84-508: Magnús Þór Jónsson (born 7 April 1945), better known by the stage name Megas , is an Icelandic vocalist, songwriter, and writer. Being an admirer of Elvis Presley , Megas welcomed the arrival of rock & roll to Iceland by 1956, although his interest in music had to be postponed while he attended grammar school in 1960. While he was young, he studied piano and explored the Arts: he painted, wrote short stories for his school, and published
168-585: A World Cup ; its best result at a major international event was a quarterfinal finish in UEFA Women's Euro 2013 . The country's first Olympic participation was in the 1912 Summer Olympics ; however, they did not participate again until the 1936 Summer Olympics . Their first appearance at the Winter Games was at the 1948 Winter Olympics . In 1956, Vilhjálmur Einarsson won the Olympic silver medal for
252-517: 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,
336-401: 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, the language spoken in
420-473: A broader audience. He would do so by releasing his two next albums: Millilending (1975) and Fram og aftur blindgötuna (1976). He focused on topics that challenged all of Icelandic society's taboos with references made to classical literature and a sarcastic revisionist history. Despite the jarring nature of these records, his use of prose and the Icelandic language influenced the country's rock and roll scene. In 1977, Megas released Á bleikum náttkjólum with
504-501: A cappella . Christianity played a major role in the development of Icelandic music, with many hymns being written in the local idiom. Hallgrímur Pétursson , a poet and priest, is noted for writing many of these hymns in the 17th century. The island's relative isolation ensured that the music maintained its regional flavor. It was only in the 19th century that the first pipe organs , prevalent in European religious music, first appeared on
588-485: A certain dourness, which was for a long time considered an Icelandic stereotype . At the same time, it also led to a boom in printing, and Iceland today is one of the most literate societies in the world. While Catholicism was supplanted by Protestantism during the Reformation , most other world religions are now represented on the island: there are small Protestant Free Churches and Catholic communities, and even
672-521: A chef who has traveled the world on his show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern , responded to the question "What's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten?" with the response "That would have to be the fermented shark fin I had in Iceland". Fermented shark fin is a form of Þorramatur. The earliest indigenous Icelandic music was the rímur , epic tales from the Viking era that were often performed
756-453: A children's song album and a double live album, he withdrew from the Icelandic music and started working as a dock worker and graduated from arts school. By 1983, Megas reappeared in the Icelandic music scene by collaborating with other bands and playing as a guest musicians on several albums. Around 1985, he joined Kukl , titled "MegaKukl" and toured Iceland, but the songs still remain unreleased. After seven years of absence, his solo career
840-499: A dramatic deficit in Iceland's trade, and no new ships were built as a result. In 1602, Iceland was forbidden to trade with other countries by order of the Danish Government , and in the 18th century climatic conditions had reached an all-time low since Settlement. In 1783–84, Laki , a volcanic fissure in the south of the island, erupted. The eruption produced about 15 km (3.6 cu mi) of basalt lava, and
924-433: 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
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#17327810251971008-444: A mild acoustic music played by Norwegian folk musicians. This work caused controversy and his music was banned by the Icelandic national radio, but Megas grew a cult following in the growing alternative scene. However, Megas struggled with releasing new records. Instead, in 1973 he published the words to some of his music in 3 books. When his original lyrics were performed with the electric rock band Judas in 1975, Megas managed to reach
1092-722: 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
1176-484: A nascent Muslim community , composed of both immigrants and local converts. Perhaps unique to Iceland is the fast-growing Ásatrúarfélag , a legally recognized revival of the pre-Christian Nordic religion of the original settlers. According to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reykjavík, there were only approximately 30 Jews in Iceland as of 2001. The former First Lady of Iceland Dorrit Moussaieff
1260-465: A parcel of Megas records under his arm. Solo: As Megasukk: Tribute albums: Icelandic people Icelanders ( Icelandic : Íslendingar ) are an ethnic group and nation who are native to the island country of Iceland . They speak Icelandic , a North Germanic language . Icelanders established the country of Iceland in mid 930 CE when the Alþingi (parliament) met for
