Everyone has learned icelandic, basic danish and advanced english at age 16. From the age 16-20 majority of kids add a fourth language which is either french, german or spanish. I'm now extra grateful for all the languages that I was exposed too in school even though I didn't find them interesting at the time. It's easy to communicating and understanding the basics when travelling.
And I really love my language and I'm sure that it'll hold up just fine for the next decades. I know few examples of families with children that have grown up abroad and yes, their grammar often is strange but they speak quite well and they feel a connection back "home" through the language.
The accusation is often leveled against American cultural imperialism. But the language being imposed isn't a Native American language...it isn't Navajo that's being spread across the globe, it's the language that replaced so many Native American languages when the American continent was conquered. And while American English has undergone some cosmetic changes, it's largely the same language that was brought over by the colonists/invaders. So if it's an English language, it must have originated in England, right? But no, it's derived from the Germanic and Norman conquests with a smattering of classical Greek and the original Anglo-Saxon language. And its Latin origins even come by way of the Roman conquest of Gaul. Even the alphabet used comes from the subset of English characters used in German printing presses.
This notion that languages are something that need to be preserved is antithetical to the purpose of language and the history of the development of languages. We have many languages because, historically, we had many groups that didn't have regular contact with each other. And whenever there were groups that had regular contact with each other, language adapted to that fact and evolved. And now with globalization and the internet, we're beginning a phase where everyone has regular contact with everyone else. It's silly to think that language won't do what it's done every time you mix people who speak different languages throughout history. It isn't a process that happens overnight, but over the course of generations, languages that cannot impose a power dynamic will be lost to history or rendered irrelevant in the way that, say, Welsh is today.
We can be sad about it or try to fight it, but it's an inevitability and fighting that is ultimately futile.
I can reword your statement to use Spanish and Peru. It sounds just as weird:
I see the spread of the Spanish language a step in the Peruvianization of the world, which is a shame.
Sure, but people decide what language to speak based on what is most practical for them. Not on what gives you the most exotic vacation.
Personally, I see a future world where all people on earth can talk to each other as an enormous benefit. I'm really confused by the priorities of anyone who honestly thinks otherwise.
Very interestingly though, Americans tend to visit places and usually contain themselves to the very small pockets of countries where people can speak English to them. I can definitely see that in my country (France), where American tourists only go to the-place-where-all-americans-go, and then come back amazed that people spoke English to them.
This tends to be very disconnected from the actual English-speaking skills of the population (which, for my country, is pretty abysmal).
On the other hand you have a lot of peoples who draw a lot of pride or just a sense of identity from exploring their culture and its heritage.
And finally you have the arguable need and definite convenience of a lingua franca in the face of increasing globalization.
And even greater opportunity cost is the lack of in-depth knowledge of your own language.
Language isn't just grammar rules. It also has cultural/regional/historical/etc.
You can learn a few languages and be somewhat proficient at all of them or you can have expert level grasp of the language - where you can discuss philosophical, historical, economic, cultural, etc topics.
Not to mention, jokes, puns along with culture-specific references.
Personally, I wish the education system ( in the US ) focused on english, latin and ancient greek for K-12. I don't think you can fully understand english without understanding a bit of latin and even ancient greek.
Hákarl FTW
However, I do think we Faroese are too bad at Faroese grammar.
Side-note, because we were occupied by the British during WW2, a _lot_ of British slang has been incorporated and turned Faroese, and a lot of regular English words turned into Faroese slang.
I think being from a small nation with such an odd history is awesome. I think Icelandic will preserve itself because the Icelandic people seem stubbornly determined while also pragmatic.
Being fluent in English and Viking is all upside, no downside.
In small towns like Akureryi, there's a lot of local pressure to keep signs mostly in Icelandic. I was actually surprised by this since there were a lot of English-speaking tourists in the area, but I respect it thoroughly. It's their country, I should learn how to get around.
Oh, as an aside - as someone who is single and still uses the various datings apps, I was also impressed by how idiomatically correct their english was even down to slang and figures of speech. There's clearly a large influence from American media.
If you're travelling to Iceland, take the time to learn a few basic Icelandic phrases - the locals have a lot of pride in their culture and will love you for it.
