Languages Of The World » Icelandic

In the last couple of posts, I’ve discussed the issue of grammatical complexity and have shown that even if an objective measure of such complexity is absent, languages clearly differ as to whi...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/linguistic-typology/making-my-case.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=making-my-case

BY JONATHAN POTTER (“Languages of the World”) Languages borrow words from each other all the time. If you are not convinced, try ordering food from an Italian restaurant without saying any wo...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/student-papers/the-purification-of-the-icelandic-language.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-purification-of-the-icelandic-language

According to a recent study, conducted by Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge and discussed in Science Daily, “language change among our prehistoric ancestors came ab...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/historical-linguistics/mother-tongue-comes-from-your-prehistoric-father-or-does-it.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mother-tongue-comes-from-your-prehistoric-father-or-does-it

As mentioned in the previous posting, there are numerous rankings of “difficult” (and “easy”) languages to learn (note that we are talking about second-language learning here, not acquiri...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/language-acquisition/what-is-the-most-difficult-language-to-learn-and-why.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-the-most-difficult-language-to-learn-and-why

Blending in is probably not what Sarah Palin wanted to achieve (and certainly not what she achieved) with her now-famous “refudiate”. But what it is is a blend, a form of word formation where...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/morphology/blending-in.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blending-in

In the previous several postings we examined in great detail languages and dialects of the Western Romance dialect continuum and touched on languages of the Southern Romance branch (e.g., Corsica...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/europe/eastern-romance.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eastern-romance

To continue with our Scandinavian theme, let’s look at another Scandinavian language today: Faroese. It is spoken by 48,000 people on Faroe Islands (formally, part of Denmark, but self-governin...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/geolinguistics/faroese.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=faroese

So is Icelandic “one of the most difficult languages to learn”, as one of the CNN reporters said? I don’t think so! In general, the difficulty of learning another language depends on the de...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/linguistic-typology/so-is-icelandic-hard-to-learn.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=so-is-icelandic-hard-to-learn

Speaking of words with strange or interesting or difficult pronunciations, how do you pronounce the name of that Icelandic volcano that has been causing so many problems recently? You can hear it...

https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/phonetics-and-phonology/eyjafjallajokull.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eyjafjallajokull