An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place , language , or dialect , meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their place of origin, or their language.
126-575: 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 is a West Scandinavian language , it is most closely related to Faroese , western Norwegian dialects , and
252-599: A loanword from the North Germanic languages ; " Skaði " is the jötunn stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology . It has been suggested that Skaði to some extent is modelled on a Sámi woman. The name for Skaði's father Þjazi is known in Sámi as Čáhci , "the waterman"; and her son with Odin, Sæmingr , can be interpreted as a descendant of Saam , the Sámi population. Older joik texts give evidence of
378-700: A pejorative way. For example, Romani people often prefer that term to exonyms such as Gypsy (from the name of Egypt ), and the French term bohémien , bohème (from the name of Bohemia ). People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/ Gdańsk , Auschwitz/ Oświęcim and Karlsbad/ Karlovy Vary ); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/ Kyiv ). In recent years, geographers have sought to reduce
504-517: 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,
630-666: A brief but disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria). Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia and after Prussia's success in the Franco-Prussian War a Prussian-led German Empire was created and a new power -balance in the Baltic region was established. The Scandinavian Monetary Union , established in 1873, lasted until World War I . The term Scandinavia (sometimes specified in English as Continental Scandinavia or mainland Scandinavia )
756-677: A different writing system. For instance, Deutschland is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonyms Germany and Germania in English and Italian , respectively, Alemania and Allemagne in Spanish and French , respectively, Niemcy in Polish , Saksa and Saksamaa in Finnish and Estonian . The terms autonym , endonym , exonym and xenonym are formed by adding specific prefixes to
882-424: 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 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
1008-433: 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
1134-483: A modern and more inclusive demonym . In the ethnic or cultural sense the term Scandinavian traditionally refers to speakers of Scandinavian languages , who are mainly descendants of the peoples historically known as Norsemen , but also to some extent of immigrants and others who have been assimilated into that culture and language. In this sense the term refers primarily to native Danes , Norwegians and Swedes as well as descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as
1260-720: 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
1386-504: A neutral name may be preferred so as to not offend anyone. Thus, an exonym such as Brussels in English could be used instead of favoring either one of the local names ( Dutch / Flemish : Brussel ; French : Bruxelles ). Other difficulties with endonyms have to do with pronunciation, spelling, and word category . The endonym may include sounds and spellings that are highly unfamiliar to speakers of other languages, making appropriate usage difficult if not impossible for an outsider. Over
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#17328010733781512-401: 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
1638-647: 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 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
1764-583: A visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism. In a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians! ' ". The influence of Scandinavism as a Scandinavist political movement peaked in
1890-760: Is 38.0 °C in Målilla (Sweden). The coldest temperature ever recorded is −52.6 °C in Vuoggatjålme , Arjeplog (Sweden). The coldest month was February 1985 in Vittangi (Sweden) with a mean of −27.2 °C. Southwesterly winds further warmed by foehn wind can give warm temperatures in narrow Norwegian fjords in winter. Tafjord has recorded 17.9 °C in January and Sunndal 18.9 °C in February. The words Scandinavia and Scania ( Skåne ,
2016-584: Is Finnish (usually from the 3rd grade), while for Finnish-speakers it is Swedish (usually from the 3rd, 5th or 7th grade). Finnish speakers constitute a language minority in Sweden and Norway. Meänkieli and Kven are Finnish dialects spoken in Swedish Lapland and Norwegian Lapland . The Sámi languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia. They belong to their own branch of
2142-522: Is a phonotactic structure of alien origin. Although the term Scandinavia used by Pliny the Elder probably originated in the ancient Germanic languages, the modern form Scandinavia does not descend directly from the ancient Germanic term. Rather the word was brought into use in Europe by scholars borrowing the term from ancient sources like Pliny, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of
2268-407: Is also due to the fact that that Swedish was the dominant language when Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in order to advance to higher positions. Swedish spoken in today's Finland includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written language remains closer to that of Sweden. Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly
2394-420: Is an established, non-native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used primarily outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words, or from non-systematic attempts at transcribing into
2520-585: Is based on the degree of mutual comprehensibility between the languages in the two branches. The populations of the Scandinavian countries, with common Scandinavian roots in language, can—at least with some training—understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television. The reason Danish, Swedish and the two official written versions of Norwegian ( Nynorsk and Bokmål ) are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one common language,
