On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 06:21:06AM -0400, Karen Thomas wrote:
> And considering there are only about 300,000 Icelanders, even if you go to
> Iceland, you
> won't have many people to talk to there. How many billions of humans on the
> planet now?
> Iceland is a teeny-tiny speck on this earth, and for that reason, it's about
> the last
> language I'd ever try to learn with any seriousness.
icelandic is an old, beautiful, and interesting language with a
fascinating literature. the icelandic sagas are a world classic,
and to anyone interested in say the works of tolkien (or any english
language fantasy in that tradition) can appreciate the influence of
icelandic on the hobbits and the dwarves. (i admit to being one of
those geeky people who actually studied quenya as a conlang, but that
also has to do with how i met my husband, so is perhaps extra-important
to me. :)
icelandic is second on my list of languages i am contemplating atm
(first is farsi), partly because i have several icelandic friends
(despite there being only a few hundred thousand in the world, there
are half a dozen of my acquaintance) and partly for its significance
in western literature. i've listened to the sagas recited in icelandic
and they are euphonious and beautiful; i would love to understand them
properly as well.
> Mic, there are over twice as many native-Welsh speaking people as native
> Icelandic
> speakers.
another language i highly recommend -- i got passingly acquainted with
it (better than icelandic) in my tolkien-scholarship days, but am sorry
to say i have not retained it well. fascinatingly weird with the
initial-consonant changes, which makes looking things up in a dictionary
a serious pain sometimes :)
--vicka (native english speaker, moderate in german and yiddish,
passingly familiar with hebrew, acquainted with aramaic,
swahili, american sign, french sign, latin (a language with
NO speakers, but great!) and spanish, and yet insatiably
curious for more :)
