REYKJAVIK: Two centuries ago experts predicted that Icelandic would be a dead language by now. But the doomsayers can eat their words: Icelandic is alive and kicking despite an onslaught of English brought on by modern technology.
Currently spoken by the 355,000 inhabitants of this North Atlantic island, Icelandic has repeatedly come under threat through the ages -- following migrations, invasions by Norway and Denmark from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, and the Industrial Revolution. But it has always survived, with the written language little changed since the 11th century.
With just a little guesswork, an Icelander today can read the Icelandic Sagas, medieval literary masterpieces written in Old Norse in the 13th and 14th centuries. Yet English usage has in recent decades skyrocketed in Iceland -- as around the world -- thanks to the dominance of American pop culture as well as the adoption of modern technology such as the internet, YouTube and smartphones with lightning speed.
Visitors to the capital Reykjavik need only ask locals for directions to quickly discover that Iceland is in fact bilingual. For youths here, speaking English is simply a matter of necessity. "I have to be able to read English because it’s everywhere and it’s universal," 11-year-old Sigthor Elias Smith says -- in Icelandic. Here, people watch videos and play games on their laptops, tablets and smartphones in English for the most part.