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63-498: Grindavík ( Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈkrɪntaˌviːk] ) is a fishing town in the Southern Peninsula district of Iceland , not far from Þorbjörn , a tuya (a type of flat-topped, steep-sided volcano). It is one of the few towns with a harbour on this coast. Most of the inhabitants work in the fishing industry. The Blue Lagoon , Grindavík's première attraction, is located 5 kilometres (3 mi) from

126-585: A football team and a basketball team. The Icelandic writer Guðbergur Bergsson was born here, and Kalli Bjarni , the first winner of the Icelandic version of Pop Idol , lives in the town. The Spanish publisher and writer Jaime Salinas Bonmatí  [ es ] , engaged to Guðbergur Bergsson, lived, died and is buried here. Icelandic footballer Alfreð Finnbogason was also born in Grindavík. Former Manchester United footballer, Lee Sharpe , had

189-547: A new bout of seismic activity occurred around Grindavík, prompting the town's evacuation and the declaration of a state of emergency over the threat of an imminent volcanic eruption, culminating in the 2023-2024 Sundhnúkur eruptions . The Southern Peninisula contains the south western portion of the Reykjanes volcanic belt, where the continuation of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and its submarine Reykjanes Ridge with

252-460: A reflexive pronoun instead. The case of the pronoun depends on the case that the verb governs. As for further classification of verbs, Icelandic behaves much like other Germanic languages, with a main division between weak verbs and strong, and the strong verbs, of which there are about 150 to 200, are divided into six classes plus reduplicative verbs. The basic word order in Icelandic is subject–verb–object . However, as words are heavily inflected,

315-508: A fissure on 29 May, but the eruptive activity quickly localized to a primary edifice in Sundhnúkur crater row, close to the northern edge of Grindavík town. This eruption ended on 22 June. Landnáma or The Book of Settlements mentions that around 934, two Viking settlers, Molda-Gnúpur Hrólfsson [ˈmɔltaˌknuːpʏr ˈr̥oulsˌsɔːn] and Þórir Haustmyrkur Vígbjóðsson [ˈθouːrɪr ˈhœystˌmɪr̥kʏr ˈviɣˌpjouðsˌsɔːn] , arrived in

378-433: A historical or a formalistic view: -a , -i , and -ur , referring to the endings that these verbs take when conjugated in the first person singular present. Almost all Icelandic verbs have the ending -a in the infinitive, some with á , two with u ( munu , skulu ) one with o ( þvo : "wash") and one with e . Many transitive verbs (i.e. they require an object ), can take

441-647: A major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je and the replacement of z with s in 1974. Apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since the 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum . Modern speakers can understand the original sagas and Eddas which were written about eight hundred years ago. The sagas are usually read with updated modern spelling and footnotes, but otherwise are intact (as with recent English editions of Shakespeare's works). With some effort, many Icelanders can also understand

504-722: A monophthong and adding either /i/ or /u/ to it. All the vowels can either be long or short; vowels in open syllables are long, and vowels in closed syllables are short. Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages , and resembles Old Norwegian before much of its fusional inflection was lost. Modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language with four cases : nominative , accusative , dative and genitive . Icelandic nouns can have one of three grammatical genders : masculine, feminine or neuter. There are two main declension paradigms for each gender: strong and weak nouns , and these are further divided into subclasses of nouns, based primarily on

567-403: A protectionist language culture, however, this is deep-rooted ideologically primarily in relation to the forms of the language, while Icelanders in general seem to be more pragmatic as to domains of language use. Since the late 16th century, discussion has been ongoing on the purity of the Icelandic language. The bishop Oddur Einarsson wrote in 1589 that the language has remained unspoiled since

630-469: A spell with Grindavík football club, at the end of his career in 2003. Near Grindavík, the United States Navy has operated the 1049 acre Naval Radio Transmitter Facility Grindavik since the mid-1970s. It uses several antennas, including two guyed masts . The mast situated at 63°51′1″N 22°28′0″W was built in 1993 and is 304.8 metres (1,000 ft) tall. The other mast at 63°51′3″N 22°27′6″W

693-481: Is a West Scandinavian language , it is most closely related to Faroese , western Norwegian dialects , and the extinct language Norn . It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages ( Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish ) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German . The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible . The language

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756-404: Is evident in general language discourses, in polls, and in other investigations into Icelandic language attitudes. The general consensus on Icelandic language policy has come to mean that language policy and language ideology discourse are not predominantly state or elite driven; but rather, remain the concern of lay people and the general public. The Icelandic speech community is perceived to have

