The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Side 19

Vol. 62 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
17
Icelandic and a Few Other Languages
by Haraldur Bessason
Presented at a meeting in the Department of Icelandic Language and Literature, University of
Manitoba on April 12, 2007).
Our knowledge of the medieval
Scandinavian languages comes mostly from
12th- and 13th-century books, written in
Iceland. As a rule, I therefore prefer the
term Icelandic to Norse for the language of
Iceland in its spoken and written form, old
and modern.
The Icelandic language is spoken by
about 350 thousand people, most of them
living in Iceland. This number sets narrow
limits for its horizontal or synchronic
dimension. To give an example, Icelandic
authors, poets, translators, journalists and
others writing in their native tongue, have
only a small readership to rely on.
Therefore, the question is often raised by
those unfamiliar with the history of Iceland
whether the language spoken in that coun-
try does not fall in the category of the
world's endangered languages. My own
reply to that question always includes a ref-
erence to a diachronic or historical dimen-
sion, pointing out that speakers of
Icelandic are, in our day, about nine or ten
times more numerous than they were two
hundred years ago. This sometimes makes
me wonder if, at the present time, probabil-
ities of the disappearance of Icelandic may
not be nine or ten times less than they were
at the beginning of the 19th century. At
that time Iceland was an opressed colony
whose prospects were quite grim. To this
we may add that the country has now been
an independent republic for more than
sixty years, which undeniably carries with
it some degree of language protection. In
recent years, annual publications in
Icelandic, including books, magazines,
newspapers and other printed media, have
been almost overwhelming. At the turn of
the 19th century, these were few and far
between.
Lately, prominent financiers in Iceland
have suggested the adoption of a policy of
bilingualism, placing Icelandic and English
on equal footing. In their opinion this
would help them cultivate and strengthen
their ties with foreign companies and com-
mercial enterprises and facilitate business
transactions between Iceland and the out-
side world. I doubt if these forward-look-
ing individuals fully appreciate the mean-
ing and implications of legislative Acts reg-
ulating the use of more than one officially
recognized language. However, past gener-
ations of Icelanders may not have been
without experience with people using more
than one language in their day-to-day
affairs, since a quick look at their nation’s
history reveals a few instances which, at
least to a limited degree, point in the direc-
tion of bilingualism. In the well-known
medieval Icelandic Laxdada Saga, set in
Iceland around the year 1000 A.D. and
written shortly before the middle of the
13th century, we read about a powerful and
prestigious man, Hoskuldur Dala-Kollsson
at Hjardarfell in the district of Dalir in the
western part of Iceland. He is said to have
sailed to Norway to buy timber for his new
farmhouse in Iceland. On the same visit, he
also acquired a beautiful concubine whom
he brought back home with him.
Hoskuldur knew from the beginning that
his attractive concubine had one drawback:
she was speechless and thus unable to
express herself in words. In due course, the
concubine bore Hoskuldur a son who came
to be known by the name CMafur the
Peacock, a boy of exceptional promise who
later became one of Iceland’s most admired
public figures. From Laxdada Saga comes
the following story about Hoskuldur, his
attractive concubine, and their young son