Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2002, Page 194

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Kristján Árnason
SUMMARY
‘The Origin of the Icelandic Written Standard’
Keywords: Old Norse, Old Icelandic, language history, socilinguistics, standardisa-
tion.
Linguists have assumed that after the settlement, the language spoken in Iceland came
to be a “mixture” of Norwegian dialects (Kuhn 1969:111-113, Hreinn Benediktsson
1964:26, Helgi Guðmundsson, 1977:316-17). Exactly how this mixture is supposed
to have developed is, however, none too clear. Little is known about dialect variation
in Norway at the time of settlement, and there is no indication in the extant written
sources of such variation.
Even though dialect differences most probably prevailed in Norway and the rest of
Scandinavia at the time of settlement in Iceland, and it is more than likely that people
from different areas, speaking different dialects, became neighbours in Iceland, there
are serious problems with the mixture theory. One possible effect of the mixture might
have been a hint of pidginisation, koinésation or typological simplification. An even
stronger reason, given the mixture theory, to expect pidginisation is the possibility of
influence from the language of the Gaels, in particular, if a significant percentage of
women spoke Gaelic to their children, as suggested by recent research in genetics. But
it is argued that the structure of earliest Icelandic shows no signs of simplification. On
the contrary earliest Icelandic as represented in the written sources contains structur-
al complexities that may look like the result of a long history.
A more serious problem for the mixture theory derives from the following para-
dox: The earliest written texts in Norway and in Iceland seem to be written in practi-
cally the same idiom, and the written texts are clearly, apart from minor differences
in scribal practice, based on the same norm. Significant differences between Icelandic
and Norwegian documents become clear only with time. The paradox is that if the
written standard in Iceland was based on a mixture of Norwegian dialects (perhaps
with some Irish thrown in), and there was little or no difference between the earliest
Icelandic and earliest Norwegian written prose, we would have to assume that the
Norwegians adopted the Icelandic norm, i.e. that Norwegian dialects were transport-
ed back across the Atlantic, in the mixed form. Although this would make Icelanders
proud, it must be seen as highly unlikely in the light of political and economic condi-
tions at the time.
Another interpretation seems much more promising, namely that one variety, spo-
ken by a special group or elite, was adopted as a basis for the written standard. This
is the hypothesis defended here. It is argued that the idiom that was to become the
basis for the Icelandic literary language was a norm that already had a history in
Norway and the Scottish Isles. The roots of the norm lay in the runic tradition, oral
poetry, and legal texts. The importance of this legacy for the cultural development in
Iceland is mirrored, among other things, in the role that the skaldic poetry plays in the