Foreign Language Learning
Linguistic purification does not imply limitations or neglect for foreign language learning. Teaching of foreign languages in Iceland is heavily emphasized, and the learning of English and Danish (or another Scandinavian language) in school is compulsory. Danish was taught as Iceland was a dominion of Denmark until 1918 (sharing the king until 1944); studying is still compulsory to maintain ties with Scandinavia. English is learned as the main international language, especially due to the internationalization of the economy of Iceland with the intensive trade and capital flows to and from the outside world. Entering a gymnasium students are also usually required to choose a third foreign language. Traditionally that was either German or French, but in recent years Spanish has also been offered, at least in some gymnasia. Other languages are sometimes added as an option but then usually in the context of choosing a language-heavy study at the cost of an education in the natural sciences. Students in elementary schools who have lived in other Nordic countries or for whatever reason have an understanding at some level of other Scandinavian languages are sometimes offered to continue their study of other Scandinavian languages instead of Danish.
Read more about this topic: Linguistic Purism In Icelandic
Famous quotes containing the words foreign language, foreign, language and/or learning:
“There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“For my name and memory I leave to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)