2646-554: Is because they have two official written standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The people of Stockholm , Sweden and Copenhagen , Denmark have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Scandinavian languages. In the Faroe Islands and Iceland, learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people as well as Icelandic people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it relatively easy for them to understand
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#17328010733782772-559: Is different from usage in the Scandinavian languages themselves (which use Scandinavia in the narrow meaning), and by the fact that the question of whether a country belongs to Scandinavia is politicised. People from the Nordic world beyond Norway, Denmark and Sweden may be offended at being either included in or excluded from the category of "Scandinavia". Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, including their associated territories Greenland,
2898-402: 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
3024-468: Is most commonly used. The changes to Hanyu Pinyin were not only financially costly but were unpopular with the locals, who opined that the Hanyu Pinyin versions were too difficult for non-Chinese or non-Mandarin speakers to pronounce. The government eventually stopped the changes by the 1990s, which has led to some place names within a locality having differing spellings. For example, Nee Soon Road and
3150-718: Is not its Dutch exonym. Old place names that have become outdated after renaming may afterward still be used as historicisms . For example, even today one would talk about the Siege of Leningrad , not the Siege of St. Petersburg because at that time (1941–1944) the city was called Leningrad. Likewise, one would say that Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724, not in Kaliningrad ( Калининград ), as it has been called since 1946. Likewise, Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul )
3276-643: 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
3402-563: Is now spelled Xinyi . However, districts like Tamsui and even Taipei itself are not spelled according to Hanyu Pinyin spelling rules. As a matter of fact, most names of Taiwanese cities are still spelled using Chinese postal romanization , including Taipei , Taichung , Taitung , Keelung , and Kaohsiung . During the 1980s, the Singapore Government encouraged the use of Hanyu Pinyin spelling for place names, especially those with Teochew, Hokkien or Cantonese names, as part of
3528-471: Is ordinarily used locally for Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a subset of the Nordic countries (known in Norwegian, Danish , and Swedish as Norden ; Finnish : Pohjoismaat , Icelandic : Norðurlöndin , Faroese : Norðurlond ). However, in English usage, the term Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym or near-synonym for what are known locally as Nordic countries . Usage in English
3654-500: 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
3780-663: Is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries. The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paul the Deacon ' Historia Langobardorum , but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan , Scandanan , Scadanan and Scatenauge . Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard , an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani . In Beowulf ,
3906-549: Is still called Constantinople ( Κωνσταντινούπολη ) in Greek, although the name was changed in Turkish to dissociate the city from its Greek past between 1923 and 1930 (the name Istanbul itself derives from a Medieval Greek phrase ). Prior to Constantinople , the city was known in Greek as Byzantion ( Greek : Βυζάντιον , Latin : Byzantium ), named after its mythical founder, Byzas . Following independence from
Icelandic language - Misplaced Pages Continue
4032-674: Is that each is a well-established standard language in its respective country. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have since medieval times been influenced to varying degrees by Middle Low German and standard German. That influence was due not only to proximity, but also to the rule of Denmark—and later Denmark-Norway—over the German-speaking region of Holstein, and to Sweden's close trade with the Hanseatic League . Norwegians are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as slightly more distant dialects. This
4158-572: Is the human tendency towards neighbours to "be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and the outgroup ." For example, Matisoff notes, Khang "an opprobrious term indicating mixed race or parentage" is the Palaung name for Jingpo people and the Jingpo name for Chin people ; both the Jingpo and Burmese use
4284-656: The Beijing dialect , became the official romanization method for Mandarin in the 1970s. As the Mandarin pronunciation does not perfectly map to an English phoneme , English speakers using either romanization will not pronounce the names correctly if standard English pronunciation is used. Nonetheless, many older English speakers still refer to the cities by their older English names, and even today they are often used in their traditional associations, such as Peking duck , Peking opera , and Peking University . As for Nanjing,
4410-518: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . A key ancient description of Scandinavia was provided by Pliny the Elder , though his mentions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher. Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny,
4536-606: The Greek root word ónoma ( ὄνομα , 'name'), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nómn̥ . The prefixes added to these terms are also derived from Greek: The terms autonym and xenonym also have different applications, thus leaving endonym and exonym as the preferred forms. Marcel Aurousseau , an Australian geographer , first used the term exonym in his work The Rendering of Geographical Names (1957). Endonyms and exonyms can be divided in three main categories: As it pertains to geographical features ,
