|
 |
Icelandic Language | ||
Tags: Icelandic | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5814 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 9 of 18 15 October 2008 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
|
if you're going to try song lyrics (which, i'll warn you, sung language can sometimes be the most difficult to understand, as is evidenced by the large amount of people who commonly mistake one lyric for something completely different) you absolutely MUST check out sigur rós. i would recommend them to you even if you didn't have an interest icelandic, they're one of my favorite groups.
godspeed and good luck, i hope to also study at least a little icelandic myself some day! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6732 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 10 of 18 17 October 2008 at 4:00pm | IP Logged |
|
Let me just point out that not all of Sigur Rós's songs are actually in Icelandic, including the entire cd: "( )" which is in Hopelandic, a language made up by the lead singer.
BUT... Sigur Rós is still pretty awesome! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5814 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 11 of 18 17 October 2008 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
|
Ah, I probably should have mentioned that. Yes, quite a lot of their songs actually have no words, what the band calls "Hopelandic" is really just gibberish, not a legitimate language. It's not always easy to tell the difference if you don't speak Icelandic, though, because of the obvious phonological similarity. Apparently Jonsi's use of Hopelandic is to help him use his voice primarily as an instrument instead of lyrically. On their website,they have a list of songs (with lyrics!) and it says there which songs are in Hopelandic. They also have a very non-academic, rough guide to Icelandic pronunciation that may be helpful if you aren't familiar with IPA and want a quick starter to know general, approximate rules of pronunciation. Also, underneath the names in English of most sections of the website is its name in Icelandic, which may also be helpful.
And there's an interesting trivia section, where you can learn that their bassist, Georg, has earned the nickname "white fang" by being able to catch trout with his teeth :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5814 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 12 of 18 17 October 2008 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
|
Oh, I would also, after a significant amount of time studying Icelandic, most certainly go for the Eddas, which are kind of like The Iliad and The Odyssey of Norse mythology. One is a collection of old Norse poems (aptly dubbed the Poetic Edda) assembled around the 13th century and the other was written by Snorri Sturluson in the 1200s, so the Icelandic is somewhat archaic, but it's not a very quickly changing language in the first place, and apparently Icelandic school children are able to read them with little to no difficulty. If you thought Greek mythology was cool and epic, just wait til you hear these Norse myths.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 18 19 October 2008 at 1:21pm | IP Logged |
|
The difference between Old Norse and Modern Icelandic it not nearly as big as the difference between the Greek of Homer (or even the classical Greek authors). In modern editions of the old texts the orthogrophy has normally been slightly changed to make it more uniform, which makes it even easier to adapt to reading the old texts.
The poetic texts are generally tougher reading then the prose texts. This is normal in most languages, but in most Old Norse poetry there are also obscure references to mythologic stuff that may or maybe have survived until the present day. If you want to try your hand at the poetry then a good place to start could be the 'Hávamál', a relatively accessible collection of words of wisdom ascribed to Odin himself. But the crème de la crème of Old Norse poetry must be the 'Vọluspá", i.e. the Prophecy of the Seeress (the second letter ọ is Old Norse, but you often see the name written as 'Völuspá' with the Modern Icelandic ö). If you can read that then you are good. At one time during my own learning process I studied this poem with the help of translations in several languages, including English, but I quickly found out that they not only differed in the form, but also in the basic meaning ascribed to certain passages. Translation of poetry is always a risky business, and you normally have to sacrifice either formal considerations or linguistical precision. Translating Old Norse poetry is no exception to this rule. For this reason it is a good idea to use more than one translation if you can find them. One question to native Icelanders out there: does it sometimes happen that people grow so fond of Old Norse that their language becomes peppered with subject-loose sentences, stave rhymes and actual quotes? I could understand if it happened as I personally rejoice in finding such elements in modern Icelandic prose because I like the mix of the modern language with the most impressive devices of the old one. But modern Icelanders might see such elements as archaique and contrived? Edited by Iversen on 19 October 2008 at 1:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5814 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 14 of 18 19 October 2008 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
|
Oh, woops, I didn't mean to imply anything about the degree of change between Ancient and Modern Greek and Old Norse and Modern Icelandic. I was only commenting on their similar cultural roles as a collection of myths. That's interesting, though, I didn't know that. I suppose it makes sense in the geographical context of the two languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 18 20 October 2008 at 6:14am | IP Logged |
|
I would add that the difference between Old Norse and Modern Icelandic is not much more than the difference between Dhimotiki and Kathevousa, whereas the distance between Dhimotiki and Ancient Greek is so big that I only can recognize some of the words in works by Homer or Sophocles or Xenophon, but not understand them. However the use of poetic circumlocutions in Homer appears to be somewhat similar to their use in Old Norse poetry, and both mythologies are exceptionally rich and colorful.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| missantoinette Newbie Australia Joined 5687 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written) | Message 16 of 18 23 October 2008 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
|
It frustrates me how some beautiful and unique languages are excluded from many institutions.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
