englishwhat,whale, the⟨wh⟩ represents /ʍ/ only in certain dialects. The other Germanic languages haveconsonantized the cluster: Germanwas,Wal-fisch[v-],Dutchwat,wal-vis, Swedishvad,val[fisk]. Until the early years of the 20th century Swedish maintained the orthography in words such ashvad,hvalfisk, which is purely historical. In Danish one writes but does not pronounce[hv-]:hvad,hval-fisk[ˈvæːð,ˈvælfisɡ̊], while inNynorsk, in some cases, one writes and pronounces[kv-] (kva), exactly as is usual in modern Icelandic (southern dialect and literary). There are also indications that⟨h⟩ was originally pronounced[x].
An important vocalic development, also from a morphological standpoint, was the disappearance of word-final-r with the addition ofepenthetic/ʏ/, written as⟨u⟩: Old Icelandicakr, gestr, merkr, þú gefr became Modern Icelandicakur, gestur, merkur, þú gefur.
In the old language the verbs forming past tense with the dental suffix (corresponding to -d in English) were apart in the first and third person, ending with -a in the first person but -i in the third person. The first person took the form of the third person and are now identical. This is the only alteration in person inflection from the old language, here in stark contrast to the other Scandinavian languages where they vanished completely and halved in Faroese.
In the field oftextual scholarship, Classical Old Icelandic refers to anormalized version of written Icelandic based on the language present in theOld Icelandic Homily Book (c. 1200).[2] This standard of normalization was developed byLudvig Wimmer in 1877, and is widely used by publishers of editions of medieval texts today, such asÍslenzk fornrit, though other standards also exist.[2] The purpose of the standard is to make the text morelegible to the modern reader by removing variation and inconsistencies in original manuscripts, since the medieval language had no standardorthography.[2] Classical Old Icelandic can also be used as a standardized form of the language for new learners.
The current spelling of the language is unchanged from about 1300. In discussing the development of the language it is usually most convenient to divide it into two sections where the changes prior to the current spelling are outlined in the former and later changes in another. In the period from 1350 to 1550, coinciding with the total loss of independence and Danish rule, the difference between Norwegian and Icelandic grew even larger. Norway also fell to the Danish Crown, and Danish became itsofficial language, which led to the formation of a hybrid Dano-Norwegian language, the basis of the modernBokmål (successfully "re-Norwegianized" only in the 20th century). Only in westernNorway (whence came the original settlers of Iceland) were thedialects kept relatively pure and free from Danish influence, so much so that in the second half of the 19th century the linguistIvar Aasen created an authentic Norwegian idiom on the basis of them, first calledlandsmål "national language" and laternynorsk or "neo-Norwegian", which obtained immediate recognition as anofficial language of the state and is now particularly used in Western Norway. All the continental Scandinavian languages evolved in this period from moresynthetic to moreanalytic languages, and with theReformation begin to assume a modern character. However Icelandic in this period shows adichotomy. On the one hand it retained, practically unaltered, its rich inflectional morphology; on the other it underwent a phonological reorganization comparable in its scope to the development fromMiddle English toModern English. To cite only the most important changes:
Despite this phonetic 'earthquake', some very ancient and fundamental characteristics were retained, like the conservation of word-final unaccented vowels[i,u,a], elsewhere reduced to an indistinct schwa[ə]; as stated, this is probably the principal cause of the morphological conservation.
Around 1550, with theLutheran Reformation, the introduction of printing and the consequent translation ofthe Bible, modern Icelandic was definitively formed. Compared to other Scandinavian and Germanic languages (with the partial exception ofFaroese andGerman), Icelandic certainly remained at an earlier evolutionary stage in terms of its morphology, but this should not imply that the language did not change; the phonological developments of the language from the ancient to the modern language are enormous. A conservative writing system, richinflectional morphology and alexicon that is resistant toloanwords (instead preferringneologisms formed from native material) obscures the true nature of modern Icelandic, which is a modern language like any other;Russian,Polish andHungarian, as examples, have a morphological system at least as complex as that of Icelandic, and Hungarian, moreover, behaves exactly like Icelandic in terms of its acceptance of most loanwords. As is often said ofIcelandic people, they have no difficulty in reading works of medieval literature, but to speak to their ancestors they would probably need an interpreter. The most consistent changes have been that to the vowel system, which followed the segmental phonological quantity in the 16th century or perhaps as early as the 14th century, and the consequent development ofdiphthongs. In the consonant system there have also been notable changes, for example the desonorization ofplosives, the rise of a correlativesonorant fornasals andliquids (pre-stopping) andpreaspiration.
The modernIcelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century primarily by the Danish linguistRasmus Rask. It is ultimately based heavily on an orthographic standard created in the early 12th century in a mysterious document known as TheFirst Grammatical Treatise by an anonymous author who has later been referred to as the 'First Grammarian'. The later Rasmus Rask standard was basically a re-enactment of the old treatise, with some changes to fit concurrentGermanic conventions, such as the exclusive use ofk rather thanc. Various old features, likeð, had actually not seen much use in the later centuries, so Rask's standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th century changes include most notably the adoption ofé, which had previously been written asje (reflecting the modern pronunciation), and the abolition ofz in 1973.