4662-639: The Icelanders and the Faroese . The term is also used in this ethnic sense, to refer to the modern descendants of the Norse, in studies of linguistics and culture. Additionally the term Scandinavian is used demonymically to refer to all modern inhabitants or citizens of Scandinavian countries. Within Scandinavia the demonymic term primarily refers to inhabitants or citizens of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In English usage inhabitants or citizens of Iceland,
4788-522: 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 is said to be before and after 1540. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 900 CE,
4914-600: 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
5040-526: The Roman Empire applied the word " Walha " to foreigners they encountered and this evolved in West Germanic languages as a generic name for speakers of Celtic and later (as Celts became increasingly romanised) Romance languages; thence: During the late 20th century, the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in
5166-630: The Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes a part of northern Finland ). In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries . Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes included in Scandinavia for their ethnolinguistic relations with Sweden, Norway and Denmark. While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities. The geography of
Icelandic language - Misplaced Pages Continue
5292-578: The Scandinavian Peninsula since prehistory—the North Germanic languages (Scandinavian languages) and the Uralic languages , Sámi and Finnish . Most people in Scandinavia today speak Scandinavian languages that evolved from Old Norse , originally spoken by ancient Germanic tribes in southern Scandinavia. The Continental Scandinavian languages— Danish , Norwegian and Swedish —form a dialect continuum and are considered mutually intelligible. The Insular Scandinavian languages— Faroese and Icelandic —on
5418-557: The Singapore Armed Forces base Nee Soon Camp are both located in Yishun but retained the old spelling. Matisoff wrote, "A group's autonym is often egocentric, equating the name of the people with 'mankind in general,' or the name of the language with 'human speech'." In Basque , the term erdara/erdera is used for speakers of any language other than Basque (usually Spanish or French). Many millennia earlier,
5544-514: The Slavs are describing Germanic people as "mutes"—in contrast to themselves, "the speaking ones". The most common names of several Indigenous American tribes derive from pejorative exonyms. The name " Apache " most likely derives from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". The name " Sioux ", an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux , most likely derived from a Proto-Algonquian term, * -a·towe· ('foreign-speaking). The name " Comanche " comes from
5670-547: The Speak Mandarin Campaign to promote Mandarin and discourage the use of dialects. For example, the area of Nee Soon, named after Teochew -Peranakan businessman Lim Nee Soon (Hanyu Pinyin: Lín Yìshùn) became Yishun and the neighbourhood schools and places established following the change used the Hanyu Pinyin spelling. In contrast, Hougang is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling but the Hokkien pronunciation au-kang
5796-705: The Sámi people in northern Scandinavia. The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese), but because of changes appearing in the languages since 1600 the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian ( ö-nordisk / øy-nordisk ) featuring Icelandic and Faroese and Continental Scandinavian ( Skandinavisk ), comprising Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. The modern division
5922-541: The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names defines: For example, India , China , Egypt , and Germany are the English-language exonyms corresponding to the endonyms Bhārat ( भारत ), Zhōngguó ( 中国 ), Masr ( مَصر ), and Deutschland , respectively. There are also typonyms of specific features, for example hydronyms for bodies of water. In
6048-431: The Uralic language family and are unrelated to the North Germanic languages other than by limited grammatical (particularly lexical) characteristics resulting from prolonged contact. Sámi is divided into several languages or dialects. Consonant gradation is a feature in both Finnish and northern Sámi dialects, but it is not present in southern Sámi, which is considered to have a different language history. According to
6174-511: The Ute word kɨmantsi meaning "enemy, stranger". The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as the "Anasazi", a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies", and contemporary Puebloans discourage the use of the exonym. Various Native-American autonyms are sometimes explained to English readers as having literal translations of "original people" or "normal people", with implicit contrast to other first nations as not original or not normal. Although
6300-497: 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
6426-544: 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 is more conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them have greatly reduced levels of inflection (particularly noun declension ), Icelandic retains
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#17328010733786552-444: 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
6678-470: 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
6804-466: The "clarissima" ("most famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia , of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones . The belief that Scandinavia was an island became widespread among classical authors during the 1st century and dominated descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed. Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to