819-530: Is marked by active volcanism under its surface and large lava fields, allowing little vegetation. There are numerous hot springs in the southern half of the peninsula, around the Kleifarvatn lake and the Krýsuvík geothermal area. There is a geothermal power station at Svartsengi . Near the power station a luxury spa and pool area has been installed using the hot and mineralized water coming down from

882-408: Is more conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them have greatly reduced levels of inflection (particularly noun declension ), Icelandic retains a four- case synthetic grammar (comparable to German , though considerably more conservative and synthetic) and is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic vocabulary is also deeply conservative, with

945-647: Is not very well known and because those Icelanders not proficient in the other Scandinavian languages often have a sufficient grasp of English to communicate with institutions in that language (although there is evidence that the general English skills of Icelanders have been somewhat overestimated). The Nordic countries have committed to providing services in various languages to each other's citizens, but this does not amount to any absolute rights being granted, except as regards criminal and court matters. All Icelandic stops are voiceless and are distinguished as such by aspiration . Stops are realised post-aspirated when at

1008-503: Is said to be before and after 1540. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 900 CE, the language spoken in the Faroes was Old Norse , which Norse settlers had brought with them during the time of the settlement of Faroe Islands ( landnám ) that began in 825. However, many of the settlers were not from Scandinavia , but descendants of Norse settlers in

1071-555: Is still a conscious effort to create new words, especially for science and technology, with many societies publishing dictionaries, some with the help of The Icelandic Language Committee ( Íslensk málnefnd ). The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of three old letters that no longer exist in the English alphabet : Þ, þ ( þorn , modern English "thorn"), Ð, ð ( eð , anglicised as "eth" or "edh") and Æ, æ (æsc, anglicised as "ash" or "asc"), with þ and ð representing

1134-503: Is where the boats are stored (in the sea or up on the land) as well as -Long-finned pilot whale, and in the old language any small whale, suggesting that the settlers may have found whales in the area. Grindavík is situated on the far south-western part of the Reykjanes Peninsula . The town stands on a lava field that erupted up to about 2,350 years ago from the Sundhnúkur crater chain just north of Grindavík, as well as from

1197-577: The First Grammatical Treatise by an anonymous author, who has later been referred to as the First Grammarian. The later Rasmus Rask standard was a re-creation of the old treatise, with some changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions, such as the exclusive use of k rather than c . Various archaic features, such as the letter ð , had not been used much in later centuries. Rask's standard constituted

1260-601: The Irish Sea region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland, Orkney , or Shetland often married native Scandinavian men before settling in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As a result, the Irish language has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. Many of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally. The most famous of

1323-607: The Reykjanes area. Þórir settled in Selvogur and Krísuvík and Molda-Gnúpur in Grindavík. The sons of Moldar-Gnúpur established three settlements; Þórkötlustaðahverfi [ˈθourˌkʰœhtlʏˌstaːðaˌkʰvɛrvɪ] , Járngerðarstaðarhverfi [ˈjau(r)tnˌcɛrðarˌstaːðarˌkʰvɛrvɪ] and Staðarhverfi [ˈstaːðarˌkʰvɛrvɪ] . The modern version of Grindavík is situated mainly in what was Járngerðarstaðarhverfi. The town has been an important fishing station since medieval times. In

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1386-556: The bishop and members of parliament . Early Icelandic vocabulary was largely Old Norse with a few words being Celtic from when Celts first settled in Iceland. The introduction of Christianity to Iceland in the 11th century brought with it a need to describe new religious concepts . The majority of new words were taken from other Scandinavian languages ; kirkja ("church"), for example. Numerous other languages have influenced Icelandic: French brought many words related to

1449-444: The genitive singular and nominative plural endings of a particular noun. For example, within the strong masculine nouns, there is a subclass (class 1) that declines with -s ( hests ) in the genitive singular and -ar ( hestar ) in the nominative plural. However, there is another subclass (class 3) of strong masculine nouns that always declines with -ar ( hlutar ) in the genitive singular and -ir ( hlutir ) in

1512-525: The voiceless and voiced "th" sounds (as in English thin and this ), respectively, and æ representing the diphthong /ai/ which does not exist in English. The complete Icelandic alphabet is: The letters with diacritics , such as á and ö , are for the most part treated as separate letters and not variants of their derivative vowels. The letter é officially replaced je in 1929, although it had been used in early manuscripts (until

1575-540: The 13th century its fishing rights were owned by the Bishop of Skálholt , who took payment in stacks of salted cod . It was the scene of fierce disputes between English fishermen and German merchants in the 16th century, leading to 280 Germans storming the ship of John Breye (also known as John the Broad) in 1532 and killing 15 people, including John. The English were subsequently expelled from Iceland. In June 1627, Grindavík

