The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Page 17

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
15
ENGLISH and ICELANDIC
by W. J. LINDAL
Each national group in Canada is
anxious to make a creditable contri-
bution to the building of the Canadian
nation. That laudable desire poses a
question: In what way can each group
make its contribution the most worthy?
Here claims to a worthy attribution
must not rest upon individual achieve-
ments, no matter how outstanding, be-
cause then the discussion would be
little more than a series of bits of
biography. Elence the first question
prompts another. Is there something
in the common heritage of a national
group which places it in a position of
advantage so that its contribution
could become distinctive and hence of
special cultural value?
All people of Icelandic descent in
North America, who have given any
thought to the content of their heri-
tage, feel very strongly that in their
heritage there is something very distinc-
tive. That distinctive feature is the
Icelandic language.
Here no attempt will be made to
assess the inherent value of the liter-
ature, ancient and modern, to which
the language is a key. The claim to
distinctiveness will be based upon the
language itself.
All the ethnic groups in Canada
bring their native tongues with them
and can claim with justification that
theirs is consequently a special contri-
bution. Hence the Icelandic contri-
bution could not be really dstinctive
unless there is something of intrinsic
value in the language, as such, which
sets it apart from other foreign lan-
guages, that is languages other than
English and French, the two official
Canadian languages.
As a language Icelandic has its own
philological value but that value is
much enhanced because the language
occupies a unique relationship to the
major dominant language in Canada—
English. It is that philological connect-
ing link which has to be examined.
The philological link lies in two
language developments — language
developments which are at once dif-
ferent and similar. The two languages
have much more in common than the
common Teutonic origin. English is
a modern language descendant from
four ancestor languages or dialects of
same. Old Icelandic, or to use the more
common term, Old Norse, is one of
them. Icelandic is not a descendant
language whose ancestor language is
Old Icelandic or Norse. Modern Ice-
landic is Old Icelandic, streamlined
with many new words added, mostly
coined out of Old Norse word-roots.
Hence it can be said that Icelandic is
one of the four ancestor languages to
English.
To make this clear the relationship
or philological link is discussed under
headings.