Icelandic language

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Icelandic (íslenska) is a North Germanic language spoken in Iceland. It is an inflected language with four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Its closest relative is Faroese and can be somewhat understood by some Norwegians as well, depending on their dialect and education.

While most Western European languages have reduced greatly the extent of inflection, particularly in noun declension, Icelandic retains an inflectional grammar comparable to that of Latin, Ancient Greek, or more closely, Old Norse and Old English.

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 original sagas and Eddas that were written some eight hundred 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. This old form of the language is called Old Icelandic, but also commonly equated to Old Norse, an umbrella term also known as "Danish Tongue" used for the common Scandinavian language of the Viking era.

The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters which no longer exist in the English alphabet: þ (thorn or thott) and ð (eth or edh), representing the voiceless and voiced "th" sounds as in English thin and this respectively. The complete Icelandic alphabet is:

A

Á

B

D

Ð

E

É

F

G

H

I

Í

J

K

L

M

N

O

Ó

P

R

S

T

U

Ú

V

X

Y

Ý

Þ

Æ

Ö

(32 letters)

a

á

b

d

ð

e

é

f

g

h

i

í

j

k

l

m

n

o

ó

p

r

s

t

u

ú

v

x

y

ý

þ

æ

ö

The preservation of the Icelandic language is taken seriously by the Icelanders — rather than borrow foreign words for new concepts, new Icelandic words are diligently forged for public use.

Icelandic does not have any notable dialect differences.

Sounds

Icelandic has an aspiration contrast between plosives, rather than a voicing contrast, something relatively rare among European languages. Preaspirated voiceless stops are also common. However fricative and sonorant consonant phonemes exhibit regular contrasts in voice, including in nasals (rare in the world's languages). Additionally, length is contrastive for many phonemes; voiceless sonorant consonants seem to be the only exception. The chart below is based on Scholten (2000, p. 22); refer to the IPA article for information on the sounds of the following symbols:

Consonants

Consonant phones

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	pʰ	p			tʰ	t			cʰ	c	kʰ	k	ʔ
Nasal	m̥	m			n̥	n			ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s		ç	j	x	ɣ	h
Trill							r̥	r
Lateral approximant							l̥  l̥ɣ	l lɣ

The voiced fricatives [v], [ð], [j] and [ɣ] are not completely constrictive and are often closer to approximants than fricatives.

The status of [c] and [cʰ] as phonemes or as allophones of /k/ and /kʰ/ is the topic of some debate. On the one hand, the presence of minimal pairs like gjóla [couːla] "light wind" vs. góla [kouːla] "howl" and kjóla [cʰouːla] "dresses" vs. kóla [kʰouːla] "cola" suggests that the palatal stops are separate phonemes. On the other hand, only the palatal stops, not the velars, may appear before front vowels, and some linguists (e.g. Rögnvaldsson 1993) have held out for an underlying phonemic representation of [couːla] and [cʰouːla] as /kjoula/ and /kʰjoula/ respectively, with a phonological process merging /k(ʰ)j/ into [c(ʰ)]. Whether this approach, which is consistent with the orthography and historical processes, represents a synchronic reality is disputed, especially since most phonological phenomena are adequately explained diachronically, so an artificial, synchronic system seems somewhat unnecessary.

The dental fricatives [θ] and [ð] are allophones of a single phoneme. /θ/ is used word-initially, as in þak [θaːk] "roof", and before a voiceless consonant, as in maðkur [maθkʏr] "worm". [ð] is used intervocalically, as in iða [ɪːða] "vortex" and word-finally, as in bað [paːð] "bath", although it can be devoiced to [θ] before pause. The phoneme /θ/ actually represents a voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative [θ̠] or [ð̠] when voiced.

Of the voiceless nasals, only [n̥] occurs in word-initial position, for example in hné [n̥jɛː] "knee". Recently, there has been an increasing tendency, especially among children, to pronounce this as voiced, for example pronouncing hnífur [nivʏr] "knife" rather than standard [n̥ivʏr]. The palatal nasal appears before palatal stops and the velar nasals before velar stops. [ŋ] appears also before [l] and [s] through the deletion of [k] in the consonant clusters [ŋkl] and [ŋks].