1638-599: The Reykjanes Peninsula. Icelandic language Icelandic ( / aɪ s ˈ l æ n d ɪ k / eyess- LAN -dik ; endonym : íslenska , pronounced [ˈistlɛnska] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland , where it is the national language. Since it

1701-496: The Svartsengisfell volcanoes and fissures on Stora Skogsfell, both nearby. The town is one of six communities on the peninsula that is situated on or near an eruptive fissure. Grindavík's harbour, called Hópið, was created by an eruption from Sundhnúkur approximately 2,800 years ago that created a peninsula south-east of where the town stands, 2 km (1.2 mi) long by 1 km (0.62 mi) wide, known as Hópsnes on

1764-432: The above examples, the conjugated verbs veit and fór are always the second element in their respective clauses. A distinction between formal and informal address ( T–V distinction ) had existed in Icelandic from the 17th century, but use of the formal variant weakened in the 1950s and rapidly disappeared. It no longer exists in regular speech, but may occasionally be found in pre-written speeches addressed to

1827-644: The authorities on language policy . Since 1995, on 16 November each year, the birthday of 19th-century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day . Icelandic is an Indo-European language and belongs to the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Icelandic is further classified as a West Scandinavian language. Icelandic is derived from an earlier language Old Norse , which later became Old Icelandic and currently Modern Icelandic. The division between old and modern Icelandic

1890-408: The beginning of the word, but pre-aspirated when occurring within a word. Scholten (2000 , p. 22) includes three extra phones: [ʔ l̥ˠ lˠ] . Word-final voiced consonants are devoiced pre-pausally, so that dag ('day (acc.)') is pronounced as [ˈtaːx] and dagur ('day (nom.)') is pronounced [ˈtaːɣʏr̥] . Icelandic has 8 monophthongs and 5 diphthongs. The diphthongs are created by taking

1953-562: The council does publish material in Icelandic). Under the Nordic Language Convention , since 1987 Icelandic citizens have had the right to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries, without becoming liable for any interpretation or translation costs. The convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police, and social security offices. It does not have much effect since it

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2016-653: The country's language regulator maintaining an active policy of coining terms based on older Icelandic words rather than directly taking in loanwords from other languages. Aside from the 300,000 Icelandic speakers in Iceland, Icelandic is spoken by about 8,000 people in Denmark, 5,000 people in the United States, and more than 1,400 people in Canada, notably in the region known as New Iceland in Manitoba which

2079-502: The court and knightship; words in the semantic field of trade and commerce have been borrowed from Low German because of trade connections. In the late 18th century, linguistic purism began to gain noticeable ground in Iceland and since the early 19th century it has been the linguistic policy of the country. Nowadays, it is common practice to coin new compound words from Icelandic derivatives. Icelandic personal names are patronymic (and sometimes matronymic ) in that they reflect

2142-424: The extent of damage to roads, and the golf course, due to fault movements caused by the activity. On 18 December, a volcanic eruption north of Grindavík by Hagafell prompted the evacuation of the town. On the morning of 14 January 2024 at 8:00 local time, a volcanic fissure erupted 450 meters (approximately 0.27 miles) from the town, followed by a second fissure opening around noon. Lava from the eruptions flowed into

2205-402: The general population. Though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to the 16th century, especially in vowels (in particular, á , æ , au , and y / ý ). The letters -ý & -y lost their original meaning and merged with -í & -i in the period 1400 - 1600. Around the same time or a little earlier

2268-475: The immediate father or mother of the child and not the historic family lineage. This system, which was formerly used throughout the Nordic area and beyond, differs from most Western systems of family name . In most Icelandic families, the ancient tradition of patronymics is still in use; i.e. a person uses their father's name (usually) or mother's name (increasingly in recent years) in the genitive form followed by

2331-456: The letter -æ originally signifying a simple vowel, a type of open -e, formed into the double vowel -ai, a double vowel absent in the original Icelandic. The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century, primarily by the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask . It is based strongly on an orthography laid out in the early 12th century by a document referred to as

2394-639: The middle voice is a voice or simply an independent class of verbs of its own, as every middle-voice verb has an active-voice ancestor, but sometimes with drastically different meaning, and the middle-voice verbs form a conjugation group of their own. Examples are koma ("come") vs. komast ("get there"), drepa ("kill") vs. drepast ("perish ignominiously") and taka ("take") vs. takast ("manage to"). Verbs have up to ten tenses, but Icelandic, like English, forms most of them with auxiliary verbs . There are three or four main groups of weak verbs in Icelandic, depending on whether one takes