1344-403: 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
1428-562: A reawakening of Iceland's arts, especially its literature. Twenty years later in 1874, Iceland was granted a constitution. Icelanders today recognize Jón's efforts as largely responsible for their economic and social resurgence. Iceland gained full sovereignty and independence from Denmark in 1918 after World War I . It became the Kingdom of Iceland . The King of Denmark also served as the King of Iceland but Iceland retained only formal ties with
1512-599: 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 the historical works and the Poetic Edda . The language of
1596-504: A similar percentage of the women were of Gaelic stock from Ireland and peripheral Scotland . Iceland is a geologically young land mass, having formed an estimated 20 million years ago due to volcanic eruptions on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge . One of the last larger islands to remain uninhabited, the first human settlement date is generally accepted to be 874, although there is some evidence to suggest human activity prior to
1680-647: 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
1764-534: A tiny proportion of samples of contemporary Icelanders carry a more distant lineage, which belongs to the haplogroup C 1e, which can possibly be traced to the settlement of the Americas around 14,000 years ago. This hints a small proportion of Icelanders have some Native American ancestry arising from Norse colonization of Greenland and North America . Icelanders also have an anomalously high Denisovan genetic heritage. Despite Iceland's historical isolation,
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#17327810251971848-515: 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 the extinct language Norn . It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages ( Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish ) and
1932-467: Is called the kristnitaka , and the country, while mostly secular in observance, is still predominantly Christian culturally . The Lutheran church claims some 84% of the total population. While early Icelandic Christianity was more lax in its observances than traditional Catholicism , Pietism , a religious movement imported from Denmark in the 18th century, had a marked effect on the island. By discouraging all but religious leisure activities, it fostered
2016-477: 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 the 300,000 Icelandic speakers in Iceland, Icelandic is spoken by about 8,000 people in Denmark, 5,000 people in
2100-404: 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
2184-644: Is known as the Mist Hardship (Icelandic: Móðuharðindin ). In 1798–99, the Alþingi was discontinued for several decades, eventually being restored in 1844. It was moved to Reykjavík , the capital, after being held at Þingvellir for over nine centuries. The 19th century brought significant improvement in the Icelanders' situation. A protest movement was led by Jón Sigurðsson , a statesman, historian, and authority on Icelandic literature . Inspired by
2268-464: Is mentioned in the song "Iceland" by The Fall which appeared on Hex Enduction Hour (1982). In a Melody Maker article about The Fall's stay in Iceland, Megas is referenced: Our hosts play us tapes of a man with a cracked voice and a Dylanish air and describe him as “the father of Icelandic rock’n’roll”. And they tell us the story of Megas, who ridiculed the sacred Sagas of the land, wrote scathing, surreal lyrics, got heavily into booze and drugs,
2352-511: 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 a four- case synthetic grammar (comparable to German , though considerably more conservative and synthetic) and
2436-647: 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
2520-555: 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
2604-478: Is understood broadly. Eddic poetry is made up of heroic and mythological poems. Poetry that praises someone is considered skaldic poetry or court poetry . Finally, saga literature is prose, ranging from pure fiction to fairly factual history. Written Icelandic has changed little since the 13th century. Because of this modern readers can understand the Icelanders' sagas . The sagas tell of events in Iceland in
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2688-599: 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
2772-501: 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
2856-444: 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
2940-603: The romantic and nationalist currents from mainland Europe, Jón protested strongly, through political journals and self-publications, for 'a return to national consciousness' and for political and social changes to be made to help speed up Iceland's development. In 1854, the Danish government relaxed the trade ban that had been imposed in 1602, and Iceland gradually began to rejoin Western Europe economically and socially. With this return of contact with other peoples came
