Letter from Iceland #29
The Little Book of Icelandic - Fun false friends, plus Tolstoy!
Góðan daginn, og gleðilegt nýtt ár!
(That means “good day and happy new year!” in case you were wondering.
So, we are out of the Christmas woods into the January clearing, and I’m back to knowing which day of the week it is. I don’t know about you, but I always lose track of the days of the week over Christmas, though I’m usually pretty clear about which date we are on.
Today, for instance, is Thursday. Yep, it’s Thursday, and in a normal week I would have sent out one Letter from Iceland already, but since time got scrambled, here we are near the end of the week and this is my first newsletter. And you know what? I think I’m going to just let it suffice. We’ll return to our regular programming next week, by which time I’ll have mastered the task of identifying the weekdays.
All that aside, I hope you had a fabulous holiday and that you managed to get in some quality time with your loved ones and/or with yourself. Yes, yourself, because I believe spending quality time with ourselves is something most of us rarely do, yet it is one of the best things we can do for our mental health.
Quick sidestep, tangentially related: a new fun thing I am doing this year. Quite by accident I came across this Substack a couple of days before New Year’s Eve, and decided to hop on this slow-read-along of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. By slow they mean one chapter per day, which takes 10-20 minutes to read. Which for me is a manageable commitment for quality time with myself (and Tolstoy) per day.
After all, who can resist an invitation like this:
Hello! And welcome. I am absolutely delighted that you have decided to join us for this year-long slow read of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. You are in for a treat. This is a rather extraordinary book: a great story full of complex always-changing characters and a kaleidoscope of human experience. Reading it slowly and collectively expands and deepens this story into something greater than itself. Stick with us, and hopefully, you will see what I mean.
I should mention that this read-along is absolutely free, and there is no commitment other than to yourself. You can stop anytime, or stop for a while and come back to it—whatever you want, you can do. Just the kind of noncommittal commitment my Icelandic heart can get behind. (And if you are now curious about the Icelanders and their commitmentphobia, you might like to check out my armchair psychoanalysis of the Icelandic nation.)
I tried unsuccessfully to read War and Peace a few times … I am a big fan of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, but was never able to get any distance into W&P. A while back I found it was included with my Audible membership, and actually listened to the whole thing, all 60 hours of it 🫠 (wonderfully narrated by Thandiwe Newton) but, full disclosure, I sped through most of the war parts, and some of the more long-winded passages as well. This slow-read-along is a perfect incentive to re-read and absorb the story in smaller increments, and so far I am enjoying it immensely.
Just wanted to throw that out there, in case any of you wanted to join. 💃
Okay then!
It is time to carry on with our Little Book of Icelandic, and today’s post is all about the funny things that the Icelandic and Faroese find in each other’s respective language.
But here’s the thing: to both the Icelanders and the Faroese, the other language often sounds like a slightly naive version of their own language. Its various terms can also seem borderline rude - enough to send the more juvenile among us into a fit of giggles.
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