To keep up law and order

The history and formation of the word lögregla

Abstract

This article deals with the history and word formation of the Icelandic word for ‘police’, i.e. lögregla. The word constitutes an interesting case of word formation in that said lexeme is a dvandva compound whose creation is related to the expression að halda uppi lögum og reglu ‘to maintain law and order’. Moreover, it is argued that the word has arisen in the wake of the Icelandic purist movement in the first half of the 19th century, and that its creator is Konráð Gíslason, who was at the time a member of the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag) and editor of the journal Fjölnir.

According to the sources, the word, lögregla, cannot have been formed as an independent lexical item. In fact, the word appears first in a compound with maður ‘man’, meaning ‘policeman’ or, more precisely, ‘a man who is in charge of maintaining law and order’. It is argued that lögregla has in fact been created in order to gradually substitute the Danish loanword pólití, first in compounds such as pólitímaður and pólitíþjónn ‘policeman’, and then as a single lexeme. The Danish loanword pólití had a twofold meaning: ‘policeman’ and ‘police’. Moreover, it is argued that lögregla, as an unbound lexeme, was initially a shortened form for lögreglumaður, and later assumed the general meaning ‘police force’ by means of synecdoche (pars pro toto).