3024-411: The triple jump . The Icelandic national handball team has enjoyed relative success. The team received a silver medal at the 2008 Olympic Games and a 3rd place at the 2010 European Men's Handball Championship . Icelandic language Icelandic ( / aɪ s ˈ l æ n d ɪ k / eyess- LAN -dik ; endonym : íslenska , pronounced [ˈistlɛnska] )
3108-525: 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
3192-481: The 10th and early 11th centuries. They are considered to be the best-known pieces of Icelandic literature. The elder or Poetic Edda , the younger or Prose Edda , and the sagas are the major pieces of Icelandic literature. The Poetic Edda is a collection of poems and stories from the late 10th century, whereas the younger or Prose Edda is a manual of poetry that contains many stories of Norse mythology . Iceland embraced Christianity in c. 1000, in what
3276-445: 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
3360-497: The 15th century. A papal legation was sent there as late as 1492, the year Columbus attempted to find a shorter spice route to Asia but instead encountered the Americas. According to the Saga of Eric the Red , Icelandic immigration to North America dates back to Vinland c. 1006 . The colony was believed to be short-lived and abandoned by the 1020s. European settlement of
3444-462: 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
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3528-592: The 1990s, standing at 703 in 2016. Correspondingly, Icelandic identity is gradually shifting towards a more multicultural form. Icelandic, a North Germanic language , is the official language of Iceland ( de facto ; the laws are silent about the issue). Icelandic has inflectional grammar comparable to Latin , Ancient Greek , more closely to Old English and practically identical to Old Norse . Old Icelandic literature can be divided into several categories. Three are best known to foreigners: Eddic poetry , skaldic poetry , and saga literature , if saga literature
3612-506: The Danish Crown. On 17 June 1944 the monarchy was abolished and a republic was established on Jón Sigurðsson's 133rd birthday. This ended nearly six centuries of ties with Denmark. Due to their small founding population and history of relative isolation, Icelanders have often been considered highly genetically homogeneous as compared to other European populations. For this reason, along with the extensive genealogical records for much of
3696-602: 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 the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As
3780-481: The Icelandic maternal gene pool is derived from Ireland and Scotland, which is much higher than other Scandinavian countries, although comparable to the Faroese , while 37% is of Nordic origin. About 20–25% of the Icelandic paternal gene pool is of Gaelic origin, with the rest being Nordic. The Icelandic Age of Settlement (Icelandic: Landnámsöld ) is considered to have lasted from 874 to 930, at which point most of
3864-588: The Norse arrival. The first Viking to sight Iceland was Gardar Svavarsson , who went off course due to harsh conditions when sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands . His reports led to the first efforts to settle the island. Flóki Vilgerðarson (b. 9th century) was the first Norseman to sail to Iceland intentionally. His story is documented in the Landnámabók manuscript, and he is said to have named
3948-593: The United States and Canada began in earnest in the 1870s, with most migrants initially settling in the Great Lakes area. These settlers were fleeing famine and overcrowding on Iceland. Today, there are sizable communities of Icelandic descent in both the United States and Canada. Gimli , in Manitoba , Canada, is home to the largest population of Icelanders outside of the main island of Iceland. From
4032-485: 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 the language and its literature. The Icelandic Language Council, comprising representatives of universities,
4116-432: 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
4200-400: The accompaniment of Spilverk þjóðanna, a popular folk-rock band in Iceland. Critics revered the album, with some calling it the greatest Icelandic album and claiming that it features the first Icelandic punk song. By the end of the seventies, Megas was perceived as a provocateur, and his important role in the Icelandic rock scene turned him into a reference for future artists. After releasing
4284-591: 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 the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Icelandic is further classified as
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#17327810251974368-408: 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
4452-562: 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
4536-502: 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
4620-481: The crown, including the right to initiate and consent to legislation. This meant a loss of independence for Iceland, which led to nearly 300 years of decline: perhaps largely because Denmark and its Crown did not consider Iceland to be a colony to be supported and assisted. In particular, the lack of help in defense led to constant raids by marauding pirates along the Icelandic coasts. Unlike Norway, Denmark did not need Iceland's fish and homespun wool. This created
