Re: CHAT: Multi-Lingos

>From: nicole perrin <nicole.eap@...>
>Subject: Re: Multi-Lingos
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:28:44 -0400
<about the Icelandic school system>

>Why, what's the story with the school system?  IME European school
>systems are better about teaching foreign languages than most American
>ones.
It's not the attitude to foreign languages; it's the image presented to
young students of Icelandic as some kind of wonder-language. That it's one
of the oldest languages around, that we're so special 'cause we can read our
old texts, that Icelandic and Old Norse are just the same, and that
therefore all the people of the north practically used to speak Icelandic
(but then, it is implied, they lost it, ending up with their silly Danish,
and the others). That our language is our most precious inheritance, and it
is the duty of all Icelandic people to maintain an excellent quality of
grammar, pronunciation, and lexis (with quality referring simply to what is
old and rooted). Scholars write regularly in the newspapers, teaching
"correct" language, nit-picking on this and this usage in the media (which
is often just a case of creativity). Criticizing this view of the language
is completely taboo and unsocial in Iceland; not just in media, but with
people in general. Most people, even critically thinking persons, react very
strongly if I try to cast any doubt on the rightfulness of the "language
purity policy" (an official policy of the state) and on the special nature
of our language. It's simply taboo. I believe this way of thinking is the
symptoms of an old desperate, defensive effort to save our language, which
was necessary then and has been fruitful, but is now childish and
embarrasing, in an ambitious country like Iceland.

Oskar
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