Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2015, Page 28

28 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 13 — 2015LIFE
For the slightly more adventurous tour-
ist, Icelandic may lead you down incom-
prehensible consonant clusters on street
signs and roadmaps (“Harold, let's take
a stroll down scenic Lowguhvegger!”
“Eunice, did you get a chance to visit
Ella-fudge-ajock-uhl?”), on billboards
and concert flyers, or on vacation tat-
toos (“Can I get one of those funny Ds?
Or that adorable p-looking thing?”). It's
something to be experienced, to gawk at;
or perhaps, at worst, it is a minor-but-still-
just-so-quaint-and-charming impediment
to navigating the island.
For those who dig a bit deeper, Icelan-
dic is infamous as one of the more difficult
tongues worldwide to acquire as a second
language. Feel free to do a quick search
online to confirm—you’ll find it appears on
a whole host of fun clickbait lists (and on
more legitimate sites as well, to be fair) of
languages considered difficult to learn.
These articles are exclusively written
by English speakers—so of course Eng-
lish doesn't make an appearance, even
though it very, very much should. I mean,
you could spell fish “G-H-O-T-I” if you felt
like it. Also, let's not forget the travesty that
is: cough, ought, plough, rough, though,
through. English orthography (rules of
spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word
breaks, emphasis, and punctuation in a
given language) is a bastard of the highest
caliber. But that's neither here nor there.
Mostly, Icelandic is encountered
by non-natives in passing, as a transi-
tory haze of aural curiosity—the diegetic
soundtrack to your fairy-tale travels.
Though for a few brave souls, who for
whatever reason chose this fair island as
their long-term, or even permanent resi-
dence—or who just feel the need to learn
it for the sake of learning—the Icelandic
language becomes a formidable linguistic
foe. But what exactly is so difficult about
it? What are the potential roadblocks, pit-
falls, and barriers between English speak-
ers and fluency?
What the... Huh? How do you say that?
“English speakers come from a linguistic
background that is related to Icelandic,”
says Jón Símon Magnusson, historical lin-
guist and lecturer in linguistics and Icelan-
dic language at the University of Iceland.
“In terms of lexical roots, you can see a lot
of correspondences.” Words like “book”
and “bók,” “fótur” and “foot,” “hundur”
and “hound,” “köttur” and “cat,” clearly
illustrate the historical intersection of con-
temporary English and Icelandic back in
the day. “But the thing that English lacks,”
says Jón, “is the floral, inflectional regalia.”
We'll return to issues of inflection in a
bit, because even before they encounter
grammar, burgeoning Icelandic speak-
ers must first face more fundamental
hurdles: namely, pronunciation. Accord-
ing to Jón, Icelandic sounds that English
speakers have the most difficulty with are
the trilled-r and pre-aspiration—meaning
a word like “hattur” [ˈhaʰtʏr], which fea-
tures both sounds, is rather difficult for
students to pronounce early on.
Further, the differences between the
way many consonants in Icelandic are
pronounced is more minute than in Eng-
lish. For instance, the letter b is realized
as [p] in Icelandic, and p as [ph], which in
English is the difference between spit and
pit. The same goes for t & d ([th] & [t]),
as well as k & g ([kh]
& [k]—not to men-
tion the many other
sounds the letter g
signifies in Icelandic,
which again are much
closer together than
English speakers are
trained to hear). Then
come smaller rules,
like a written f being
spoken as a [p] when
before an “n,” or how
the hv in “hvar” is re-
alized as a [kw]—be-
cause phonology!
Some other sounds that English
speakers will be unfamiliar with include
the ll, realized as a [l ̥] or [tl] or even [ɬ] de-
pending on the speaker, and vowel sounds
written as “ö” [œ] and “au” [øʏ], neither
of which appear in English. And even the
remaining consonants in Icelandic, which
at first glance seem familiar, are just dif-
ferent enough from those in English to
cause problems, both in speech and in
comprehension. The list goes on. It's a lot
to process, though not impossible by any
means.
What all of this adds up to is a lan-
guage that requires the English speaker
to differentiate in hearing between min-
ute sound differences that had before not
been differentiated, and to choreograph
the mouth in ways that are unfamiliar, in-
frequently accessed, or theretofore incon-
ceivable in order to communicate.
Though there are a few ways around
some of the trickier voicing. “I often tell
them [language students], 'You can
choose where you want to come from',”
says Jón. Though Icelandic is relatively
uniform in how it is pronounced nation-
wide, there are some minor differences
in the north and south, specifically in how
some of the trickier consonants are real-
ized. “It's more predictable from ortho-
graphic presentation in Akureyri Icelan-
dic,” Jón says. So where do students most
often decide to be from? Jón says they
usually choose Akureyri.