4704-537: The distinctively African parts of his genome were unique in Iceland until very recent times. Genetic evidence shows that most DNA lineages found among Icelanders today can be traced to the settlement of Iceland, indicating that there has been relatively little immigration since. This evidence shows that the founder population of Iceland came from Scandinavia , Ireland and Scotland : studies of Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA indicate that 75% of Icelanders' patrilineal ancestry derives from Scandinavia (with most of
4788-720: The domination of the first King of Norway , Harald Fairhair . They traveled 1,000 km (620 mi) in their Viking longships to the island of Iceland. These people were primarily of Norwegian, Irish or Gaelic Scottish origin. The Irish and the Scottish Gaels were either slaves or servants of the Norse chiefs, according to the Icelandic sagas , or descendants of a " group of Norsemen who had settled in Scotland and Ireland and intermarried with Gaelic-speaking people". Genetic evidence suggests that approximately 62% of
4872-439: 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
4956-496: The first time. Iceland came under the reign of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish kings but regained full sovereignty from the Danish monarchy on 1 December 1918, when the Kingdom of Iceland was established. On 17 June 1944, Iceland became a republic. Lutheranism is the predominant religion. Historical and DNA records indicate that around 60 to 80 percent of the male settlers were of Norse origin (primarily from Western Norway ) and
5040-530: The genetic makeup of Icelanders today is still quite different from the founding population, due to founder effects and genetic drift . One study found that the mean Norse ancestry among Iceland's settlers was 56%, whereas in the current population the figure was 70%. This indicates that Icelanders with increased levels of Norse ancestry had higher reproductive success. The first Europeans to emigrate to and settle in Greenland were Icelanders who did so under
5124-422: 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
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#17327810251975208-561: The island had been claimed and the Alþingi (Althing), the assembly of the Icelandic Commonwealth , was founded at Þingvellir . In 930, on the Þingvellir (English: Thingvellir ) plain near Reykjavík , the chieftains and their families met and established the Alþingi, Iceland's first national assembly . However, the Alþingi lacked the power to enforce the laws it made. In 1262, struggles between rival chieftains left Iceland so divided that King Haakon IV of Norway
5292-513: The island Ísland ( Iceland ). The first permanent settler in Iceland is usually considered to have been a Norwegian chieftain named Ingólfur Arnarson . He settled with his family in around 874, at a place he named "Bay of Smokes", or Reykjavík in Icelandic. Following Ingólfur, and also in 874, another group of Norwegians set sail across the North Atlantic Ocean with their families, livestock, slaves, and possessions, escaping
5376-442: The island. Many singers, groups, and forms of music have come from Iceland . Most Icelandic music contains vibrant folk and pop traditions. Some more recent groups and singers are Voces Thules , The Sugarcubes , Björk , Sigur Rós , and Of Monsters and Men . The national anthem is "Ó Guð vors lands" (English: "Our Country's God" ), written by Matthías Jochumsson , with music by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson . The song
5460-480: The leadership of Erik the Red in the late 10th century and numbered around 500 people. Isolated fjords in this harsh land offered sufficient grazing to support cattle and sheep, though the climate was too cold for cereal crops. Royal trade ships from Norway occasionally went to Greenland to trade for walrus tusks and falcons. The population eventually reached a high point of perhaps 3,000 in two communities and developed independent institutions before fading away during
5544-416: The mid-1990s, Iceland experienced rising immigration. By 2017 the population of first-generation immigrants (defined as people born abroad with both parents foreign-born and all grandparents foreign-born) stood at 35,997 (10.6% of residents), and the population of second-generation immigrants at 4,473. Correspondingly, the numbers of foreign-born people acquiring Icelandic citizenship are markedly higher than in
5628-639: 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
5712-418: 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
5796-445: 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