6930-561: The "language". The term survives to this day in the Slavic languages (e.g. Ukrainian німці (nimtsi); Russian немцы (nemtsy), Slovene Nemčija), and was borrowed into Hungarian , Romanian , and Ottoman Turkish (in which case it referred specifically to Austria ). One of the more prominent theories regarding the origin of the term " Slav " suggests that it comes from the Slavic root slovo (hence " Slovakia " and " Slovenia " for example), meaning 'word' or 'speech'. In this context,
7056-444: 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 the original manuscripts. According to an act passed by
7182-474: 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 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
7308-466: The 14th century) and again periodically from the 18th century. The letter z was formerly in the Icelandic alphabet, but it was officially removed in 1974, except in people's names. Ragnarsson, Baldur (1992). Mál og málsaga [ Language and language history ] (in Icelandic). Mál og Menning. ISBN 978-9979-3-0417-3 . Endonym An exonym (also known as xenonym )
7434-660: 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 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
7560-817: The Chinese word yeren ( 野人 ; 'wild men', 'savage', 'rustic people' ) as the name for Lisu people . As exonyms develop for places of significance for speakers of the language of the exonym, consequently, many European capitals have English exonyms, for example: In contrast, historically less-prominent capitals such as Ljubljana and Zagreb do not have English exonyms, but do have exonyms in languages spoken nearby, e.g. German : Laibach and Agram (the latter being obsolete); Italian : Lubiana and Zagabria . Madrid , Berlin , Oslo , and Amsterdam , with identical names in most major European languages , are exceptions. Some European cities might be considered partial exceptions, in that whilst
7686-523: The Faroe Islands and Finland are sometimes included as well. English general dictionaries often define the noun Scandinavian demonymically as meaning any inhabitant of Scandinavia (which might be narrowly conceived or broadly conceived). There is a certain ambiguity and political contestation as to which peoples should be referred to as Scandinavian in this broader sense. Sámi people who live in Norway and Sweden are generally included as Scandinavians in
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#17328010733787812-457: 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 the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the sagas of Icelanders , which encompass
7938-693: The Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands. The geological term Fennoscandia (sometimes Fennoscandinavia ) refers to the Fennoscandian Shield (or Baltic Shield ), which includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finland and Karelia , and excludes Denmark and other parts of the wider Nordic world. The terms Fennoscandia and Fennoscandinavia are sometimes used in a political sense to refer to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. The term Scandinavian may be used with two principal meanings, in an ethnic or cultural sense and as
8064-530: The Finnish population. The coastal province of Ostrobothnia has a Swedish-speaking majority, whereas plenty of areas on this coastline are nearly unilingually Finnish, like the region of Satakunta . Åland, an autonomous province of Finland situated in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, are entirely Swedish-speaking. Children are taught the other official language at school: for Swedish-speakers this
8190-651: The Greeks thought that all non-Greeks were uncultured and so called them " barbarians ", which eventually gave rise to the exonym " Berber ". Exonyms often describe others as "foreign-speaking", "non-speaking", or "nonsense-speaking". One example is the Slavic term for the Germans, nemtsi , possibly deriving from plural of nemy ("mute"); standard etymology has it that the Slavic peoples referred to their Germanic neighbors as "mutes" because they could not speak
8316-613: The Portuguese Colónia closely reflects the Latin original. In some cases, no standardised spelling is available, either because the language itself is unwritten (even unanalysed) or because there are competing non-standard spellings. Use of a misspelled endonym is perhaps more problematic than the respectful use of an existing exonym. Finally, an endonym may be a plural noun and may not naturally extend itself to adjectival usage in another language like English, which has
8442-529: The Province of Guangdong ( 广东 ; Guǎngdōng ). However, older English exonyms are sometimes used in certain contexts, for example: Peking (Beijing; duck , opera , etc.), Tsingtao (Qingdao), and Canton (Guangdong). In some cases the traditional English exonym is based on a local Chinese variety instead of Mandarin , in the case of Xiamen , where the name Amoy is closer to the Hokkien pronunciation. In
8568-569: The Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 and Norway ( de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto treated as a province) becoming independent in 1814, but thereafter swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden. The dependent territories Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel . Sweden and Norway were thus united under
8694-510: The Russians used the village name of Chechen , medieval Europeans took the tribal name Tatar as emblematic for the whole Mongolic confederation (and then confused it with Tartarus , a word for Hell , to produce Tartar ), and the Magyar invaders were equated with the 500-years-earlier Hunnish invaders in the same territory, and were called Hungarians . The Germanic invaders of
8820-447: The Swedish king Gustav I led Sweden to independence. It also saw numerous wars between the nations, which shaped the modern borders. The most recent union was the union between Sweden and Norway , which ended in 1905. In modern times the region has prospered, with the economies of the countries being amongst the strongest in Europe. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland all maintain welfare systems considered to be generous, with
