FOLIA SCA N D IN A V IC A VOL. 9 PO ZNA Ń 2006
REVIEWS
St e f â n Ka r l s s o n: T h e I c e la n d ic L a n g u a g e . Translated by R ory M cTurk, London: V ik in g S o c ie ty for Northern R esearch, U n iv ersity C o lle g e L ondon, 2 0 0 4 . 84 pp.
W h ile O ld N o rse and its history have attracted the attention o f lin gu ists for about tw o centuries n ow , nothing o f this sort can b e claim ed for the subsequent d evelop m en t o f its m ost celebrated descendent, i.e. Icelandic. A steady trickle o f individual diachronic contributions has never turned into a flo o d w hich could lead to a com p reh en sive h is torical account o f the developm ent o f the language during the past sev en or eigh t centu ries. It is characteristic o f the singular lack o f interest in the subsequent evolu tion o f the language o f the First Grammarian that the 1964 co llectio n o f papers edited by Halldôr H alldorsson still rem ains the best source o f inform ation about the p ost-O ld N o rse d e velopm ent o f Icelandic. A lthough the best, it cou ld hardly be called g o o d , sin ce there is no section on either m orp h ology or syntax, no m ean gap. On the p o sitiv e sid e it is im p ossib le to o v erlo o k the m onum ental ety m o lo g ic a l d ictionary w ith M odern rather than Old Icelandic in focus (Â sgeir B l. M agnüsson 1989), a dictionary w hich has no ri val am ong N ord ic lan gu ages and b elo n g s to o n e o f the crow n in g a ch ievem en ts o f 2 0 lh century e ty m o lo g ic a l research at large. B oth these b ooks appeared in Icelan d ic, w hich narrows dow n their potential circle o f readers. A gainst this background the appearance in English o f a b ook let aim ing at ou tlin in g the history o f the lan gu age should be greeted with jo y as fillin g in an im portant gap.
T h e I c e la n d ic L a n g u a g e is a rendition into E nglish o f a lengthy paper T u n g a n (The language) first published in 1989 and aim ed at the Icelandic audience. T he text has o n ly m arginally been altered by the translator so that what the E nglish reading public gets is a com petent and faithful translation o f a text intended orig in a lly for so m eb o d y else. T his has its con seq u en ces, the m ost striking o f them being the alm ost bipartite division o f the book into T h e la n g u a g e i ts e l f (pp. 8 -38) and O r th o g r a p h y (pp. 39-6 3 ). T he chap ter d evoted to the ch an ges o f the sp ellin g sy stem is broken up into fiv e subsections: T h e f i r s t a tte m p ts , T h e th ir te e n th a n d f o u r te e n th c e n tu r ie s , F r o m th e B la c k D e a th to th e R e fo r m a tio n (1 5 lh - 16th centuries), F r o m th e f i r s t p r i n t e d b o o k s to th e E n lig h te n m e n t (1 6 lh - 18th centuries) and T h e e m e r g e n c e o f m o d e r n s p e llin g (from the 18lh c e n tury onw ards). T he d iscu ssio n is accom panied b y a sam p le o f 16 texts from different periods neatly illustrating the different stages in the shaping o f the orthographic norm. This am ount o f attention d evoted to the vagaries o f sp ellin g co n v en tio n s is surprising at first blush but m akes perfect sen se w hen the intended reading au d ien ce is co n sid er ed: for contem porary Icelanders it is p recisely sp ellin g that con stitu tes the greatest
3 2 0 R eview s
ob stacle in d ealin g with earlier texts rather than m orphology or syntax (even though with syntax the situation is le s s o b v io u s for post-m ed iaeval texts). For this reason get ting used to different orthographic co n v en tio n s is vital in d ealin g with non-norm alised texts; foreign students and scholars ordinarily deal with norm alised orthography o f cla s sical texts and th ey w ill seld om b e d e lv in g into, say, 17th century w ritings. For them the sectio n on orthography, w h ile not ex a ctly superfluous, w ill b e o f marginal interest.
