A Language of Fire and Ice Trivia Quiz

Answer: Old Norse

Old Norse was a North Germanic language spoken in Scandinavia from the 8th century to the late 14th century - a historical period that is commonly referred to as the Viking Age. The Norse (also known as Vikings, a word of unclear etymology) brought their language to their overseas settlements, which included Iceland. Old Norse had three main dialects (Old West Norse, Old East Norse, and Old Gutnish), which eventually evolved into the modern North Germanic languages. Old Icelandic ("íslenska") and its close relative, Old Norwegian, formed the Old West Norse branch: besides Norway and Iceland, they were spoken in the Faroe Islands, Norse settlements in Greenland, parts of Ireland, Scotland and northwest England.

Though often depicted as marauding barbarians, the Vikings were skilled seafarers and traders, and established many important settlements not only in Northern and Western Europe, but also as far as Russia. Not surprisingly, in the 11th century Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language.

Answer: Faroese

Like Icelandic and Norwegian, Faroese ("fřroyskt") evolved from Old West Norse, one of the three main dialects of Old Norse. The language was brought to the islands - which lie in the North Atlantic Ocean between Scotland and Iceland, and are part of the Kingdom of Denmark - by settlers from the Scandinavian mainland. It is now spoken by about 69,000 people, two-thirds of whom reside in the archipelago; most of these speak it as a first language. Recognized as a minority language in Denmark, Faroese is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of World Languages in Danger.

Though closely related, Icelandic and Faroese are mutually intelligible only in their written forms. On the other hand, Icelandic is not mutually intelligible with any of the mainland Scandinavian languages, which have diverged more sharply from their common Old Norse ancestor. Two of the five languages derived from Old West Norse, Norn (spoken in the Northern Isles off the coast of Scotland) and Greenlandic Norse, are extinct.

The three languages listed as wrong answers all belong to the West Germanic branch: Cimbrian is a variety of Bavarian spoken in north-eastern Italy, Frisian is English's closest relative, and Yiddish is the historic language of the Ashkenazi Jews.

Answer: Poetic Edda

Iceland was settled in the second half of the 9th century by Norse people (mainly from Norway), who brought their own dialect of Old Norse to the island. However, no written records are left of the development of that dialect into Old Icelandic, as the oldest surviving texts in that language - two works about Iceland's early history known as "Islendigabók" and "Landnámabok" - were written around 1100, over 200 years after the island's initial settlement. The best-known texts in Old Icelandic are the sagas - family sagas such as "Egil's Saga", kings' sagas such as the "Heimskringla" (attributed to Snorri Sturluson, the author of the Prose Edda), and legendary sagas such as the "Völsunga Saga" (the source of the German poem "Nibelungenlied").

The Poetic Edda is a collection of untitled poems written in alliterative verse and based on oral tradition. The most significant version, found in the "Codex Regius", an Icelandic manuscript believed to have been written in the 1270s, contains 31 poems - 11 of which are mythological in content. The most famous of these poems is the "Völuspá" (The Prophecy of the Seeress), which details the creation of the world, its end (Ragnarök) and subsequent rebirth.

Though Icelandic sagas were written hundreds of years ago, the written language has changed very little since then, so that they can be read by modern Icelandic speakers without too much effort.

Answer: Thorn and edh

Thorn ("ţ") is the 30th letter in the Icelandic alphabet, and is not used in any other living language. Derived from the runic alphabet used by Germanic peoples in late antiquity, it represents the sound of "th" in the English word "think". It remained in use for most of the Middle English period until the advent of movable type printing. On the other hand, edh ("đ") - the fifth letter in the Icelandic alphabet - also occurs in Faroese and Elfdalian (a North Germanic language spoken in Sweden). Unlike thorn, it has no runic origin, but is a modification of the Roman letter "d". It represents the sound of "th" in the English word "this".

The vowel "ć" was called "ćsc" (ash tree) in Old English, and corresponded to the sound of "a" (by which it was eventually replaced) in "cat". It is not exclusive to Icelandic, as it also appears in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, while in Swedish it has been replaced by "ä".

The pairs of letters listed as wrong answers occur in the Greek (theta and psi), Hebrew (tsadi and zayin) and Russian (tse and kha) alphabets.

Answer: True

While many of the world's language families (such as the Turkic and Uralic languages) have no grammatical gender at all, many members of the Indo-European family retain a three-gender system. While modern English has lost nearly all gender marking, Icelandic is one of the few Germanic languages that have retained a three-gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) system. As in German, sometimes the gender of a noun can be inferred from its ending: for instance, nouns ending in "-ur" are often masculine (as in "hestur", horse), those ending in "-a" are usually feminine (as in "kona", woman), and those with no ending are neuter (as in "hús", house). This, however, is not a hard-and-fast rule, and learners of Icelandic will need to memorize each noun's gender.