During the 18th century, the Icelandic authorities implemented a stringent policy oflinguistic purism. Under this policy, some writers and terminologists were put in charge of the creation of new vocabulary to adapt the Icelandic language to the evolution of new concepts, without resorting to borrowedneologisms as in many other languages. A few old words that had fallen into disuse were updated to fit in with the modern language, and neologisms were created from Old Norse roots. For example, the wordrafmagn ("electricity") literally means "amber power" – acalque of the Greekelektron ("amber"); similarly the wordsími ("telephone") originally meant "wire", andtölva ("computer") combinestala ("digit"; "number") andvölva ("female fortuneteller").
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Even though the vast majority of Icelandictoponyms are native and clearly interpretable (for exampleÍsa-fjörður "ice fjord",Flat-ey "flat island",Gull-foss "golden waterfall",Vatna-jökull "water glacier",Reykja-vík "bay of smoke",Blanda "the mixed (river)" (which is formed by the confluence of different rivers)) there are some that up to now have resisted any plausible interpretation, even in the light of the Celtic languages. For example,Esja (a mountain on Kjalarnes),Ferstikla (a farm nearHvalfjörður),Vigur (an island inÍsafjarðardjúp),Ölfus (an area ofÁrnessýsla, traversed by the riverHvíta-Ölfusá),Tintron (a volcanic crater inLyngdalsheiði),Kjós (the area that gives its name toKjósarsýsla),Bóla (a farm inSkagafjörður) andHekla (a famous Icelandic volcano). Such toponyms pose numerous problems, but the main one can be stated in a very simple question: if they are neither Icelandic nor Celtic, which language do they come from? Perhaps they have been taken from a language (or languages) of unknown ethnicity, or perhaps (and this is a fascinating though highly improbable hypothesis) these names are a sign that Iceland was already inhabited not only before thelandnám, but even preceding the arrival of the firstIrish hermits. But who were these people? Some scholars, such asÁrni Óla, have concerned themselves with the question, attempting to demonstrate this hypothesis, which would force a complete rewrite of Icelandic history. Others have asserted that since Icelandic is an imported language, such names could in reality be traced back to some unknown substrate of Norwegian (comparisons have consequently been made withNorthern Sami and otherUralic languages), and have therefore been transplanted to the island by colonists who originated from parts of Norway where such substrate languages would have still been present. Naturally, there have been numerous attempts to explain the names in terms of Icelandic:Kjós, for example, could come from the root of the verbkjósa, and therefore mean "the chosen land"; moreover, there is also the common Norwegian surnameKjus.Bóla could be simplyból "dwelling, habitation", from the root of the verbbúa "inhabit", present in many names of farms such asAðal-ból "main farm".
The efforts of the government inCopenhagen to make Danish the official language ofIceland have left in their wake many Danish terms in official documents, but they have little lasting success. The rural population remained faithful to their own ancestral language, while Danish borrowings were used only by a restricted class of ageing educated people who were heavily influenced by Danish culture and lived only inReykjavík. So when the battle for the purification of Icelandic from all Danicisms began in the 19th century, the groundwork had already been laid. The purification campaign was such a success that Danish borrowings were almost completely eliminated. Only a few terms by now stable in the spoken and administrative language survive, likeske "happen" (cf. Danishske, corresponding to Germange-schehen),fordæma "pass sentence", (cf. Danishfordømme), the adverbskannske (more commonlykannski) andmáske "perhaps, maybe" (cf. Danishkanske, måske, lit. "can happen") and some nouns likeblýantur "pencil, crayon",fangelsi "prison" andfrímerki "postage stamp" (cf. Danishblyant, fængsel, frimærke).
These influences are very slight and most notable in simpleGaelic names that have been more common in Iceland than elsewhere in Scandinavia over the centuries,Njáll –Niall,Brjánn –Brian,Kaðlín –Caitlín,Patrekur –Padraig,Konall –Conall,Trostan –Triostan,Kormákur –Cormac.
Influences of other languages are relatively insignificant. Certainly, many terms ofLatin origin are present in Icelandic, but these date back to the common Germanic period and are present in all the other Germanic languages. For example,kaupa "to buy" < Latincaupō,pappír "paper" (GermanPapier, Englishpaper < Latinpapyrus) andkeisari "emperor" (GermanKaiser, Swedishkejsare < LatinCaesar).
Latin borrowings dating back to the introduction ofChristianity includekredda "creed, dogma" (< Latincredo) andpredika "prophesy, preach" (< Latinprædicare; cf. Germanpredigen); more recently the very commonnáttúra "nature",persóna "person" (originallyEtruscan, one of the few remaining words in use of that language) andpartur "part". With regard to modern languages, Icelandic has been influenced (in recent times quite heavily) only by English, particularly in the technical lexis and by the younger generation. In languages such as Italian, English words are simply borrowed just as they are; in contrast, in Icelandic they are adapted to the local phonetic and morphological system. For example,pönkarar androkkarar ("punk rockers" and just plain "rockers") who playá parketi diskótekanna "on the parquet of the discothèques".
Icelandic writers (who provide the bulk of our surviving documentation)commonly employed the term dǫnsk tunga (literally "Danish tongue") to identify the language not just of those who were ruled by the Dana konungr, but of all Germanic-speaking Scandinavians.
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