This, That, The Other (x 24)
Perhaps the most formidable component
of the Icelandic language is the complex
system of declension and conjugation.
To a person who has studied other lan-
guages, such as Latin, German, or Rus-
sian, these aspects of language won't be
too much of a surprise—though I'm sure
(s)he won't be thrilled by the prospect of
starting anew with them.
But to those who have never encoun-
tered such heavy inflection, the Icelandic
system of four cases, three grammatical
genders, singular, and plural—changing
the forms of everything
all the time always—can
be a lot to process, and
presents a massive un-
dertaking to master. I
imagine the combined
tears shed over charts
of the declined demon-
strative pronouns alone
would be enough to fill
Þórisvatn lake to the
brim.
And while a major
amount of grammatical
memorization seems
like the only option, Jón informs me that
it may not be so simple: “Over the years,
verbs [in Icelandic] have come to assign
cases in very arbitrary ways—the lines
have become slightly blurred.”
The example he gives is the differ-
ence between the verbs “to open” and
“to close” (“opna” and “loka”). “Opna”
assigns the accusative, and “loka” assigns
the dative. “There is no logic behind this,”
says Jón. “This is something that causes
foreigners problems, because there's
nothing about the verbs in the dictionary
that would give you any indication as to
which assigns what.”
Then there are all the irregulars and
the repetitious forms. It all just seems like
too much; and there's no way around it.
But still, it's not impossible.
The Icelandic Village
So how does one go about teaching this
multitude of possible word forms to stu-
dents? And quickly, at that—one can't
simply sit in a classroom practicing conju-
ration forever (as totally awesome as that
might sound).
Jón speaks of a dilemma that many
language teachers face: “How do I teach
them the case system and the conjuga-
tion according to the verbs and moods
in a short amount of time? Some people
said they would prefer to let them speak
however they want. That's the dilemma
we face: Do you just give them the lexi-
cal roots and let them speak however they
want, or do you teach them properly?”
Another roadblock to learning Icelan-
dic are the students and the Icelanders
themselves. Jón says that students are
often wary to approach Icelanders: “They
think Icelanders will be standoffish, or that
it will be difficult to penetrate Icelandic so-
ciety.” Icelanders acquired their language
naturally, learning the rules as they went
along. As foreigners we learn the rules
first, and then learn to apply the language.
Though they are by no means unwilling
to engage with new speakers, it seems to
be a cultural norm for Icelanders to switch
into English almost immediately when
speaking to a foreigner, which makes the
most essential form of language practice
more of a challenge for students. “People
have to be bold when they're learning a
new language,” says Jón. “I always rec-
ommend spending time in coffeehouses
and pubs, as well as coming to class,”
he laughs. “When I was learning Faroese
I spent almost every day in coffeehouses
just taking to people and using the lan-
guage.”
To combat the hesitancy of new learn-
ers and the tendencies of Icelanders to
switch to English, there is a new teach-
ing initiative called the 'Icelandic Village.'
“There are a number of participating staff
around Reykjavík, in banks or bakeries,”
says Jón. “Students are sent to these plac-
es. The staff know that the students are
coming, and are trained not to switch to
English right away. It's a way of getting for-
eigners out into the city and using the lan-
guage.” This provides a necessary chance
to contend with the language as it is used
day-to-day, and not just in the abstract as
a series of grammatical rules.
Jón has some final words of advice for
those learning Icelandic: “If you're learn-
ing the language and have a question,” he
says, “never ask an Icelander. Ever. Never,
ever ask an Icelander about Icelandic
grammar, unless they are a professor of
linguistics at the University of Iceland. Be-
cause they'll have no idea.”
So with a healthy dose of humility, a
copious amount of self-determination,
willingness and an eagerness to learn, it
seems that although Icelandic presents
a challenge for English speakers, it's far
from insurmountable.
For most English-speaking tourists, the Icelandic language
might be another in a long list of quaint novelties experi-
enced from behind the padding of a tour group decked out
in matching rain slickers: a bunch of tongue-air and whisper-
sounds in the distance as they learn, in English (that they all
speak so well!), about Viking settlers and Hidden People.
Words Sam Wright Fairbanks
Illustration Inga María Brynjarsdóttir
[̍ kwar̩erˈeɪja̩ fjatlḁ̩ jœːkʏɬ]
or, Why Is Icelandic
Considered
Difficult To Learn?
“There is no logic
behind this. This is
something that causes
foreigners problems,
because there's noth-
ing about the verbs
in the dictionary that
would give you any
indication as to which
assigns what.”