The preaspirates [ʰp ʰt ʰc ʰk] (e.g. löpp [lœʰp] "foot") do not occur in initial position. The geminates [pp tt cc kk] are not necessarily longer than simple [p t c k] but do cause shortening of a preceding vowel. Still, they may be pronounced long in certain styles of speech, such as when talking to children.

Vowels

Monophthongs	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-close	ɪ • ʏ
Open-mid	ɛ • œ	ɔ
Open	a

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right of the dot represents a rounded vowel.

Diphthongs	Closer component is front	Closer component is back
Opener component is mid	ei • øy	ou
Opener component is fully open	ai	au

Vowel length is predictable in Icelandic (Orešnik and Pétursson 1977). Stressed vowels (both monophthongs and diphthongs) are long:

• In one-syllable words where the vowel is word-final:
• *fá [fauː] "get"
• *nei [neiː] "no"
• *þú [θuː] "you (singular)"
• Before a single consonant:
• *fara [ˈfaːra] "go"
• *hás [hauːs] "hoarse"
• *vekja [ˈvɛːca] "wake up"
• *ég [jɛːɣ] "I"
• *spyr [spɪːr] "ask (1 person, singular)"
• Before any of the consonant clusters [pr tr kr sr], [pj tj sj], or [tv kv]. (This is often shortened to the rule: If the first of the consonants is one of p, t, k, s and the second is one of j, v, r, then the vowel is long. This is known as the ptks+jvr-rule. An exception occurs, if there is a t before the infix k. Examples are e. g. notkun and litka. There are also additional exceptions like um and fram where the vowel is short in spite of rules and en, where the vowel length depends on the context.)
• *lipra [ˈlɪːpra] "agile (accusative, feminine)"
• *sætra [ˈsaiːtra] "sweet (genitive, plural)"
• *akra [ˈaːkra] "fields (accusative, plural)"
• *hásra [ˈhauːsra] "hoarse (genitive, plural)"
• *vepja [ˈvɛːpja] "lapwing"
• *letja [ˈlɛːtja] "dissuade"
• *Esja [ˈɛːsja] proper noun, a mountain
• *götva [ˈkœːtva] as in uppgötva "discover"
• *vökva [ˈvœːkva] "water (verb)"

Before other consonant clusters (including the preaspirated stops [hp ht hk] and geminate consonants), stressed vowels are short. Unstressed vowels are always short.

• Karl [kʰartl̥] proper noun
• standa [ˈstanta] "stand"
• sjálfur [ˈsjaulvʏr] "self"
• kenna [ˈcʰɛnna] "teach"
• fínt [fin̥t] "fine"
• loft [lɔft] "air"
• upp [ʏʰp] "up"
• yrði [ˈɪrðɪ] as in nýyrði "neologism"
• ætla [ˈaiʰtla] "will (verb)"
• laust [løyst] "lightly"

Morphology

Many German speakers will find Icelandic morphology familiar. Almost every morphological category in one language is represented in the other. Nouns are declined for case, number and gender, adjectives for case, number, gender and comparison, and there are two declensions for adjectives, weak and strong. Icelandic possesses only the definite article, which can stand on its own, or be attached to its modified noun (as in other North Germanic languages). Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, number and voice. There are three voices: active, passive and medial; but it may be debated whether the medial voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own. There are only two simple tenses, past and present, but to make up for that there are a number of auxiliary constructions, some of which may be regarded as tenses, others as aspects to varying degrees.

Syntax

Icelandic is SVO (subject-verb-object), generally speaking, but the inflectional system allows for quite some freedom in word order.

Icelandic sign language

Main article: Icelandic Sign Language

Icelandic sign language was originally based on Danish Sign Language. Until 1910, deaf Icelandic people were sent to school in Denmark. Today, Icelandic sign language has evolved apart from its Danish roots. The language is regulated by a national committee.

See also

• Icelandic alphabet
• Icelandic literature
• Swadesh list of Icelandic words

References

External links