A reader lo o k in g for an account o f the internal d evelop m en t o f the language w ill b e sorely disappointed b y S tefa n ’s presentation. C onventional w isd o m holds that Ice landic is unique in h ow little it has ch an ged o ver the cen turies, w hich m ay be true w hen O ld and M odern Icelandic are com pared with A n g lo -S a x o n and the E n glish o f today or Old Church S la v o n ic and contem porary Bulgarian. H ow ever, in certain w ays Icelandic has changed as m uch as any other language. T h is, o f course, h olds true for the sound system ; w hen O ld Icelandic e [e:], ce [as:] or a [a:] are pronounced today as either short or lon g [je], [ai] and [au] resp ectiv ely , the d ifferen ces are no sm aller than in the c a se o f O ld E n glish e, ce, a b ein g pronounced today [i:], [e] and [au] (in c e p a n ‘k eep ’, cen ig ‘a n y ’, b a n ‘b o n e ’). W hile m orphology and syntax can legitim ately be claim ed to have changed m uch less, this is in no sm all m easure due to the strong nor m ative and puristic ten d en cies o f the late 18th and the 19lh centuries, w h ich , as rightly stressed by S tefan (pp. 3 6 -3 8 ), undid m any o f the ch an ges introduced in the inter ven in g centuries. Had this lan gu age planning not b een in force, or had the drive to re store O ld N orse form s been less e ffe c tiv e , contem porary Icelandic w ould no doubt present a very different picture. In any even t, the introductory lin gu istics cla ss saw about the extrem e con servatism o f Icelan d ic is patently fa lse with p h o n o lo g y and less than ab solu tely true in m orp h ology and syntax. T h e I c e la n d ic L a n g u a g e has regret tably nothing to say about syntax, its treatment o f m orphological innovations is sketchy and atom istic, w h ile the p h o n o lo g ica l d ev elo p m en ts are presented in such a con d en sed manner that the em erg in g picture is c o n fu sin g and in parts incoherent. On the other hand, the b ook g iv e s a b alanced account o f the d ev elo p m en t o f the le x ic o n (pp. 3 1 -3 8 ) stressin g both the ex iste n c e o f foreign in flu en ces and the native ten d en cy to d ev elo p n eo lo g ism s replacing loan words.
T he p h o n o lo g ica l in n ovation s w hich are as rich in Icelan d ic as in any other lan guage are described w ithout proper regard for ch ron ology. U n lik e the orthographic d e velop m en ts w hich, as noted a b ove, are broken up into fiv e stages, ch an ges affectin g the p h o n o lo g y o f the lan gu age are dealt with in o n e fell sw o o p . T hey are divid ed into v ocalic and con son an tal, the form er further subdivided into ch an ges affectin g the v o w el system as a w h o le and the traditional com b in ative changes; sim ilarly Stefan re v ie w s so m e ch a n g es as affectin g the consonantal system (pp. 16-1 8 ) and lum ps togeth er a great m any others under the heading V a r io u s c o n s o n a n ta l c h a n g e s (pp. 18-22). T he result is a veritable hotch-potch o f ch a n g es taking p la ce at d ifferent tim es with no clear picture o f the m ain ten d en cies shaping the system at different periods. T o take ju st on e exam ple: the rounding o f the back lo w v o w e l [a:] after [v] (presum ably [w] actually) is said to have b egun in the 14th century, e.g . O. Icel. s v a [sw a;] > M . Icel. s v o [svo:] ‘s o ’. Furtherm ore it is assum ed to have g o n e through the stage 6 [o:] and Stefan insists that th e r e s u lta n t r o u n d e d v o w e l c o n s is te n tly r e m a in e d lo n g u n til th e tim e o f th e q u a n tity s h if t (p. 14). S in ce the sh ift m u s t in th e m a in h a v e ru n its c o u r s e in th e s ix te e n th c e n tu r y (p. 12) and diphthongisation o f lon g, non-high v o w e ls ([a:]> [au], [o:J> [ou], [se]> [a i]) is an earlier ch an ge, w e w ould ex p ect the result o f the rounding
R eview s 3 2 1
o f the v o w el in v d to be the diphthong [ou] today rather than the [o:] that w e actually find. T he relations am ong the ch an ges and their ch ro n o lo g y are left in a m uddle.
