High Icelandic Language Center Images Preface Wordlists Sign or read the Háfrónska guestbook Modern Kennings Links Email Háfrónska What's new? Advanced search
Examples of ultrapurism in other languages
back to wordlists

1) In the 19th century, the Czechs developed their own names for the planets

http://www.curiousnotions.com/home/gazetteer_cze.html

http://www.if.ufrj.br/teaching/astron/days.html

2) Hungarian purist have proposed genuine names for the chemical elements and some have been in use for a while

http://www.kfki.hu/~cheminfo/hun/teazo/gyujt/nyelv2.html (scroll down to the bottom of the page)

http://fotomult.c3.hu/kemia/all.html (genuine Hungarian names of chemical substances that have been in use for a short while.)

3) Word-builders of the Maori language commission of New Zealand created genuine names for the chemical elements and the simple organic compounds

http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/p114_125_m.php

4) Perhaps the most graphic example of ultrapurism occured in Iceland in the 19th century when the Fjölnismen replaced foreign geographical names and even proper names in some articles in the magazine Skírnir

Buernos Aires: Góðviðra

Chili: Bitra

Ecuador: Miðgarðarríki

Peru: Fiskimannaríki

Cairo: Sigurborg

Robert Peel: Hróbjartur Píll

John Russell: Jón hrísill

Nidschib: Níðskeifur

5) The first completely ultrapuristic language: Háfrónska (High Icelandic)

In Háfrónska, the ultrapuristic variant of Modern Icelandic these neologistic excentricities are taken to the utmost extreme. Some argue that the Fjölnismen made this translations for a joke. If that is true, it is odd that words like ‘sléttumannaland’ (Poland) are still to be found in the Íslensk Orðabók. For the speakers of High Icelandic this doesn’t matter. We take the translation of foreign proper names, names of chemicals, countries or whatever very seriously and we hope that differently-minded individuals respect our opinion.

Get Firefox! Get Thunderbird! | - Contact us - Link Exchange - |
| - Site Map - Mailing list - |
Site made by Void-Industries
© 2006 High Icelandic Language centre