5880-459: The population that reach back to the settlement of Iceland , Icelanders have been the focus of considerable genomics research by both biotechnology companies and academic and medical researchers. It was, for example, possible for researchers to reconstruct much of the maternal genome of Iceland's first known black inhabitant, Hans Jonatan , from the DNA of his present-day descendants partly because
5964-576: The region was not archeologically and historically confirmed as more than legend until the 1960s. The former Norse site, now known as L'Anse aux Meadows , pre-dated the arrival of Columbus in the Americas by almost 500 years. A more recent instance of Icelandic emigration to North America occurred in 1855, when a small group settled in Spanish Fork , Utah . Another Icelandic colony formed in Washington Island, Wisconsin . Immigration to
6048-479: The rest being from the Irish and British Isles), while 62% of their matrilineal ancestry derives from Scotland and Ireland (with most of the rest being from Scandinavia). Other studies have identified other ancestries, however. One study of mitochondrial DNA , blood groups , and isozymes revealed a more variable population than expected, comparable to the diversity of some other Europeans. Another study showed that
6132-464: 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 the 12th to
6216-562: The sheet music and lyrics to 14 songs by 1968, many of which would be released on his first records. As a young bohemian writer, he was inspired by Bob Dylan and Ray Davies , and embarked into songwriting. At the beginning of the seventies, his music works were not accessible to the mainstream crowd, as Megas only performed them to his friends of left-wing circles. However, in 1972, Icelandic students in Oslo , Norway helped him release his first album, in which satiric lyrics were accompanied by
6300-446: 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
6384-487: The total volume of tephra emitted was 0.91 km . The aerosols that built up caused a cooling effect in the Northern Hemisphere . The consequences for Iceland were catastrophic, with approximately 25–33% of the population dying in the famine of 1783 and 1784. Around 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle, and 50% of horses died of fluorosis from the 8 million tons of fluorine that were released. This disaster
6468-458: 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
6552-479: 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
6636-441: Was an Israeli -born Bukharian Jew . Icelandic cuisine consists mainly of fish , lamb , and dairy . Fish was once the main part of an Icelander's diet but has recently given way to meats such as beef , pork , and poultry . Iceland has many traditional foods called Þorramatur . These foods include smoked and salted lamb , singed sheep heads, dried fish, smoked and pickled salmon , and cured shark . Andrew Zimmern ,
6720-707: Was asked to step in as a final arbitrator for all disputes, as part of the Old Covenant . This is known as the Age of the Sturlungs . Iceland was under Norwegian leadership until 1380, when the Royal House of Norway died out. At this point, both Iceland and Norway came under the control of the Danish Crown . With the introduction of absolute monarchy in Denmark, the Icelanders relinquished their autonomy to
6804-486: Was barred from radio and shunned by society. In 1979 he released a double album called “Plans For Suicide” announced his retirement, and hasn't performed in public since he's now a dock worker. Mark Smith is entranced by the story, and rivetted by the music. The following day Megas, a pale, gaunt figure, turns up at The Fall's concert at the Austurbæjarbíó and shakes him by the hand. Mark will return to England clutching
6888-611: Was reissued in 2002, remastered and with bonus tracks. More recently, he joined Súkkat to create a new project called "Megasukk" and released Hús Datt , their debut album in 2005. Some of the artists that have worked with Megas are the following: Björgvin Gíslason, Björn Bjarnason , Bragi Kristjónsson, Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson , Hjálmar Sveinsson, Páll Baldvin Baldvinsson, Páll Valsson, Svavar Gestsson , Þórður Magnússon, and Þórunn Valdimarsdóttir, among many others. Megas
6972-489: Was resumed in 1986 with the release of Í góðri trú . In 1990 Megas released Hættuleg hljómsveit & glæpakvendið Stella , and started a new project music with Kukl members called Hættuleg hljómsveit (A Dangerous Band), featuring singer Björk as backing vocalist. Megas has remained one of the most important Icelandic artists, being considered the father of Icelandic rock and acclaimed for his prolific and, sometimes controversial works. his complete discography up to 1990
7056-518: Was written in 1874, when Iceland celebrated its one thousandth anniversary of settlement on the island. It was originally published with the title A Hymn in Commemoration of Iceland's Thousand Years . Iceland's men's national football team participated in their first FIFA World Cup in 2018 , after reaching the quarter finals of its first major international tournament, UEFA Euro 2016 . The women's national football team has yet to reach
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