O ne o f the features o f the b ook is its o b v io u s desire to rem ain non-technical and generally a ccessib le. T his lead s to explanations, m ost often inept, o f basic term s such as a nasal v o w el (p. 11) or a fricative (p. 16), w h ile lea v in g others unexplained, e.g. fortis vs. lenis. T his also prevents Stefan from resorting to the phonetic transcription and results in co n fu sio n w hen the sym b ol (letter?) g stands both for the velar len is p lo sive and the velar fricative (the table on p. 16). T his is not an isolated c a se sin ce w e are inform ed (p. 19) that t and k b ecam e the fricatives d and g resp ectiv ely (as if g were a fricative) or that/ <3 and g becam e stops (as if g were not a stop to begin with). Incidentally, on e w ould prefer, too, if the term s t o p were distin gu ish ed from p lo s iv e . At tim es Stefan m akes a half-hearted attempt to introduce sp ellin g-b ased transcription w ithout ex p la in in g what the sy m b o ls denote: on p. 19 e fla 'to strengthen’ and ncifii ‘nam e’ are said to be pronounced e b b la and n a b b n . O ne needs to be an Icelander to know that these “pronunciations” d en ote, in fact [e p la ], [napn] (or, alternatively [eb la ], (nabn]). The less fortunate in dividuals w ill assu m e that d ou b le b b d en otes a g e m inate, i.e. [b:J. A lthough the study w as origin ally written in Icelandic and intended for the Icelandic or Icelandic-reading public, it w as the translator’s duty to clarify these issu es if he cou ld not bring h im se lf to ch a n g in g the text by introducing regular p h o netic transcription.
Finally a word about references. Apart from fo llo w in g the irritating and o b so lete habit o f in cluding referen ces in footn otes rather than the body o f the text Stefan offers a few surprises. The first sentence in the b ook inform s the reader that Icelandic is North G erm anic and Indo-European and su pplem ents this by referen ces to three (!) scholarly works, thereby settlin g the hash o f all th ose w ho take up a b o o k on Icelandic in the m istaken b e lie f that it is either South G erm anic or F in n o-U gric! T he reference list at the end o f the b ook is quite u seful but again it d o es not go very far and is o p en ly paro chial: o b v io u sly K em p M a lo n e, A lbert M . Sturtevant, M ich a il I. Steb lin -K am en sk ij, Bruno K ress - to m ention ju st a few - produced nothing w orthy o f attention. B ut ev en leavin g aside the u tle n d in g a r it is d ifficu lt to account for the o m issio n o f Stefan E inarsson’s (1 9 4 9 ) im portant contribution to the history o f Icelan d ic p h o n o lo g y or A lexander Joh an n esson ’s studies o f Icelan d ic su ffix e s (1 9 2 7 ), o f com p ou n d in g (1 9 2 9 ) or consonantal gem inates (1 9 3 2 ) and a host o f other authors. For the period 1 9 0 0 -1 9 7 0 H au gen ’s (1 9 7 4 ) B ib lio g r a p h y rem ains the m ost reliab le and, to date, unsurpassable research tool also for Icelandic and its history.
Stefan K arlsson ’s b ook provid es a so lid background to the external history o f Icelandic, and to a study o f its orthography and vocabulary. It su p p lies g lim p ses into p h on ological and m orphological d evelop m en ts w hich should encourage the reader to look for m ore elsew h ere.
R EFER EN C ES
Alexander Johannesson. 1927. D ie Suffixe im Isländischen. Reykjavik: Prentsmiöjan Gutenberg. — 1929. D ie K om posita im Isländischen. Reykjavik: Prentsmiöjan Gutenberg.
— 1932. D ie M ediagem inata im Isländischen. Reykjavik.Rikisprentsmiöjan Gutenberg. Äsgeir Bl. Magnüsson. 1989. tslen sk o rd sißabök. Reykjavik: Oröabok Häskolans.
3 2 2 Review s
Halldtir Halldorsson (ed.). 1964. P ca tiru m islenzktm dl eftirnokkra islenzka mdlfrcedinga. Reykjavik: Almenna B6kaf61agi8.