2457-418: The morpheme -son ("son") or -dóttir ("daughter") in lieu of family names. In 2019, changes were announced to the laws governing names. Icelanders who are officially registered with non-binary gender will be permitted to use the suffix -bur ("child of") instead of -son or -dóttir . A core theme of Icelandic language ideologies is grammatical, orthographic and lexical purism for Icelandic. This

2520-481: The nearby town of Njarðvík and Hafnir in 1995 to create Reykjanesbær , which is the largest settlement outside the Greater Reykjavík area; in 2018 the region had a population of 17,805. The region is the location of Keflavík International Airport , the major point of entry for Iceland. Some fishing towns, such as Grindavík , Njarðvík and Sandgerði , are situated on the peninsula. The peninsula

2583-430: The next few days. A state of emergency was issued on 10 November 2023 as continued earthquakes – by then numbering over 22,000 since 25 October – signalled a potentially impending volcanic eruption. Inhabitants were ordered to evacuate on the evening of 10 November 2023, after a magmatic intrusion was suspected to have formed beneath the town. This occurred following weeks of recorded uplift and seismic unrest north of

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2646-445: The nominative plural. Additionally, Icelandic permits a quirky subject , that is, certain verbs have subjects in an oblique case (i.e. other than the nominative). Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in the four cases and for number in the singular and plural. Verbs are conjugated for tense , mood , person , number and voice . There are three voices: active, passive and middle (or medial), but it may be debated whether

2709-700: The north, there is the Blue Lagoon ( Icelandic : Bláa Lónið ), a geothermal spa using hot and mineralized waters from the nearby Svartsengi power station. Ungmennafélag Grindavíkur (Umfg) is the town's sport club, and the town contains the Grindavíkurvöllur stadium. The Leif the Lucky Bridge spans the Álfagjá rift valley [ˈaulvaˌcauː] that marks the boundary of the Eurasian and North American continental tectonic plates. It

2772-604: The original manuscripts. According to an act passed by the Parliament in 2011, Icelandic is "the national language of the Icelandic people and the official language in Iceland"; moreover, "[p]ublic authorities shall ensure that its use is possible in all areas of Icelandic society". Iceland is a member of the Nordic Council , a forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries, but the council uses only Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish as its working languages (although

2835-534: The peninsula consists of (volcanic and tectonic) fissures and faults directed mostly NE-SW and may have other features such as lava fields and postglacial basaltic crater rows. Only the Hengill volcanic system, the most eastern system, has an additional central volcano , but this is outside the Southern Peninsula. Tephra deposits from offshore explosive Holocene eruptions have been preserved on

2898-688: The power station; it is known as the " Blue Lagoon " ( Bláa Lónið ). The Bridge Between Continents spans the Álfagjá [ˈaulvaˌcauː] rift valley (60 feet (18 m) wide and 20 feet (6.1 m) deep) near Grindavík, which is promoted to tourists as marking the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates . It was built in 2002 and previously named Leif the Lucky bridge in honor of Icelandic explorer Leif Eriksson who traveled from Europe to America nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus . A great deal of volcanic unrest

2961-559: The texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the sagas of Icelanders , which encompass the historical works and the Poetic Edda . The language of the sagas is Old Icelandic , a western dialect of Old Norse . The Dano-Norwegian , then later Danish rule of Iceland from 1536 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic (in contrast to the Norwegian language), which remained in daily use among

3024-450: The third time since December, this time at the edge of the town, and the lava flow destroyed a few buildings and infrastructure. The residents of Grindavík had remained evacuated. On February 20, the residents were allowed to return to their homes, but on March 2 Grindavík was again evacuated because of new seismic activity. On March 16, a fourth eruption began near the site of the first eruption, which ended on 8 May. A fifth eruption began as

3087-446: The time the ancient literature of Iceland was written. Later in the 18th century the purism movement grew and more works were translated into Icelandic, especially in areas that Icelandic had hardly ever been used in. Many neologisms were introduced, with many of them being loan-translations. In the early 19th century, due to the influence of romanticism , importance was put on the purity of spoken language as well. The written language

3150-642: The town center. In November 2023, in the midst of escalating and severe seismic activity , a state of emergency was declared and the town evacuated. On 18 December 2023, at around 22:00 local time ( GMT ), the Sundhnúkur volcano erupted. The eruption was close to Hagafell, about 3 kilometres (2 mi) northeast of Grindavík. A risk was also posed to Svartsengi Power Station . Fountains of lava, up to 100 metres (330 ft) high, could be seen from Iceland's capital, Reykjavík . Authorities said they were highly prepared. The volcano erupted again on February 8 for