8946-485: The Swedish monarch, but Finland's inclusion in the Russian Empire excluded any possibility for a political union between Finland and any of the other Nordic countries. The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied the military support promised from Sweden and Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of Schleswig , which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal union with Denmark. The Second war of Schleswig followed in 1864,
9072-673: The Sámi Information Centre of the Sámi Parliament of Sweden , southern Sámi may have originated in an earlier migration from the south into the Scandinavian Peninsula. German is a recognized minority language in Denmark. Recent migrations has added even more languages. Apart from the Sámi languages and the languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a neighboring state, Yiddish , Romani Chib/Romanes, Scandoromani and Karelian are amongst those protected in parts of Scandinavia under
9198-454: The UK in 1947, many regions and cities have been renamed in accordance with local languages, or to change the English spelling to more closely match the indigenous local name. The name Madras , now Chennai , may be a special case . When the city was first settled by English people , in the early 17th century, both names were in use. They possibly referred to different villages which were fused into
9324-431: 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
9450-404: 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
9576-430: The case of Beijing , the adoption of the exonym by media outlets quickly gave rise to a hyperforeignised pronunciation, with the result that many English speakers actualize the j in Beijing as / ʒ / . One exception of Pinyin standardization in mainland China is the spelling of the province Shaanxi , which is the mixed Gwoyeu Romatzyh –Pinyin spelling of the province. That is because if Pinyin were used to spell
9702-409: The case of endonyms and exonyms of language names (glossonyms), Chinese , German , and Dutch , for example, are English-language exonyms for the languages that are endonymously known as Zhōngwén ( 中文 ), Deutsch , and Nederlands , respectively. By their relation to endonyms, all exonyms can be divided into three main categories: Sometimes, a place name may be unable to use many of
9828-502: 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
9954-501: 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
10080-408: The demonymic sense; the Sámi of Finland may be included in English usage, but usually not in local usage; the Sámi of Russia are not included. However, the use of the term "Scandinavian" with reference to the Sámi is complicated by the historical attempts by Scandinavian majority peoples and governments in Norway and Sweden to assimilate the Sámi people into the Scandinavian culture and languages, making
10206-635: The economic and social policies of the countries being dubbed the " Nordic model ". The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords , the Scandinavian Mountains covering much of Norway and parts of Sweden, the flat, low areas in Denmark and the archipelagos of Finland, Norway and Sweden. Finland and Sweden have many lakes and moraines , legacies of the ice age , which ended about ten thousand years ago. The southern regions of Scandinavia, which are also
10332-864: The endonym Nederland is singular, while all the aforementioned translations except Irish are plural. Exonyms can also be divided into native and borrowed, e.g., from a third language. For example, the Slovene exonyms Dunaj ( Vienna ) and Benetke ( Venice ) are native, but the Avar name of Paris, Париж ( Parizh ) is borrowed from Russian Париж ( Parizh ), which comes from Polish Paryż , which comes from Italian Parigi . A substantial proportion of English-language exonyms for places in continental Europe are borrowed (or adapted) from French; for example: Many exonyms result from adaptations of an endonym into another language, mediated by differences in phonetics, while others may result from translation of
10458-404: The endonym, or as a reflection of the specific relationship an outsider group has with a local place or geographical feature. According to James Matisoff , who introduced the term autonym into linguistics , exonyms can also arise from the "egocentric" tendency of in-groups to identify themselves with "mankind in general", producing an endonym that out groups would not use, while another source
10584-437: 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 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
10710-546: The first Europeans to reach North America. These exploits saw the establishment of the North Sea Empire which comprised large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain, though it was relatively short-lived. Scandinavia was eventually Christianized , and the coming centuries saw various unions of Scandinavian nations, most notably the Kalmar Union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, which lasted for over 100 years until
10836-644: The forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan 's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg . The earliest Sámi joik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolu in Northern Sámi and Skađsuâl in Skolt Sámi , meaning " Skaði 's island". Svennung considers the Sámi name to have been introduced as
10962-401: The goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld. Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region. In modernity, Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part of Scandinavia
11088-555: The historical event called the Nanking Massacre (1937) uses the city's older name because that was the name of the city at the time of occurrence. Likewise, many Korean cities like Busan and Incheon (formerly Pusan and Inchǒn respectively) also underwent changes in spelling due to changes in romanization, even though the Korean pronunciations have largely stayed the same. Exonyms and endonyms must not be confused with
