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122 Orð og tunga
4 Rendering Icelandic words in Czech
4.1 Loanwords
It has been illustrated in Chapters 2 and 3 above how the process
of adapting loanwords to Czech has developed and continues to de-
velop.
A few Icelandic and Old Norse borrowings have become part of
the Czech language. The same principles, as those mentioned above,
are used in the adaptation of their writt en form: if frequently used,
they are spelled in the domestic way (viking, vikinský, berserk, gejzír,
fj ord, skald, skaldský, valkýra, jarl); if new or describing a phenomenon
occurring only in Scandinavia, they are writt en in the original way
(þurs, skrælingové). The general rules described above (in section 3.3)
can be observed also for Icelandic words and names. For example,
the spelling of the words viking, skald and valkýra has been adapted
to Czech pronunciation since the 1960s; in a collection of family sa-
gas translated at that time (Staroislandské ságy 1965) these words are
spelled víking, skáld and valkyrje. And the word troll is an example of
word-integration in progress: it is still codifi ed with double ll but it
is more and more oft en writt en with a single l, and this will probably
soon be accepted by the Czech rules too.
A diffi cult problem is posed by compounds of established loan-
words and names, for example fj ord. Since the geographic phenom-
enon is called a fj ord in Czech, myself and Starý decided to use the
Czech form also in cases where it is included as part of a compound,
i.e., to write Skagafj ord and not Skagafj ǫrðr (Novotná & Starý 2014:227).
4.2 Transcription and declension of Icelandic proper names
4.2.1 Theoretical background
The pronunciation and declension of Icelandic proper names is, un-
derstandably, not much described in general Czech language hand-
books. Nevertheless, there are some Czech linguistic publications
that discuss this problem theoretically. In a general publication on the
pronunciation of foreign names in Czech (VSČ 2) there are two para-
graphs on the pronunciation of Icelandic personal names and place
names. It is claimed – without any normative desire – that Czech
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