But yeah, certainly the more populated areas are extremely English-friendly. My folks in Arkansas probably see more non-English speakers in the average month than I did in Reykjavik.
You're right that Akureyri is not a small town for Iceland, though.
(But then again Google Translate now has World Lens built in - so that helps)
I am curious, does this apply to everyone or only European-looking people?
Culture is embedded into language, and suggesting that we should standardize on a handful of languages for the sake of convenience places very low (or maybe no) value on cultural preservation.
As someone who's been working very hard for the last two years to become bi-lingual, I had no idea how much I'd learn about my own native language from studying a different language, and incidentally, I've learned a ton about the underlying culture of the target language I'm learning. Every time a language dies, we lose a another piece of our global cultural tapestry, and I think that's a loss that's hard to quantify.
not a fair comparison. learning a second language takes much more resources (time and money) than having different paint colors or food choices.
All the cultures that exist today will die, no matter what actions we take today. People see cultural continuation, but if we hopped in a time machine and went back 100 years, none of us would fit in.
I understand the urge to preserve things we appreciate, but it's not possible to preserve living things.
Where I live, there's also a local language (Frisian) spoken beside the 'bigger' language (Dutch). And here too, lots of people speak English. Or if not, you might get lucky with German.
I think there were almost no advantages to this dialect killing.
Small minority dialects are at a danger of dying out, not crowding out the bigger languages. This is how all of europe worked for hundreds of years. My Grandfather grew up speaking yiddish (german dialect) in school, czech in town & Hungarian at school. These are completely unrelated and individually difficult languages. He later went to college in German & Latin, later on English. He spoke 10 languages in total, most fluently. I knew him in a language that he learned in his 40s. This was normal in his day. They weren't afraid of languages then.
Anyway... if your "home" language is a tiny, local one. There is no danger that you will be monolingual in a commercially useless language. You will speak a big language too. Speaking 2 makes the 3rd one easier to learn.
^more on the dialect end of the spectrum than most people realize.
Where the government intervenes in the opposite direction, the transition can be much more rapid. Visiting Strasbourg (in Alsace, France), people's surnames, street and place names, and the local cuisine are all German, but nobody speaks a word of it. It was amazing (and slightly depressing) to see how in 2-3 generations a city could forget the language it spoke for nigh-on 1,500 years.
The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Dutch were considered a dying language 50 years from now.
Languages evolve, change, innovate and sometimes they go extinct. Latin disappeared with the downfall of the Roman Empire (although it is still used in the Vatican, including ATMs), but paved the way for many romance languages. Even Navajo saved lives during WWII.
Like species, we know they're condemned to eventual extinction. But who likes seeing something disappear forever?
Many translations are impossible to make because different languages allow for different meanings, metaphors and concepts. Their coexistence is actually beneficial and adds something to human culture.
If one would apply that reasoning to programming languages, the programming landscape would suffer terribly.
E só para enriquecer um pouco este comentário, aqui fica uma linha na minha língua materna!
Classical Latin aside, sermo vulgaris ("the common speech"—"Vulgar Latin") never died so much as it evolved over time into our modern family of Romance languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Romanian, Dalmatian, Sardinian, …; the list goes on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
I think that, in the context of what I'm seeing throughout this thread, (and to be clear, this isn't directed at you specifically) before we worry that English will establish some sort of linguistic hegemony over the globe, we should first consider the processes by which some language or another comes to dominate international communication in such a way, and likewise the processes by which such an "auxiliary language" comes to be replaced eventually by another. I contend that the main reason English now serves the role once served by Latin is because the Anglosphere currently has much influence on the sociopoliticoeconomicocultural stage, yet it is not currently without rival on this stage. A century from now, it could happen that everyone will be learning Mandarin Chinese or Arabic or something else altogether. Perhaps Esperanto will finally take off.
Returning to Latin for a final thought: throughout medieval Europe this side of Macedonia, all educated people could read, write, and speak Latin, and no doubt they found that these abilities came in handy from time to time. Notwithstanding, it remained in place as a second language, reserved for specific situations and purposes, and they continued to employ their native language in their day-to-day activities—after all, we still have English, Irish, Gaelic, Scots, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Spanish, &c., &c. in the present. These are not the same languages that were spoken in the Middle Ages, nor are they the same languages that were spoken 100 years ago, but, as you pointed out, languages evolve and change.
