Icelandic is one of the oldest and most complex languages in the world. In this book, Alda SigmundsdĂłttir looks at the Icelandic language with wit and humor, and how it reflects the heart and soul of the Icelandic people and their culture. Many of the Icelanders' idioms and proverbs, their meaning, and origins are discussed, as is the Icelanders' love for their language and their attempts to keep it pure through the ongoing construction of new words and terminology. There is a section on Icelandic curse words as well as Icelandic slang, which is mostly derived from English. Throughout, this book deconstructs Icelandic vocabulary, and the often-hilarious, almost naive, ways in which words are made.
Among the fascinating topics broached in The Little Book of Icelandic:
⢠The Language Committee: how Icelanders struggle to keep their language âpureâ
⢠Let's make a word!âHow names for new things are constructed
⢠Old letters, strange sounds: wrapping your tongue around the Icelandersâ tongue
⢠$#*!%&!â#$%*, or how Icelanders curse
⢠The missing dialectsâwhy Icelandic has none
⢠Which is the prettiest of all: contests to find the most lovely word in Icelandic (and the ugliest!)
⢠Quintessential Icelandic words and phrases (the ones that describe the Icelanders like no others)
⢠Useful phrases to impress your new Icelandic friends!
⢠KlĂłsettâthe unexpected origin of the Icelandic word for toilet
⌠and so much more!
This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the Icelandic people, their cultureâand of course their language.
Excerpt
"Idioms and proverbs provide a unique insight into the soul of a nation. They say so much about a peopleâs historyâthe heartfelt, the tragic, the monumental, the proud. Icelandic has a vast number of idioms and proverbs that are a direct throwback to our nationâs past, especially idioms relating to the ocean, which is such a massive force in our nation's history. Many of them we use all the time without ever giving a thought to their origins. What follows is a random samplingâI hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I did.
â
Idiom: Eins og skrattinn Ăşr sauĂ°aleggnum
Translation: Like Satan out of the sheepâs leg bone
Meaning: Unexpectedly, out of the blue
If someone suddenly appeared, especially someone I didnât really want to see, I might say hann kom eins og skrattinn Ăşr sauĂ°aleggnum, literally âhe appeared like Satan out of the sheepâs leg boneâ.
Where the affiliation between a sheepâs leg bone and the prince of darkness comes in I could not tell you. However, I can tell you that, in the old days, Icelandic children (being impoverished and everything) had no proper toys. Instead, they played with sheepsâ bones, each of which was assigned a role. The jawbones were the cows, the joints of the legs were the sheep, and the leg bones were the horses. So maybe folks were worried that Satanâbeing the crafty bugger that he wasâwould install himself in a sheepsâ leg bone when the kids were playing and then suddenly BOO! pop out and scare the bejeezus out of them.
Itâs just a theory.
Incidentally, the use of this idiom is not confined to peopleâit is also successfully used to comment on unwanted happenings, as in: âDamn, this huge phone bill comes like Satan out of a sheepâs leg bone!â