CHAPTER VI

“You know I pique myself upon orthography, Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography.”

WE shall climb over the mountains and their hard names, and gallop through the valleys a little more smoothly, if we look at the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of some of the Icelandic terms. A great appropriateness will be seen in nearly all the geographical names in Iceland. By translating the language, we shall see some characteristic feature embodied in the name of about every place, river, lake, mountain, bay, and island in the country. The explanation of a few Icelandic words will show the signification of many of the names that I shall have occasion to mention. The letter _á_ (pronounced _ow_) signifies river, and is the last letter in the names of Icelandic rivers. _Bru_ is a bridge, hence _bruará_, or bridge river. _Hvit_ is white; _vatn_, water or lake; _hvitá_, white river; _hvitarvatn_, white lake. _Hver_ is a hot spring; _laug_ (pronounced _lage_), a warm spring, and _dalr_, a dale or vale. There is a valley north of Hekla, known as _Laugardalr_, or vale of warm springs. The Icelanders pronounce double _l_ at the end of words, like _tl_. They have a distinct name for each description of mountain. _Jokull_ (pronounced _yo-kut-l_; or, spoken rapidly as the Icelanders speak, it sounds about like _yo-kul_) is the term used to designate mountains that are covered with perpetual ice. _Fell_, _fjall_, and _fjöll_ (pronounced _fee-et-l_, _fee-aht-l_, and _fee-ote-l_), all signify mountains, but _fell_ is applied to single peaks, to small and isolated mountains, and _fjall_ and _fjöll_ to large mountains, or chains of mountains. _Bla_ is blue; _snæ_, snow; and we have _blafell_, or a blue mountain standing alone—an isolated peak in the middle of a plain. A celebrated mountain in the west of Iceland, is _Snæfell Jokull_ (_snef-el-yo-kul_), a snowy mountain, standing alone, and covered with perpetual ice; and in the comprehensive language of the Icelanders, it is all expressed in two words. _Oræfa_ signifies desert or sandy plain, and _torf_ is turf or peat. There are two mountains, _Oræfa Jokull_ and _Torfa Jokull_; one standing in a desert, and the other in a large peat district. One portion of the immense mountain, the Skaptar Jokull, is known as _Vatna Jokull_, as it is supposed to contain, on a portion of its surface, large pools of standing water. The points of compass are, _north_, _suth_, _æst_, and _vest_. _Eyjar_ signifies islands. South of Hekla is a lofty and celebrated mountain known as the _Eyjafjalla Jokull_. To an English reader, unacquainted with the Icelandic, it is a crooked-looking mouthful; but on the tongue of an Icelander, it flows off, a round, smooth, sonorous term. They call it _i-a-fe-aht-la yo-kull_. It defines itself as ice mountain of islands, having numerous knobs or peaks that stand up like islands in the sea. Many Icelandic words are identical with the English, and many others nearly so. It remains for some future lexicographer to show the great number of English words that are derived from the Icelandic. The points of compass have been noticed; a few more examples will suffice. _Hestr_ is a horse; _holt_, a hill; _hus_, a house; _hval_, a whale; _lang_, long; _men_, men; _mann_, man; _sandr_, sand; _sitha_, the side; _gerthi_, a garden; _litil_, little; _mikla_, large (Scottish, _muckle_); _myri_, a bog or miry place; _fjorth_, is a firth or bay; _kirkja_, a church; _prestur_, a priest; _morgun_, morning; _ux_, ox; _daga_, days. “July, or midsummer month,” stands literally in Icelandic, _Julius etha mithsumar-manuthur_. _J_, at the beginning of words and syllables in the Icelandic, is pronounced like _y_ consonant, and in the middle of a syllable, like _i_ or long _e_.

Their affirmative _yes_, is _já_ (pronounced _yow_), and their _no_ is _nei_ (nay). Their counting is much like ours: einn (1), tveir (2), thrir (3), fjorir (4), fimm (5), sex (6), sjö (7), atta (8), niu (9), tiu (10), ellefu (11), tolf (12), threttan (13), fjortan (14), fimmtan (15), sextan (16), seytjan (17), atjan (18), nitjan (19), tuttugu (20), tuttugu og einn (21), thrjatiu (30), fiörutiu (40), fimmtiu (50), sextiu (60), sjötiu (70), attatiu (80), niutiu (90), hundrath (100), fimm hundrath (500), thusund (1000). The date 1851, in words, would be: einn thusund atta hundrath fimmtiu og einn. This list might be extended to great length, showing the similarity between the Icelandic and the English; but these examples are sufficient for my purpose.

I have a few words for my friends the geographers, who, in their anxiety to Anglicize geographical names, so completely change them that the natives of a country would not recognize their own rivers and mountains when once disguised in an English dress. The Icelandic is the only one of the old Scandinavian tongues that has the sound of _th_; and they have two different letters, one to represent _th_ in _thank_, and the other the _th_ as heard in _this_. The latter sound is heard in _fiorth_ and in _north_[3]—different from our pronunciation of north; and as the letter representing this sound of _th_ is a character that some resembles the letter _d_, we find the above words written and printed by the English as _fiord_ and _nord_. With the Danes and Swedes, who have neither the sounds nor the letters, it is not to be wondered at that they use _d_ or _t_ for these sounds. I shall give the Icelandic names in their native spelling, as near as possible, with perhaps the exception of the name of the country,—which they write _Island_, but now with us is thoroughly Anglicized as Iceland. They pronounce it _ees-land_, the _a_ in the last syllable rather broad. I see no particular objection to using _y_ for _j_ in jokull, as it has that sound; or in substituting _i_ for the same letter in _fjorth_, _Reykjavik_, _Eyjafjalla_, and similar cases. I will, however, protest against an Icelandic _Thane_ being turned into a _Dane_, without as much as saying, “By your leave, sir,” or ever asking him if he wished to change his allegiance.

If this chapter is dry and technical, it has at least the merit of brevity.

FOOTNOTES:

Footnote 3:

_Icelandic_; fiorð, norð.