11214-517: 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 the general population. Though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from
11340-422: 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
11466-470: The inclusion of the Sámi as "Scandinavians" controversial among many Sámi. Modern Sámi politicians and organizations often stress the status of the Sámi as a people separate from and equal to the Scandinavians, with their own language and culture, and are apprehensive about being included as "Scandinavians" in light of earlier Scandinavian assimilation policies. Two language groups have coexisted on
11592-490: 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 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
11718-483: The language of the church and law courts remained Icelandic. The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) unrelated to Finnish and the Sámi languages , which as Uralic languages are distantly related each other. Owing to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in Finnish and the Sámi. The long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish
11844-527: 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 the Irish Sea region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland, Orkney , or Shetland often married native Scandinavian men before settling in
11970-820: The letters when transliterated into an exonym because of the corresponding language's lack of common sounds. Māori , having only one liquid consonant , is an example of this here. London (originally Latin : Londinium ), for example, is known by the cognate exonyms: An example of a translated exonym is the name for the Netherlands ( Nederland in Dutch) used, respectively, in German ( Niederlande ), French ( Pays-Bas ), Italian ( Paesi Bassi ), Spanish ( Países Bajos ), Irish ( An Ísiltír ), Portuguese ( Países Baixos ) and Romanian ( Țările de Jos ), all of which mean " Low Countries ". However,
12096-682: The middle of the 19th century, between the First Schleswig War (1848–1850) and the Second Schleswig War (1864). The Swedish king also proposed a unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for the proposal was the tumultuous events during the Napoleonic Wars in the beginning of the century. This war resulted in Finland (formerly the eastern third of Sweden) becoming
12222-639: 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
12348-416: 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
12474-520: The most populous regions, have a temperate climate . Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle , but has relatively mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream . Many of the Scandinavian mountains have an alpine tundra climate. The climate varies from north to south and from west to east: a marine west coast climate ( Cfb ) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark,
12600-604: The mountain of Saevo ( mons Saevo ibi ), the Codanus Bay ("Codanus sinus") and the Cimbrian promontory. The geographical features have been identified in various ways. By some scholars, Saevo is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen , the north tip of Jutland , Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be
12726-618: The new settlement. In any case, Madras became the exonym, while more recently, Chennai became the endonym. Madrasi, a term for a native of the city, has often been used derogatorily to refer to the people of Dravidian origin from the southern states of India . Scandinavia Nordic territories that are not part of Scandinavia: Chronological history Scandinavia is a subregion of Northern Europe , with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark , Norway , and Sweden . It can sometimes also refer to
12852-445: 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
12978-598: The northwestern coast. A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) as a result of a lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Scandinavia
13104-434: The number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in an intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language's cultural heritage. In some situations, the use of exonyms can be preferred. For instance, in multilingual cities such as Brussels , which is known for its linguistic tensions between Dutch- and French-speakers,
13230-415: The old Sámi belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra , meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sámi place name Sulliidčielbma means "the island's threshold" and Suoločielgi means "the island's back". In recent substrate studies, Sámi linguists have examined the initial cluster sk - in words used in the Sámi languages and concluded that sk -
13356-490: The other are only partially intelligible to speakers of the continental Scandinavian languages. The Uralic languages are linguistically unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Finnish is the majority language in Finland, and a recognized minority language in Sweden. Meänkieli and Kven , sometimes considered as dialects of Finnish, are recognized minority languages in Sweden and Norway, respectively. The Sámi languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia, spoken by
13482-417: The other two Mainland Scandinavian languages. Although Iceland was under the political control of Denmark until a much later date (1918), very little influence and borrowing from Danish has occurred in the Icelandic language. Icelandic remained the preferred language among the ruling classes in Iceland. Danish was not used for official communications, most of the royal officials were of Icelandic descent and
13608-428: The peninsula. The term was popularised by the linguistic and cultural Scandinavist movement , which asserted the common heritage and cultural unity of the Scandinavian countries and rose to prominence in the 1830s. The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the 19th century through poems such as Hans Christian Andersen 's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After
