Orð og tunga - 01.06.2017, Page 137

Haraldur Bernharðsson: Jón Thoroddsen og málstöðlun 19. aldar 127
(‘Boy and girl’), appearing in 1850 and then again in a second revised edition 1867,
played an important role in displaying and instituting the new linguistic standard.
A rural love story featuring many linguistic characteristics of the medieval Icelandic
sagas, the novel immediately enjoyed immense popularity. The second edition of
1867 was printed in 1,200 copies, a very large print run for a society of only around
70,000 people. Moreover, this love story about the young son and daughter of two
neighboring rival farmers, appealed to children and young people in a way that no
grammar, journal or newspaper ever could. This appeal to young people in their
formative years probably made the novel instrumental in establishing a standard
literary language for Modern Icelandic.
The author, Jón Thoroddsen (1818–1868), received the best education available at
the time and was friends or acquainted with many of the individuals, in Iceland and
Copenhagen, who were most actively involved in the ongoing dialogue about mat-
ters concerning the Icelandic language. Jón Thoroddsen was thus in a good position
to participate in and follow this dialogue and, as a writer, to conform to the emerging
linguistic standard.
This paper compares selected features of the language in the two editions of Pilt-
ur og stúlka appearing in 1850 and 1867. A corpus of around 70 private letters by Jón
Thoroddsen are used as additional comparative material. These two editions, it is
argued, were not only instrumental in establishing the new and emerging linguistic
standard, but also manifest two different stages in the development of the standard.
The linguistic changes implemented in the 1867 edition, as well as the linguistic
features left intact, thus show the creation of a literary linguistic standard in progress.
The main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows:
(a) In the 1867 edition, the literary language moved away from the collo-
quial language.
(b) The emerging linguistic standard is enforced more strictly and system-
atically in the novel, intended for public consumption, than in Jón Thoroddsen’s pri-
vate lett ers.
(c) Features from earlier stages of Icelandic are adopted in the literary lan-
guage.
(d) Almost all the changes made in the 1867 edition refl ect permanent fea-
tures of the linguistic standard, still in place in present-day Icelandic.
(e) Some features of the language left intact in the 1867 edition would have
been subject to change at a later date, showing that the linguistic standard was still
not fully developed in 1867.
(f) Many of the linguistic features adopted in the literary standard were at
odds with the colloquial language, as already indicated, but ultimately some of these
features changed in the colloquial language to conform with the literary language.
The literary standard thus gradually infl uenced the colloquial language.
Haraldur Bernharðsson
Íslensku- og menningardeild
Hugvísindasviði Háskóla Íslands
Árnagarði við Suðurgötu
IS-101 Reykjavík
haraldr@hi.is
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