Many people around the world speak English, but they don't become culturally American or British because of it.
It is only a rather recent development, since roughly the 1960s, that the Esperanto movement has advertised itself as a force against language imperialism and as purely an international second language for everyone, one that supposedly “protects” their native languages. Some Esperantists have criticized this change in marketing as simply trying to jump on the anti-imperialism and anti-globalization bandwagon just to get more attention for Esperanto.
L. L. Zamenhof himself hoped that Esperanto – or at least something like it – would eventually replace all world languages, because he saw those differences between peoples as purely a negative thing. (Just like his Homaranismo was an attempt to level out religious differences with a single spirituality that hopefully would be taken up by all.) Zamenhof’s own writings and his lifelong efforts show that he did not really care for cultural diversity as many people today would understand it and hope for.
That makes it sound like such a division is something that is happening now, being _done to_ the world, even. Rather, of course, the world _is_ already diverse like that, and what is happening, if anything, is a homogenisation.
It's even worse with the younger generation. They can't even use Swedish idioms so they switch to English. For example, they might know and use "You're on thin ice" but don't know what "Ute på hal is" eller "Ute på tunn is" means. If I say "det ligger en hund begraven här" they will look at me funnily and not understand what I mean. However, if I say "Something smells fishy" they will know.
People older than me used even funnier idioms that no one uses anymore. For example "Du ler förnöjt som en katt som nyss svalt en kanariefågel."
I don't know what to do about it, if anything. :/ Undoubtedly, it is easier if everyone speaks the same language. But it is also much less interesting and much less diverse.
There are other interesting trends as well. The relatively good economic situation and contributing tourist boom mean you very often will be served in downtown Reykjavík by someone who doesn’t speak Icelandic. Icelanders are simply off doing other jobs. In the scheme of things it’s a small change but very noticeably different from when I moved here.
But many words have more natural sounding translations that we did (and do) use, things like kompilator (compiler), kö (queue), träd (tree) etc. I left Sweden many years ago but still often use gurka as a metasyntactic variable.
BTW your "even funnier idiom" is well known in english as well (although I don't remember the last time I heard anyone say it):
Also, it sounds weird indeed when you use English phrases in your casual speech when direct translation exists. Like I was watching some old movie and a teen girl there said something like "Du, jag ska ha födelsedagskalas på fredag. I want you to come.". I even didn't catch it first.
And that means US culture starts to affect more and more people.
Already today people that primarily watch english media have significantly different views on driving children to school, or social safety than those who watch primarily media in the local language, even correcting for age, gender, education, etc.
It’s scary to see because it’s means more and more of the broken parts of US culture end up here in Europe as well.
Icelanders are going to have a harder time of it, because English can worm its way into Icelandic more easily than it can enter into Hebrew. Plus they have less of a critical mass.
[1] Not 100%. They still watch e.g. Moana in English, or sometimes watch shows in German, French, some English ones, etc.
It doesn't help that schools basically only push Spanish, which is actively besieged by half the population. I really wish schools would push things like mandarin and german more since it's a much larger part of the world economy.
Goes up to advanced level. The appeal for me is the ability to understand one of the least changed old European languages, much akin to our Old English. One that is bizarrely and amazingly still spoken.
Admittedly I do speak a fair bit of Swedish, potentially making things easier, but even without that there are many cognates that make learning it easier for English-speakers. Or German-speakers, for that matter.
From what I understand, written Icelandic is mutually intelligible with Old Norse, so if you learned Icelandic you could actually read the sagas. The pronunciation has diverged enough that the spoken languages aren't mutually intelligible, but nobody really speaks Old Norse anymore so it doesn't matter.
I guess it's kinda like the relationship between Middle English and Modern English. The written forms are similar enough that Chaucer is usually presented in the original Middle English alongside a gloss for whatever words have disappeared from the language since.
Language is really an artifact of isolation and distance. In an incredibly connected world, the pressure changes from divergence to convergence.
Like other commenters, I have mixed feelings about this. Another used the word "balkanized" (which is a great word) to describe a world divided by incomprehensible language.
