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Icelandic intelligibility w/ Scandinavian | ||
Tags: Scandinavian Languages | Icelandic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6036 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes  Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 1 of 8 17 March 2011 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
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I slowly starting to learn Icelandic, because of a possible exchange semester there, next year. Out of sheer curiosity, I was wondering how is Icelandic transferable to other Scandinavian languages.
I understand that Icelandic is not comprehensible to a speaker of other Scandinavian languages, aside from a word here and there, but what about the other way around? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| laiwai Diglot Groupie SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6634 days ago 66 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 8 17 March 2011 at 12:58am | IP Logged |
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My guess is that it will probably aid quite a bit in the study of them, but no more than
that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6495 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 3 of 8 17 March 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
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When you know both Icelandic and one of the 'Continental' Nordic languages fairly well, you will discover more and more common words and expressions - but it took me some time to get there, and I even had Danish as my native language. If people on Iceland have any advantage it can only be due to having had Danish in School, but my experience after to trips to the country is that most people up there don't understand spoken Danish.
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| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6036 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 4 of 8 17 March 2011 at 8:41am | IP Logged |
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But can I presume the shift from Icelandic to other Nordic languages is much more straightforward than the other way around?
Maybe it's simplistic, but my logic is "complex to less-complex" would present few problems, unlike "less-complex to complex" 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6495 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 5 of 8 17 March 2011 at 11:11am | IP Logged |
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If you already know Icelandic (or Old Norse) then it will probably be easier to learn another Scandinavian language than the other way round. But because of scarce materiales and few speakers and the rich morphology it will be much more difficult to get to your starting point if you choose Icelandic. Edited by Iversen on 17 March 2011 at 11:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6036 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 6 of 8 17 March 2011 at 1:53pm | IP Logged |
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I'm using http://icelandiconline.is/, which seems to be a suprisingly comprehensive course so far. If I go for an exchange, I will get a 3 week intensive course with Haskoli Islands as well. I also have a Colloquial Icelandic course on it's way now as well.
Should be manageable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6713 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 7 of 8 21 March 2011 at 9:40pm | IP Logged |
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Well, it looks like Old English...
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| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4891 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 8 of 8 23 March 2011 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
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As the Swedish say, to speak Icelandic, you only need to take the swedish word and add "-ur" at the end. And voilà, Icelandic! :)
Seriously now, there are many common point to all those languages. I started learning swedish many years ago, and then got into Icelandic at a later date : I wasn't completely on foreign ground, but definitely not entirely on familiar ground either. The Icelandic have a very conservative and protective approach to their language. For instance, where the English say computer, the German komputer, the russian компьютер, the Icelandic say tölva. It's a word that fell into disuse some time ago that they picked up again and gave a new meaning to - tölva previously meant "wire." An other example : the English say geology, the french géologie, the russian геология, the swedish geologi, the icelandic say jarðfræði (from the words jörð - earth - and fræði - studies). What those examples mean is that you can't relate to other languages, most of the time, when speaking Icelandic because of how they refused to include loan words and foreign words into their language (as a way to protect their own linguistic identity). They made up new words of their own, based on their own vocabulary, sometimes cannibalizing very old words that weren't used anymore. So even though the swedish words häst and hund (horse and dog) relate to the icelandic words hestur and hundur (hence the joke with which I opened this post - many other words are like that), such cases are very far from being the rule. EDIT: For those who may wonder, the icelandic -ur ending is a relic of the ancient Norse language. Back then, many words finished with an -r. This -r ending was pronounced somewhat like an -ur, like in the word Miðgarðr, hence over time, it actually became an -ur in Icelandic. EDIT2: I just thought I'd share this website with you http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/IcelOnline/IcelOnlineHome.h tml It's a great resource. Edited by FrostBlast on 23 March 2011 at 1:24am 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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