3 ms·

Except Icelandic people can read Old Norse, and that's all the hype you need. It's a bit more difficult for Faroese. It's even more difficult for Norwegians and

by kebman 6y ago

Except Icelandic people can read Old Norse, and that's all the hype you need. It's a bit more difficult for Faroese. It's even more difficult for Norwegians and Danes who will only be able to pick out a word or two. That's the continuum. Equally, a Norwegian can read Danish, but it takes from one beer to a wedding reception to get used to their strange laryngeal pronounciation, at which point the Norwegian probably is so drunk that he speaks perfect Danish. That's hardly drastic, although it might look like it is on paper. What's drastic is the day after. (Swedes don't count, and Norwegians are more than happy to explain it to them... in their own language.) Skål!

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Except Icelandic people can read Old Norse, and that's all the hype you need. Yes, but again, that is due to 1) the 19th-century language reform, and 2) a conservative orthography where the spelling remains the same even though modern Icelandic pronunciation is nothing like Old Norse. When it comes to languages being conservative or innovative, linguists examine the language itself over time, not just the present literary standard or the orthography used to write the language. So, yes, Icelandic has converged back towards Old Norse in certain ways due to artificial 19th-century efforts, but in the intervening centuries there were such massive innovations that praising Icelandic as conservative is disingenuous. Linguists tire of having to explain this (and some similar cases like Romanian versus the rest of Romance) to laymen.
- kebman 6y ago
  And Danish pronounciation is nothing like Norwegian. What's your point? It's still two very similar languages, with almost the same heritage, except for pronounciation. Are you even Scandinavian? Because you're plainly mistaken in that Icelandic is "nothing like Norse." Even such a statement is wholly preposterous as it's clearly related and evolved from it! Danish is also "nothing like" the Danish before laryngealization, but its genealogy is unquestionable. Norwegian has changed even from the 30's and to the 60's, and from the 60's and to the 2000's, but—guess what—it's still Norwegian! Where would you draw the line? You'll find similar changes for the English language as well, that becomes apparent simply by listening to old news reels. It's an audible constant. Further more, the Icelandic language has changed, evolved and reformed several times through-out history, and not just in the 19th century. Another big shift was during the 16th century, for example. So your claim that policy is unnatural is about as logical as claiming that there was no rule in Europe during the Middle Ages. Obviously there was. And they also protected and ruled their languages as a matter of national security. Thus it can be argued that while some parts of the language will evolve naturally and dynamically as a constant, there are always forces at play who will attempt to control it in order to gain national cohesion. Another great example is French, where most dialects have been eradicated. And this is a constant whether linguists find proof of it or not. So it's spesifically not disingenuous to praise Icelandic as conservative. It is in fact disingenuous to do the opposite. Not doing so is in actually rather disrespectful to the proud Icelandic people, who's been so great at conserving their language and national heritage, while others have not. This is of course made more easy because the language is insular and remote, but it's an achievement none the less. Thus your argumentum ad verecundiam has no power here, because only Erasmus Montanus would argue otherwise. But then I suspect a large part of these so-called academics want nothing more than to disintegrate nations entirely, because a large part of the relativist marxist do indeed come from linguistics. For that reason alone it should be obvious that language is highly political. In fact some might say that the rather small differenceses between East Norse and West Norse prove it. Many of the differences between Nordic languages are far more due to political differences and interest groups rather than for purely lingiuistical reasons. Through many times in history it has of course been of national importance to emphasise such differences, especially with the power struggles between the Nordic countries, for instance around romantic revival surrounding the Napoleonic wars.

by kebman 6y ago

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> Except Icelandic people can read Old Norse, and that's all the hype you need. Yes, but again, that is due to 1) the 19th-century language reform, and 2) a conservative orthography where the spelling remains the same even though modern Icelandic pronunciation is nothing like Old Norse. When it comes to languages being conservative or innovative, linguists examine the language itself over time, not just the present literary standard or the orthography used to write the language. So, yes, Icelandic has converged back towards Old Norse in certain ways due to artificial 19th-century efforts, but in the intervening centuries there were such massive innovations that praising Icelandic as conservative is disingenuous. Linguists tire of having to explain this (and some similar cases like Romanian versus the rest of Romance) to laymen.

kebman 6y ago
And Danish pronounciation is nothing like Norwegian. What's your point? It's still two very similar languages, with almost the same heritage, except for pronounciation. Are you even Scandinavian? Because you're plainly mistaken in that Icelandic is "nothing like Norse." Even such a statement is wholly preposterous as it's clearly related and evolved from it! Danish is also "nothing like" the Danish before laryngealization, but its genealogy is unquestionable. Norwegian has changed even from the 30's and to the 60's, and from the 60's and to the 2000's, but—guess what—it's still Norwegian! Where would you draw the line? You'll find similar changes for the English language as well, that becomes apparent simply by listening to old news reels. It's an audible constant. Further more, the Icelandic language has changed, evolved and reformed several times through-out history, and not just in the 19th century. Another big shift was during the 16th century, for example. So your claim that policy is unnatural is about as logical as claiming that there was no rule in Europe during the Middle Ages. Obviously there was. And they also protected and ruled their languages as a matter of national security. Thus it can be argued that while some parts of the language will evolve naturally and dynamically as a constant, there are always forces at play who will attempt to control it in order to gain national cohesion. Another great example is French, where most dialects have been eradicated. And this is a constant whether linguists find proof of it or not. So it's spesifically not disingenuous to praise Icelandic as conservative. It is in fact disingenuous to do the opposite. Not doing so is in actually rather disrespectful to the proud Icelandic people, who's been so great at conserving their language and national heritage, while others have not. This is of course made more easy because the language is insular and remote, but it's an achievement none the less. Thus your argumentum ad verecundiam has no power here, because only Erasmus Montanus would argue otherwise. But then I suspect a large part of these so-called academics want nothing more than to disintegrate nations entirely, because a large part of the relativist marxist do indeed come from linguistics. For that reason alone it should be obvious that language is highly political. In fact some might say that the rather small differenceses between East Norse and West Norse prove it. Many of the differences between Nordic languages are far more due to political differences and interest groups rather than for purely lingiuistical reasons. Through many times in history it has of course been of national importance to emphasise such differences, especially with the power struggles between the Nordic countries, for instance around romantic revival surrounding the Napoleonic wars.