13734-557: The pronunciation for several names of Chinese cities such as Beijing and Nanjing has not changed for quite some time while in Mandarin Chinese (although the prestige dialect shifted from Nanjing dialect to Beijing dialect during the 19th century), they were called Peking and Nanking in English due to the older Chinese postal romanization convention, based largely on the Nanjing dialect . Pinyin , based largely on
13860-520: The propensity to use the adjectives for describing culture and language. Sometimes the government of a country tries to endorse the use of an endonym instead of traditional exonyms outside the country: Following the 1979 declaration of Hanyu Pinyin spelling as the standard romanisation of Chinese , many Chinese endonyms have successfully replaced English exonyms, especially city and most provincial names in mainland China , for example: Beijing ( 北京 ; Běijīng ), Qingdao ( 青岛 ; Qīngdǎo ), and
13986-474: The province, it would be indistinguishable from its neighboring province Shanxi , where the pronunciations of the two provinces only differ by tones, which are usually not written down when used in English. In Taiwan, however, the standardization of Hanyu Pinyin has only seen mixed results. In Taipei , most (but not all) street and district names shifted to Hanyu Pinyin. For example, the Sinyi District
14112-578: The region can also be found in Pytheas , Pomponius Mela , Tacitus , Ptolemy , Procopius and Jordanes , usually in the form of Scandza . It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania. According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as * skaðan- , meaning "danger" or "damage". The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as * awjō , meaning "land on
14238-648: The region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavian mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east. Most of the population in the region live in the more temperate southern regions, with the northern parts having long, cold winters. The region became notable during the Viking Age , when Scandinavian peoples participated in large-scale raiding, conquest, colonization and trading mostly throughout Europe. They also used their longships for exploration, becoming
14364-563: The results of geographical renaming as in the case of Saint Petersburg , which became Petrograd ( Петроград ) in 1914, Leningrad ( Ленинград ) in 1924, and again Saint Petersburg ( Санкт-Петербург , Sankt-Peterbúrg ) in 1991. In this case, although Saint Petersburg has a Dutch etymology, it was never a Dutch exonym for the city between 1914 and 1991, just as Nieuw Amsterdam , the Dutch name of New York City until 1664,
14490-570: The same status at national level. Finland's majority population are Finns , whose mother tongue is either Finnish (approximately 95%), Swedish or both. The Swedish-speakers live mainly on the coastline starting from approximately the city of Porvoo (Sw: Borgå) (in the Gulf of Finland) up to the city of Kokkola (Sw: Karleby) (in the Bay of Bothnia). The Swedish-speaking population is spread out in pockets in this coastal stretch and constitutes approximately 5% of
14616-406: The southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part – from Oslo to Stockholm – has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine west coast climate (Cfc) along
14742-599: The southernmost province of Sweden) are both thought to go back to the Proto-Germanic compound * Skaðin-awjō (the ð represented in Latin by t or d ), which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney . The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder 's Natural History , dated to the 1st century AD. Various references to
14868-475: The spelling is the same across languages, the pronunciation can differ. For example, the city of Paris is spelled the same way in French and English, but the French pronunciation [ paʁi ] is different from the English pronunciation [ ˈpærɪs ]. For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades . Livorno , for instance,
14994-444: 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
15120-710: The use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as Ankara rather than use the Spanish exonym Angora . Another example, it is now common for Italian speakers to refer to some African states as Mauritius and Seychelles rather than use the Italian exonyms Maurizio and Seicelle . According to the United Nations Statistics Division : Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease
15246-579: The water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania. Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem ( skan ) combined with - ör , which means "sandbanks". Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and Skáney , along with the Old Norse goddess name Skaði , may be related to Proto-Germanic * skaðwa- (meaning "shadow"). John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that
15372-458: 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
15498-540: The years, the endonym may have undergone phonetic changes, either in the original language or the borrowing language, thus changing an endonym into an exonym, as in the case of Paris , where the s was formerly pronounced in French. Another example is the endonym for the German city of Cologne , where the Latin original of Colonia has evolved into Köln in German, while the Italian and Spanish exonym Colonia or
15624-527: Was Leghorn because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to the British Navy ; not far away, Rapallo , a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym. In earlier times, the name of the first tribe or village encountered became the exonym for the whole people beyond. Thus, the Romans used the tribal names Graecus (Greek) and Germanus (Germanic),
15750-477: 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
15876-621: Was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located. The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4). Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island
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