“You know I pique myself upon orthography,
Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography.”
WE shall climb over the mountains and their hard names, and gallop
through the valleys a little more smoothly, if we look at the spelling,
pronunciation, and meaning of some of the Icelandic terms. A great
appropriateness will be seen in nearly all the geographical names in
Iceland. By translating the language, we shall see some characteristic
feature embodied in the name of about every place, river, lake,
mountain, bay, and island in the country. The explanation of a few
Icelandic words will show the signification of many of the names that I
shall have occasion to mention. The letter _á_ (pronounced _ow_)
signifies river, and is the last letter in the names of Icelandic
rivers. _Bru_ is a bridge, hence _bruará_, or bridge river. _Hvit_ is
white; _vatn_, water or lake; _hvitá_, white river; _hvitarvatn_, white
lake. _Hver_ is a hot spring; _laug_ (pronounced _lage_), a warm spring,
and _dalr_, a dale or vale. There is a valley north of Hekla, known as
_Laugardalr_, or vale of warm springs. The Icelanders pronounce double
_l_ at the end of words, like _tl_. They have a distinct name for each
description of mountain. _Jokull_ (pronounced _yo-kut-l_; or, spoken
rapidly as the Icelanders speak, it sounds about like _yo-kul_) is the
term used to designate mountains that are covered with perpetual ice.
_Fell_, _fjall_, and _fjöll_ (pronounced _fee-et-l_, _fee-aht-l_, and
_fee-ote-l_), all signify mountains, but _fell_ is applied to single
peaks, to small and isolated mountains, and _fjall_ and _fjöll_ to large
mountains, or chains of mountains. _Bla_ is blue; _snæ_, snow; and we
have _blafell_, or a blue mountain standing alone—an isolated peak in
the middle of a plain. A celebrated mountain in the west of Iceland, is
_Snæfell Jokull_ (_snef-el-yo-kul_), a snowy mountain, standing alone,
and covered with perpetual ice; and in the comprehensive language of the
Icelanders, it is all expressed in two words. _Oræfa_ signifies desert
or sandy plain, and _torf_ is turf or peat. There are two mountains,
_Oræfa Jokull_ and _Torfa Jokull_; one standing in a desert, and the
other in a large peat district. One portion of the immense mountain, the
Skaptar Jokull, is known as _Vatna Jokull_, as it is supposed to
contain, on a portion of its surface, large pools of standing water. The
points of compass are, _north_, _suth_, _æst_, and _vest_. _Eyjar_
signifies islands. South of Hekla is a lofty and celebrated mountain
known as the _Eyjafjalla Jokull_. To an English reader, unacquainted
with the Icelandic, it is a crooked-looking mouthful; but on the tongue
of an Icelander, it flows off, a round, smooth, sonorous term. They call
it _i-a-fe-aht-la yo-kull_. It defines itself as ice mountain of
islands, having numerous knobs or peaks that stand up like islands in
the sea. Many Icelandic words are identical with the English, and many
others nearly so. It remains for some future lexicographer to show the
great number of English words that are derived from the Icelandic. The
points of compass have been noticed; a few more examples will suffice.
_Hestr_ is a horse; _holt_, a hill; _hus_, a house; _hval_, a whale;
_lang_, long; _men_, men; _mann_, man; _sandr_, sand; _sitha_, the side;
_gerthi_, a garden; _litil_, little; _mikla_, large (Scottish,
_muckle_); _myri_, a bog or miry place; _fjorth_, is a firth or bay;
_kirkja_, a church; _prestur_, a priest; _morgun_, morning; _ux_, ox;
_daga_, days. “July, or midsummer month,” stands literally in Icelandic,
_Julius etha mithsumar-manuthur_. _J_, at the beginning of words and
syllables in the Icelandic, is pronounced like _y_ consonant, and in the
middle of a syllable, like _i_ or long _e_.
Their affirmative _yes_, is _já_ (pronounced _yow_), and their _no_ is
_nei_ (nay). Their counting is much like ours: einn (1), tveir (2),
thrir (3), fjorir (4), fimm (5), sex (6), sjö (7), atta (8), niu (9),
tiu (10), ellefu (11), tolf (12), threttan (13), fjortan (14), fimmtan
(15), sextan (16), seytjan (17), atjan (18), nitjan (19), tuttugu (20),
tuttugu og einn (21), thrjatiu (30), fiörutiu (40), fimmtiu (50), sextiu
(60), sjötiu (70), attatiu (80), niutiu (90), hundrath (100), fimm
hundrath (500), thusund (1000). The date 1851, in words, would be: einn
thusund atta hundrath fimmtiu og einn. This list might be extended to
great length, showing the similarity between the Icelandic and the
English; but these examples are sufficient for my purpose.
I have a few words for my friends the geographers, who, in their
anxiety to Anglicize geographical names, so completely change them
that the natives of a country would not recognize their own rivers
and mountains when once disguised in an English dress. The Icelandic
is the only one of the old Scandinavian tongues that has the sound of
_th_; and they have two different letters, one to represent _th_ in
_thank_, and the other the _th_ as heard in _this_. The latter sound is
heard in _fiorth_ and in _north_[3]—different from our pronunciation of
north; and as the letter representing this sound of _th_ is a character
that some resembles the letter _d_, we find the above words written
and printed by the English as _fiord_ and _nord_. With the Danes and
Swedes, who have neither the sounds nor the letters, it is not to be
wondered at that they use _d_ or _t_ for these sounds. I shall give the
Icelandic names in their native spelling, as near as possible, with
perhaps the exception of the name of the country,—which they write
_Island_, but now with us is thoroughly Anglicized as Iceland. They
pronounce it _ees-land_, the _a_ in the last syllable rather broad. I
see no particular objection to using _y_ for _j_ in jokull, as it has
that sound; or in substituting _i_ for the same letter in _fjorth_,
_Reykjavik_, _Eyjafjalla_, and similar cases. I will, however, protest
against an Icelandic _Thane_ being turned into a _Dane_, without as
much as saying, “By your leave, sir,” or ever asking him if he wished
to change his allegiance.
If this chapter is dry and technical, it has at least the merit of
brevity.
FOOTNOTES:
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Footnote 3:
_Icelandic_; fiorð, norð.