Language, Society and Identity in early Iceland

Stephen Pax Leonard is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and a Research Associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute. Educated at the University of Oxford, he studied modern and ancient languages before developing interests in linguistic and existential anthropology. He has carried out both linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. More recently, he spent a year living with the Inugguit of north-west Greenland who live in the northern-most permanently inhabited settlement in the world, documenting their vulnerable minority language and spoken traditions.

• 1 Introduction1.1 Aims of the present study1.2 Organisation of study1.3 The settlement of Iceland1.4 The establishment of social structures1.5 The language of the Icelanders1.6 Sources1.6.1 Historical texts1.6.2 Religious works1.6.3 Law codes1.6.4 Grammatical Treatises1.6.5 Poetry1.6.6 Saga material2 Language and identity: theoretical considerations2.1 Introduction2.2 Socio-historical linguistics and sociolinguistic theory2.3 Language change and norms2.3.1 Intra-linguistic versus extra-linguistic explanations of language change2.4 Language and dialect contact2.4.1 Dialect levelling and koineisation2.4.2 Markedness in tabula rasa dialect-formation2.5 Language and dialect isolation2.5.1 ‘Drift’2.6 Language development in tabula rasa societies               2.6.1 Language community types (and settlement patterns)2.6.2 A deterministic model versus social factors2.6.3 The Founder Principle and prestige2.7 Identity: essentialism versus constructivism2.7.1 Personal identity and group membership2.7.2 Place and identity2.8 Language and identity2.8.1 Accommodation and networks2.8.2 Accommodation Theory2.8.3 Social network theory and language change2.8.4 Deixis, pronouns and identity2.9 Conclusion3 Norm-establishment in Iceland3.1 Introduction3.2 Norse dialectal variation prior to the Settlement3.2.1 The runic evidence3.2.2 Runic evidence and the spoken language3.3 The settlers: geographic origins and social mobility3.3.1 The geographic origins of the settlers3.3.2 Social background and mobility of the settlers3.3.3 The status of Norse and Common Gaelic at the time of the Settlement3.4 Dialect features in Iceland, the Faroe Islands and south-west Norway3.5 Iceland as a ‘new society’3.5.1 Features of ‘new societies’3.6 Language development in early Iceland3.6.1 The ‘mixture theory’3.6.2 Dialect levelling in early Iceland3.6.3 The basis for koineisation3.7 Establishment of a linguistic norm in Iceland3.7.1 Pre- and post-Settlement linguistic norms3.7.2 Spoken norms and ‘standardised’ written languages3.7.3 The establishment of a norm: skaldic poetry (and the laws)3.7.4 The establishment of a norm: the role of the sagas3.8 The homogeneity of Icelandic3.8.1 Background3.8.2 Factors explaining the homogeneity of Icelandic3.9 Conclusion4 Social structures in the lexicon4.1 Introduction4.2 Social identity and Icelandic social structures4.2.1 Emerging social structures and identities4.2.2 Characteristics of Icelandic social structures: role of the law4.2.3 The significance of assembly-attachment4.3 Specific Icelandic social structures4.3.1 hreppr (‘commune’)4.3.2 bu´ar (‘neighbours’)4.3.3 alþingi (‘General Assembly’) and lo¨gre´tta (‘Law Council’)4.3.4 goðar (‘chieftains’)4.4 Individual identity and Icelandic kinship structures4.4.1 landna´m (‘Settlement’) and kinship structures4.4.2 Kinship and land-transfer4.4.3 Genealogies and identity4.4.4 Icelandic kinship terminology: cousin terms4.5 Conclusion5 Perception and use of language as an identity marker5.1 Introduction5.2 Icelanders’ perceptions of foreign languages5.2.1 References to a foreign language5.2.2 References to Irish5.3 A vernacular identity: do¨nsk tunga, norræna and its speakers5.3.1 The do¨nsk tunga as an identity marker5.3.2 norræna as an identity marker5.3.3 Norse dialectical variation and Anglo-Norse intelligibility5.4 Grammatical variables as identity markers5.4.1 Agreeing possessive adjectives5.4.2 Pronominal usage in the early Icelandic law codes5.4.3 The ‘they’5.4.4 The ‘we’5.5 Spatial references: the issue of identity5.5.1 Spatio-directional particles5.5.2 Idiomatic use of spatial grammar5.5.3 Semantics of orientation: the Norwegian system5.5.4 Semantics of orientation: the Quarter-based system5.6 Conclusion6 ConclusionReferencesIndex