Of the other North Germanic languages, Faroese also has three grammatical genders, as do most Norwegian dialects. On the other hand, Swedish and Danish have a two-gender system (common and neuter).

Answer: Genitive

While the oldest Germanic languages were highly inflected and had four (or occasionally five) grammatical cases, most modern languages belonging to that branch of the Indo-European family have largely lost their case systems. German and Icelandic are notable exceptions: of these two, Icelandic is the most conservative, as it marks case in nouns, adjectives, articles and personal names, much as Ancient Greek and Latin did. These cases are the nominative (the reference form of a noun, marking the subject of a verb), the genitive (indicating an attributive relationship, often a possessive one), the dative (marking the indirect object of a verb) and the accusative (marking the direct object of a verb).

The possessive structure "apostrophe + s" in English is also known as Saxon genitive, as it is directly derived from Old English. In Icelandic, the genitive case is often expressed by an "-s" ending, although the word order is different from the one used in English for the possessive case - "hjarta ljóns", with the noun in the genitive case following the noun it modifies, as in "the heart of a lion" rather than "lion's heart".

Answer: Electricity

The vocabulary of modern Icelandic is for the most part derived from Old Norse, and contains fewer loanwords than other Germanic languages. Most of those loanwords, such as those related to Christianity or commerce, entered Icelandic in the Middle Ages - some taken from Latin or Greek, others from German, Danish, or even French. However, when the influence of English on European languages became widespread after the end of WWII, the impact on Icelandic was much less significant. While other languages (including those spoken in mainland Scandinavia and nearby Finland) have accepted relatively large numbers of English words into their vocabulary, the common practice in Icelandic is coining neologisms (new words) from preexisting materials.

"Rafmagn" is a calque (loan translation) of "electricity", which comes from "élektron", the Ancient Greek word for amber. The Icelandic word consists of two words of Old Norse origin, "raf" (amber) and "magn" (power, related to English "might"). Other examples of modern Icelandic coinages are "sjónvarp" (television, literally "vision projection") and "bifreiđ" (automobile, literally "moving chariot").

Answer: Patronymic

Hereditary surnames (also known as family names) such as the ones used in most Western countries are a relatively recent introduction, as in the Middle Ages it was common for people to have a patronymic surname - that is, derived from their father's given name. In English, common family names ending in "-son" (Johnson, Harrison) or "-s" (Andrews. Evans) are patronymic, as are surnames of Celtic origin like MacDonald or O'Connor.

Until the late 19th century, mainland Scandinavian countries also used patronymic surnames rather than hereditary family names: in fact, many of the family names occurring in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (such as Eriksson or Jensen) are originally patronymics. However, Icelandic is the only country in the Western world that does not use hereditary family names (or does so only in particular circumstances). To form an Icelandic patronymic or matronymic surname, the suffixes "-son" or "-dóttir" (daughter) are added to the first name of a person's father or mother in the genitive case. Famous Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk's surname is Guđmundsdóttir, meaning "daughter of Guđmundur".

All the words listed as wrong answers are also derived from "pater", the Latin word for father.

Answer: Eider

Modern English vocabulary contains quite a few words of Old Norse origin (many of them beginning with "sk-", such as sky and skin), as well as a number of loanwords from modern Scandinavian languages. As one can imagine, words borrowed from Icelandic are few and far between - the most notable of them being "geyser", an intermittent hot water spring. The word comes from "geysir" ("one who gushes"), which originally was an Icelandic place name.

Eiders are large sea ducks (genus Somateria) commonly found in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Their generic name, meaning "woolly body", refers to their thick, soft down, used as filling for expensive bedding or jackets. The English word comes from "ćđur", the Icelandic name of these birds. Another animal name of Icelandic origin is "narwhal" (from "nahrválur"), a toothed whale with a long, spiralling tusk found in Arctic waters.

Answer: Manitoba

An act passed by the Parliament of Iceland in 2011 has made Icelandic the "national language of the Icelandic people and the official language in Iceland", spoken by around 300,000 people on the island. Another estimated 15,000 Icelandic speakers are found elsewhere - notably in Denmark, the US and Canada. In particular, the central Canadian province of Manitoba is home to the largest Icelandic population outside Iceland (about 25,000 people), though not all of them speak Icelandic as a first language.

The region of Manitoba known as New Iceland, located on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg, was founded in 1875 by Icelandic settlers who had left their home country because of difficult environmental and economic conditions. The core of the region is the community of Gimli, about 80 km (50 mi) north of Winnipeg, which maintains a strong connection to Iceland and its culture. An Icelandic Festival has been celebrated in Manitoba since 1890: it has been held in Gimli on the first weekend of August since 1932.

The name Gimli comes from Norse mythology, and is believed to mean "place protected from fire" - referring to a beautiful, golden-roofed hall where the survivors of Ragnarök (the end of the world) will live. J.R.R. Tolkien named one of the characters in "The Lord of the Rings" after this mythical place.