| Summary: | This essay considers the development of the vocabulary and use of North-American Icelandic from the time of the earliest settlement in the late 19th century to the present day. At the start of settlement in New Iceland in 1875 the settlers set out to support a colony of Icelanders, for Icelanders. At the forefront of their efforts was the Icelandic language, and so the early settlers set out to resist the influence of English on their language. As a result of the need for new expressions, English loanwords were introduced to the language, and in 1903 Vilhjálmur Stefánsson collected 500 such loans that were a part of the North-American Icelandic vocabulary. However, as the Icelanders of New Iceland began to search for jobs and opportunities in Canadian and American cities, they started to borrow more freely from the English language. As a result of various borrowings and Anglicized expressions, North-American Icelandic began to develop towards being a distinctive variety of Icelandic. The Icelanders of North America found new use for Icelandic words, and developed a vocabulary that was unfamiliar to the Icelandic spoken in Iceland. The life of North-American Icelandic reached its height early in the 20th century, as it was still widely spoken among members of the Icelandic community. Towards the end of the 20th century North-American Icelandic was limited mostly to the homes of a few families. Nevertheless, North-American Icelandic survived longer than most immigrant languages, and as such it developed unique linguistic element as a result of English influence. Therefore, in a time period of about 140 years, Icelandic in North America developed from being the language of immigrants, to developing towards a distinctive variety of Icelandic. Finally, North-American Icelandic was reduced to being the language of a small number of speakers and being considered mostly as a heritage language.
|
|---|