Orð og tunga - 01.06.2015, Page 25

Veturliði G. Óskarsson: Loanwords with the prefix be-
13
"barbarismos in Lingua Patria", as he calls them, in his book of Ice-
landic law, Tyro Juris, from 1754. In the preface, he defends himself
against possible criticism by drawing attention to this fact. Thus, if
someone wants to criticize his use of loanwords, then he is willing to
respond to that critic, citing the Roman rhetorician Marcus Quintil-
ianus that "to adhere to what is not used anymore is arrogant and a
foolish boasting".11 By that he refers to "a few men who cling so firmly
to their antiquities that they can hardly write a private letter without
making one think that their style was that of Ari the Learned or Snorri
Sturluson rather than of men who live in the eighteenth century"
(Halldór Hermannsson 1919:17, his translation of Sveinn Sölvason's
Icelandic text). These "few men" are without doubt young Icelandic
intellectuals, fresh from their education in Copenhagen, not least the
aforementioned Eggert Ólafsson (1726-1768), the earliest representa-
tive of the Enlightenment in Iceland12 and also a strong advocate of
archaisms and language purism (Halldór Hermannsson 1919:17 ff.;
Árni Böðvarsson 1964:195; Kjartan G. Ottósson 1990:34 ff.).
A few years after the publication of Sveinn Sölvason's book, the
Icelandic scholar Jón Ólafsson úr Grunnavík (1707-1779), who lived
and worked in Copenhagen from 1726, criticized words with be-, as
well as many other young loanwords from Danish, in an essay on
a poem by his friend Eggert Ólafsson about the Icelandic language
and its condition. In the essay, written in 1759, Jón Ólafsson takes
the verbs begjöra 'request', behaga 'please', and beskrifa 'write down',
among other unrelated words, as examples of corrupted language
used by Icelandic law officers (most likely Sveinn Sölvason, among
others) — and mocks them by insinuating that they would (in their
foolishness, we must assume) use the word-form begjöra instead of be-
gera, that would have been the proper Icelandification of Dan. begære
(Jón Ólafsson úr Grunnavík 1998:150-151). Dan. begjore (begere) is, in
fact, of a completely different origin, probably a native Danish coin-
age, and means 'soil, smear with one's own excrement'! (cf. Ordbog
over det Danske Sprog and Moths Ordbog).
11 Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35-c. 100 A.D.): "Abolita & abrogata retinere, in-
solentiæ cujusdam est, & frivolæ in parvis jactantiæ" (Sveinn Sölvason 1754:[20]).
Sveinn Sölvason's own words in his preface are best accessible in Arni Böðvarsson
(1964:195) and Kjartan G. Ottósson (1990:33), and in Halldór Hermannsson's ren-
dering of them (1919:16-17).
12 The influence of the Enlightenment in Iceland is usually said to have begun around
or shortly after 1750, coming to fruition around 1770 (Ingi Sigurðsson 1990:293).
Sveinn Sölvason was not among the promoters of the Enlightenment in Iceland.