Haugen, Einar 1974. A bibliograph y o f Scandinavian languages and linguistics 1 9 0 0-1970. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Stefan Einarsson. 1949. Um kerfisbundnar hlj65breytingar i islenzku. Studia Islan dica 10.
A dam M ickiew icz University, Poznań e d m u n d g ussm ann
As t r idv a n Na h l: E infü hrung in d a s A ltislä n d is c h e . Hamburg: Helmut B uske V erlag, 2 0 0 3 . X IV + 2 3 9 pp.
D as steig en d e Interesse am A ltislän d isch en an vielen U niversitäten in Europa und außerhalb des Kontinents zeigt, dass die Sprache der W ikinger auch für heutige Studen ten und Forscher von großer B edeutung ist. D as Unterrichten des A ltisländischen auf U ni versitätsniveau benötigt selbstverständlich entsprechendes Lehrmaterial. N eben den „klas sischen“ Standardlehrwerken b ezieh u n gsw eise Grammatiken von Gordon (1957), Heusler (1967), Holthausen (18 9 5 /1 8 9 6 ), Iversen (1973), N oreen (1903) oder V alfells und Cathey (1 9 8 1 ), d ie seit vielen Jahren oder Jahrzehnten im G ebrauch sind, sind in den letzen Jahren v ie le neue L ehrbücher d es A ltislän d isch en erschienen (z.B . B arnes 1999, Ebel 1986, N edom a 2 0 0 1 , um nur ein ige von ihnen zu nennen). D as 2 0 0 3 vom H elm ut Buske V erlag veröffen tlich te und zur R ezen sio n v o rg ele g te B uch von Astrid van N ahl ist als ein e E inführung in d ie altislän d isch e Sprache gedacht. E s ist in 17 K apitel gegliedert und m it ein em V erzeich n is der w ich tigsten im B u ch vorkom m enden B eg riffe verse hen. Jedes K apitel ist durch ein en T ex teil und A ufgaben ergänzt. D as B uch beinhaltet auch 25 A bbildungen, w obei man bemerken m uss, dass das Foto au f Seite 65 nicht G oöa- foss sondern G u lfo ss darstellt.
D as erste, einführende K apitel b ietet e in e kurze Ü b ersich t über d ie E ntw ick lu n g der altnordischen (altislän d isch en ) Sprache vom In dogerm anischen über das G erm ani sch e bis zum A ltnordischen. D ab ei kom m t auch d ie R u nenschrift kurz zur Sprache. D ie w ichtigsten sprachlichen V eränderungen au f dem W eg vom Indogerm anischen zum G erm anischen w erden hier übersichtlich und kom prim iert dargelegt. D ie V erfasserin bem üht sich darüber hinaus, Grundregeln der A ussprache an zugeben, da sie zu R echt schreibt: „im h eutigen w issen sch a ftlich en U m gan g wird A ltnordisch w ie das N eu islä n d isch e ausgesprochen; d ie se Ü bereinkunft erleichtert d ie internationale V erständi g u n g “ (S. 10). Jedoch ab geseh en von der T atsache, d ass das p h on etisch e S ystem des Islän d isch en bei w eitem k om plizierter ist als d ie D arstellu n g von van N ahl (von den K onsonanten w erden hier nur 6 in B etracht g e z o g e n !), sind d ie Inform ationen unüber sichtlich und leider oft falsch. U m d iese kritische B em erkung an zw ei B eispielen zu b e kräftigen: g ist bei van N ahl als stim m hafte ([y ]) oder stim m lose (Ix l) Spirans beschrie ben, w obei die erste „zw ischen zw ei V okalen“ (S. 10) vorkommt: „saga, segir“ (S. 10). F o lg en wir der n eu islän d isch en A ussprache, dann wird das W ort s e g i r, das van Nahl als B eisp iel für ein e stim m hafte Spirans anführt, regulär mit dem H albvokal |j | aus gesprochen (und der D ip h ton gieru n g d es betonten V o k a ls, w as hier aber irrelevant ist). D ie richtige T ranskription w äre also [seijir]. E s ist in jed em N ach sch lagew erk zur is ländischen A ussprache zu finden, dass wenn der Buchstabe g durch den V okal [ij gefolgt
