Letter from Iceland #45
The Little Book of Icelandic—The disease and death of Icelandic
Hæhæ!
Iceland has an official policy on linguistic purism, meaning that a special government body regulates the development of the language (insofar as is possible) and helps to create new words when something new appears that does not yet have an Icelandic name.
This is not a new development—in fact, there was a highly influential document published in the 19th century called Sótt og dauði íslenskunnar, or The Disease and Death of Icelandic, in which the author likened the Icelandic language to a woman who is on the brink of death from being contaminated by too many foreign words.
In today’s Little Book of Icelandic installment, we learn more about these efforts to keep the language pure. (Paid subscribers only, I’m afraid.)
ICYMI
I was recently a guest on the podcast The Storied Recipe, where guests share a recipe that means something to them, and explain why. I chose the Icelandic pönnukökur, which holds significance not only for me personally, but for Icelandic culture as a whole. We talked a bit about Icelandic food in general, and then delve into my memoir, Daughter, which really resonated with the host, Becky Hadeed. She wanted to talk about its spiritual overtones, which is something I have not talked about much in interviews, and I was grateful to have the opportunity to do so. The episode went live yesterday and you can listen to it by clicking the button below. I also wrote a post about the interview and my thoughts on it in my other Substack newsletter. You can read that post here.
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