| The Iceland Guide | ||
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Books by David Williams |
The land and the people The Icelanders: Changes in the modern world This was the way of life shared by the majority of Icelanders until the beginning of this century. Since then industrialisation, the explosive growth of the capital city, Reykjavík, and increased contact and trading with the outside world have revolutionised the Icelanders' lives. At the same time they have retained an exceptionally strong sense of their history and heritage. This is not an easy combination — how could it be? — and tensions arise from the conflict between traditional values and the Western attitudes and materialism that prosperity and exposure to US and European markets have brought. This is perhaps best exemplified in the deep anxiety with which many Icelanders view the debasement of the language (as they perceive it) by contact with the West. This is a genuine concern — their language is arguably the Icelanders' greatest heritage, and unlike painting or sculpture it is a living thing; it cannot be put behind glass or preserved in museums. Care is therefore taken to ensure that new words with an Icelandic linguistic basis are coined for new technology to prevent the adoption of foreign expressions in their stead. Thus the computer is tölva (number prophetess), the telephone is sími (long thread) and television is sjónvarp (view casting). A law has also been passed forbidding parents to give their children non–Icelandic names. The Icelanders have a history of hard work — they have had to — and today it is still not unusual for a man to have two jobs at once, especially during the summer. The material gains of the last few decades are particularly important to the people, and considerable sums are spent building houses and equipping them with all the latest gadgetry which, thanks to recent levels of inflation, may cost two or three times as much as in other Western countries. |
What`s in the website ? The land and the people History |