Others note that a monoculture isn't the only solution. (Bi|multi)lingualism is another alternative. Multilingualism was the historical response to a world becoming increasingly connected. My great-grandfather grew up in an area where he spoke Russian, French, German and Latvian... by necessity. Depending on which way the political winds were blowing his generation could be conscripted into the Russian or German (maybe Prussian at this point) armies.
That works fine when your sphere is your country and neighbouring countries. But now the sphere is increasingly "the world".
Multilingualism seems to be somewhat cultural and, more importantly, is something that's passed down from one generation to the next. Older children and adults can (and do) acquire new languages with varying success (some are adept, others are not). It seems like if you don't have this from birth you're kinda screwed. If there's no pressure for you to use another language, you're also kinda screwed.
This comes up particularly in the English speaking world where those countries that have English as the predominant first language tend to have no pressure to use another language nor the cultural heritage of multilingualism.
It seems inevitable to me that the world is heading towards a future with a handful of remaining languages. Obvious candidates include English, Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi and Russian.
I've lived in Germany for a couple years, and have noticed that when native English speakers come here, the Germans all speak to them in English, and when the English speakers go away, the Germans immediately revert back to their native tongue. They can usually do the same for French speakers and sometimes Spanish or Italian too. What this means is that Europeans speak several languages, and English speakers speak one, and therefore English speakers only encounter English.
I suspect the same is true in Iceland, but I have never been there so I can't say for sure.
Literature and music get made even for tiny languages. AAA-video games mostly get made for maybe the top 10 languages; teams from small countries can still make them, but they have to make sure the project has appeal worldwide. Making a Facebook clone with better Icelandic support? Not going to happen.
And if you go to Bing's website https://www.bing.com and set your browser to request webpages in Icelandic (via an "Accept-Language: is" HTTP header), then much of the website changes to Icelandic. However, the search query auto-complete suggestions and the search results will only be in Icelandic if you are in Iceland yourself.
From the article, it seems like the Guardian reporter either didn't know this, or doesn't think Microsoft is important (!):
> Online, however, is the biggest concern. Apart from Google – which, mainly because it has an Icelandic engineer, has added Icelandic speech recognition to its Android mobile operating system – the internet giants have no interest in offering Icelandic options for a population the size of Cardiff’s.
If you mean transfer a feeling then I’d agree it’s possible. Like happy, sad, angry etc.
As for thoughts, I often think in French or English, but for a lot of thoughts, no language is involved. For example, I do not think "I must pay my electricity bill" or "I should do some laundry today".
> “It’s called ‘digital minoritisation’,” said Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, a professor of Icelandic language and linguistics at the University of Iceland. “When a majority language in the real world becomes a minority language in the digital world.”
This makes the phrase "digital minoritisation" seem pretty silly. We should definitely try to protect the heritage of uncommonly spoken languages like Icelandic, Basque, etc. But it's not clear why the plight of Icelandic, a language with its "own country," is particularly deserving of this sort of dramatization.
In my country we have a similar issue except the local language was artificially revived from dead so there's no or almost no unbroken chain of native speakers. There's still debate about how some (English) letters are supposed to be pronounced. They've added useful words, then changed them to sound more authentic. Eg days of the week used to be transliterations from English but now they're references to various native Gods and things. The whole concept of a week didn't exist in the original culture so how can authentic day names exist at all?! It's a big effort with no justification.
It leads to things like this gem of nonsense in an code of practice for electrical work:
"From a Maori perspective, the term “earth” or Papatuanuku translates as Earth Mother – the source of all energy. When aligning this concept to the flow of electricity, a useful parallel can be made to the 3-pin plug."
What if they cannot specify a logical reason, but still feel like it? Isn't that enough?
Do you never feel a joy and pride in following in your parents' footsteps, in having the same traditions as older ancestors, or in feeling the same rain, walking in the same forests, and struggling on the same Earth as many others from generations ancient and recent? It's when I do that that I see them, those who I know have lived, appear from the mist, that I may greet them, be in their midst, and know that I am one of them.
The population of Iceland is 334,252.
It's not clear how many still speak Icelandic, but there's heritage.