Jón Thoroddsen and language standardisation in the 19th century

A few linguistic features in the novel Piltur og stúlka 1850 and 1867

Útdráttur

The current linguistic standard for Icelandic arose in the 19th century amidst rising romantic nationalism in Iceland and demands for independence from Danish rule. The architects of this standard, many of whom were Icelandic university students in Copenhagen, looked to the medieval Icelandic literature — the sagas — for linguistic ideals. This retrospective standard was propagated through the Icelandic Latin School, at Bessastaðir/Reykjavik, the only institution of higher education in Iceland at the time, and, especially in the second half of the century, through grammars and in printed books, journals, and newspapers. The emerging linguistic standard thus became visible through its application in printed materials in the public sphere.

The first modern novel printed in Icelandic, Jón Thoroddsen’s Piltur og stúlka (‘Boy and girl’), appearing in 1850 and then again in a second revised edition 1867, played an important role in displaying and instituting the new linguistic standard. A rural love story featuring many linguistic characteristics of the medieval Icelandic sagas, the novel immediately enjoyed immense popularity. The second edition of 1867 was printed in 1,200 copies, a very large print run for a society of only around 70,000 people. Moreover, this love story about the young son and daughter of two neighboring rival farmers, appealed to children and young people in a way that no grammar, journal or newspaper ever could. This appeal to young people in their formative years probably made the novel instrumental in establishing a standard literary language for Modern Icelandic.

The author, Jón Thoroddsen (1818–1868), received the best education available at the time and was friends or acquainted with many of the individuals, in Iceland and Copenhagen, who were most actively involved in the ongoing dialogue about matters concerning the Icelandic language. Jón Thoroddsen was thus in a good position to participate in and follow this dialogue and, as a writer, to conform to the emerging linguistic standard.

This paper compares selected features of the language in the two editions of Piltur og stúlka appearing in 1850 and 1867. A corpus of around 70 private letters by Jón Thoroddsen are used as additional comparative material. These two editions, it is argued, were not only instrumental in establishing the new and emerging linguistic standard, but also manifest two different stages in the development of the standard. The linguistic changes implemented in the 1867 edition, as well as the linguistic features left intact, thus show the creation of a literary linguistic standard in progress.

The main findings of the paper can be summarized as follows:

            (a) In the 1867 edition, the literary language moved away from the colloquial language.

            (b) The emerging linguistic standard is enforced more strictly and systematically in the novel, intended for public consumption, than in Jón Thoroddsen’s private letters.

            (c) Features from earlier stages of Icelandic are adopted in the literary language.

            (d) Almost all the changes made in the 1867 edition reflect permanent features of the linguistic standard, still in place in present-day Icelandic.

            (e) Some features of the language left intact in the 1867 edition would have been subject to change at a later date, showing that the linguistic standard was still not fully developed in 1867.

            (f) Many of the linguistic features adopted in the literary standard were at odds with the colloquial language, as already indicated, but ultimately some of these features changed in the colloquial language to conform with the literary language. The literary standard thus gradually influenced the colloquial language.