Blog 4 - Come to Iceland! Our Language is Awesome!

I’ve been trying to figure out why we struggle so urgently to save dying languages. My sentimental gut reaction says that we should always try to maintain them simply for the sake of diversity and because, honestly, the idea of having uncommon distinctive languages seems pretty cool. But I wanted to figure out why this idea seems so appealing and why this quest to save languages seems so necessary. Sentiment and nostalgia alone fail to justify our consuming and often losing battles to preserve dying languages. There has to be a deeper reason why we try so hard, even with such little success.

So I was reading an article that talks about Iceland’s booming tourism sector.* Does that seem entirely irrelevant to our class? Yeah, I was really confused when I opened the article. At first I figured that somebody at Google News must have dropped the ball. Well, it turns out that the central part of the article’s sales pitch is the Icelandic language itself. Apparently one of the primary attractions in Iceland for tourists is its unique language. To convince people to visit their country, instead of waxing poetic about its stunning natural beauty, the authors talk about its ancient language.

The Icelandic people clearly have tremendous pride in this language. To them, it’s more than a language; it’s their history. The first people came to Iceland in 870 CE and used the Norwegian language. Ironically, although in Norway this language altered drastically, the Icelandic version remained virtually intact. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100.** Apparently, not a single word has changed in Icelandic language since the writing of these texts (which generates questions and raises doubts about my theories about changing languages in my 2nd post). Because of Icelandic’s constancy, Icelanders today can read these ancient texts more easily and more directly than Americans can read Shakespeare.***

Language is so central to Icelanders’ heritage and history that to preserve their culture, they must preserve their language. So, the government has adopted a policy of language purism. Essentially, it has decided to avoid using foreign words at all. Instead, they will either coin new words or coin new meanings for obsolete words to describe new things. They can thereby ensure that Icelandic language (and therefore Icelandic culture) will remain entirely intact.

Therein lies an excellent reason to preserve dying languages at nearly any cost. Language is not merely a mode of communication; it’s a crucial element of any culture. Just ask the Icelandic people. To lose a language is to lose a culture. Each cultural tradition has lessons and truths to teach the world, and by allowing languages to pass away into obscurity, we allow these lessons and truths to disappear into the shadows of the unknown. We all lose something in our lives, particularly those left stranded without a cultural identity. This loss is tragic. So, the struggle to preserve dying languages doubles as a noble quest to protect the secrets, truths, and value in their corresponding cultures. Is anything not worth sacrificing in this pursuit?


With that, I’m going to bed. Hope you all had great weekends!

Panda


*http://pr-gb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28327&Itemid=9
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_language
***http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0824866.html