3213-425: The town, breaching defensive barriers and destroying three houses. Civilians were not endangered by the volcanic activity as they had already been evacuated overnight due to a series of earthquakes. On 9 February 2024, the Icelandic government published a bill to offer to buy residential property owned by individuals in Grindavík, and to take over housing loans on residential property in the town. A short distance to

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3276-569: The town, near the Blue Lagoon . Between midnight and 2 p.m. on 10 November 2023, almost 800 earthquakes were recorded, with the shallowest occurring at depths ranging from 3 to 3.5 kilometres (approximately 1.86 to 2.18 miles), as reported by the Icelandic Meteorological Office. The Icelandic Civil Protection Agency released statements expressing concerns that a magma dike under formation could extend towards Grindavík. Press photographs from Grindavík on 11 November showed

3339-437: The transitional Eldey volcanic system , rise above sea level. The Reykjanes volcanic belt has between 3 and 6 volcanic systems (depending on author -see map for 6 system on land classification of the Reykjanes , Svartsengi , Fagradalsfjall , Krýsuvík , Brennisteinsfjöll , and Hengill volcanic systems). These are closely spaced en-echelon fissure systems, extending across the Reykjanes Peninsula. ). Each volcanic system on

3402-400: The west side and Þórkötlustaðanes on the east side. A lighthouse, built in 1928, stands on the southern tip. The town's fishing industry originally operated from huts on Þórkötlustaðanes before moving to Grindavík harbour in 1939 after local residents dug a channel through a reef to connect Hópið to the sea. On 25 October 2023, an earthquake swarm started north of Grindavík and escalated over

3465-458: The word order is fairly flexible, and every combination may occur in poetry; SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS are all allowed for metrical purposes. However, as with most Germanic languages, Icelandic usually complies with the V2 word order restriction, so the conjugated verb in Icelandic usually appears as the second element in the clause, preceded by the word or phrase being emphasised. For example: In

3528-479: Was also brought closer to the spoken language, as the sentence structure of literature had previously been influenced by Danish and German . The changes brought by the purism movement have had the most influence on the written language, as many speakers use foreign words freely in speech but try to avoid them in writing. The success of the many neologisms created from the movement has also been variable as some loanwords have not been replaced with native ones. There

3591-434: Was built in 1983 and is 182.9 metres (600 ft) tall. The taller mast replaced a 243.8 metres (800 ft) mast, and the second replaced a mast of the same height. Grindavík is twinned with: Southern Peninsula (Iceland) The region has a population of 27,829 (2020) and is one of the more densely populated parts of the island. The administrative centre is Keflavík , which had 7,000 residents when it merged with

3654-425: Was built in 2002 and named in honour of Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson , who travelled from Europe to explore North America 500 years before Columbus. The Icelandic Saltfish Museum in Grindavík opened in 2002. It displays the story of salt fish production and its importance for the Icelandic economy throughout the centuries in a specially designed building of 650 square metres (7,000 sq ft). Grindavík has

3717-401: Was declared a municipality in 1974. The name 'Grindavík' combines two Icelandic elements. Vík means a shallow inlet, while grind has the meaning of a gate or gateway – possibly referring to an opening in a fence used to control the movement of livestock. The Book of Settlements mentions Grindavík twice but gives no explanation for the name. "Grind" can furthermore signify a dock - that

3780-492: Was occurring in this part of the Reykjanes Peninsula from 2020 onward, after nearly 800 years of inactivity. After the eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano started on 19 March 2021, National Geographic 's experts predicted that this "may mark the start of decades of volcanic activity". The eruption was small, leading to a prediction that this volcano was unlikely to threaten "any population centers". In November 2023,

3843-443: Was only around 360. Fishing had for centuries been a crucial element in the survival of Grindavík's population, but fishing trips were often dangerous. Men were frequently lost at sea and the catch not always stable. However, when a safer access point to land was created at Hópið [ˈhouːpɪθ] in 1939, fishing conditions changed dramatically. From 1950 serious development in the fishing industry had begun to take place. Grindavík

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3906-515: Was raided by Barbary Pirates in an event known as the Turkish Abductions . Twelve Icelanders and three Danes, along with two vessels were taken, and with captives taken from other Icelandic settlements, transported into slavery in Salé . The origins of the municipality can be traced to Einar Einarsson's decision to move there to build and run a shop in 1897. During that time the population

3969-458: Was settled by Icelanders beginning in the 1880s. The state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. The Icelandic Language Council, comprising representatives of universities, the arts, journalists, teachers, and the Ministry of Culture, Science and Education , advises

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