# Icelandic proverb



## Spectre scolaire

The motto inscribed on Shetland’s coat of arms is *Með lögum skal land byggja*.

The translation seems pretty obvious, “With laws shall land be built”, but this doesn’t correspond to what the motto actually says. There is no passive voice here, _byggja_ being unequivocally active. 

The Germanic Lexicon Project (s.v. byggja) has: 



> the proverb, með lögum skal land byggja, _with laws shall man build land_, i.e. _law builds_ (makes) _lands and home;_ and some add, en með ólögum eyða; eyða _(to lay waste)_ and byggja are thus opposed to one another


 Fair enough, but I still don’t understand the syntax: “with laws shall _man_[*?*] build”. Is “man” the subject of the phrase? 

The longer version of the proverb adds *en með ólögum eyða*, _ólag_ being “non-law”, i.e. “disorder, chaos”. Again, the verb _eyða_ is put in the active voice. 

Is there a logic here that I don’t see? To me this is an _anacoluthon_, “syntactical inconsistency or incoherence within a sentence” (Webster). I’d expect – following my rudimentary Icelandic – _byggjast_ and _eyðast_, respectively. 
 ​


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## aaspraak

For what it's worth, in Norwegian we usually say "med lov skal land byggjast, og ikkje med ulov øydast". 

From Norwegian wikipedia (nynorsk and bokmål) I find that it is a quote from _frostatingslova_, an old Norwegian law. I don't know if the original has the same wording. The proverb might be a modernized version.


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## Jónurin

The Faroese is: "við lóg skal land byggjast"

This is posted in the category "Icelandic", but are you sure that's what we're talking about here? Isn't it the Norse that was spoken in Scotland?


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## Jónurin

I think the language we're talking about is called "norn", which was spoken in Shetland and the Orkneys little more than a hundred years ago. What a pity that it's now extinct, because according to wikipedia, I would have understood the language:

quote:
Norn is generally considered to have been fairly similar to Faroese, sharing many phonological and grammatical traits with this language, and might even have been mutually intelligible with it.
Few written texts remain but it is accepted to have a common root with Faroese or the Vestnorsk dialects of Norway. It is to be distinguished from the present day 'dialect', termed by linguists Shetlandic.


Here is an example of the similarity (a riddle):

Norn:
Fira honga, fira gonga, Fira staad upo "skø" Twa veestra vaig a bee And een comes atta driljandi. (pay attention to the English loan words "and" and "comes")

Faroese:
Fýra hanga, fýra ganga, Fýra standa uppí ský Tvey vísa veg á bø Og eitt darlar aftast 

English translation:
Four hang, four walk, Four stand skyward, Two show the way to the field And one comes shaking behind


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## Spectre scolaire

_aaspraak_ has now provided the _Nynorsk_ version of the ‘proverb’ (or whatever), and _Jónurin_ the Faroese one. In both languages – I am pleased to observe! - the passive ending -*st* is _de rigueur_. 

I am aware of *Norn*. Unfortunately, the language is extinct, and even more unfortunately, it never had the chance of reaching the curiosity of a linguist. _Jónurin_ refers to Wikipedia which states that:



> [Norn] is accepted to have a common root with Faroese or the Vestnorsk dialects of Norway.


 Serendipitously, _Jónurin_ being from the Faroe Islands and _Aaspraak_ from Bergen, we can’t be better off!  

I happened to see Shetland’s coat of arms in a flag book, and I got curious about the motto which I was only able to read properly when looking it up in Wikipedia. When calling the motto a ‘proverb’ (in my previous post) I was just referring to the quoted _Germanic Lexicon Project_. 

Is it possible that --



aaspraak said:


> The proverb might be a modernized version.


 –- meaning (presumably) that it could have a wrong wording?!

The motto on the British royal arms, *Dieu et mon droit*, “God and my right”, is French and not understandable to most ‘subjects of the Queen’ today. *Með lögum skal land byggja* is (supposed to be[?]) Norn and incomprehensible to contemporary Shetlanders. Both mottos reflect an earlier _language situation_ (whether spoken tongue or prestige language).

Did they skip the passive ending -*st* on Shetland’s coat of arms – whenever this was made - because it was “gibberish” in any case? Or is it conceivable that there never was such an ending in Norn? In the latter case, how come that both Faroese and Nynorsk have got it? 
 ​


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## Jónurin

In Faroese the ending "-ast" is normally used when the verb is passive, but I found something in the dictionary:

teir lótu *byggja* ein feigan knørr
they let *be built* a feigan* battle ship (direct translation)

What this means is they built the battle ship, but "byggja" is here in passive form, if I'm correct. You wouldn't use "byggjast" here, I'm not sure why, but it would just sound wrong.

*feigan - in this context: soon going to be destroyed (masculine accussative form)


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## Jónurin

I can ask someone who knows their grammar


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## Jónurin

When you say that the language norn never reached the curiosity of a linguist, is that entirely true? Jakob Jakobsen from the Faroes did some research just before the language dissappeared:

Wikipedia:


> Dr. Jakob Jakobsen is a key figure in Shetland's Culture.
> As John J. Graham writes in his preface to the 2nd edition, his "Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland is the unrivalled source-book of information on the origins and usage of the Shetland tongue. Based on Jakobsen's fieldwork in Shetland during 1893-95 it first appeared in Danish in four volumes between 1908 and 1921, and was subsequently published in English in two volumes, 1928 and 1932. The Dictionary has established itself internationally as a major work of scholarship in Scandinavian philology." In 1985 The Shetland Folk Society, of which Graham was President at the time, succeeded in finding funds to reprint the two volume English edition in facsimile.


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## Spectre scolaire

Jónurin said:


> I found something in the dictionary:
> 
> teir *lótu* *byggja* ein feigan knørr
> they let *be built* *let build* a feigan battle ship (direct literal translation)
> 
> What this means is they built the battle ship, but "byggja" is here in passive form, if I'm correct.[-not really!] You wouldn't use "byggjast" here, I'm not sure why, but it would just sound wrong.


 I would call the words in green a “_causative_ construction” which in Faroese (as in English!) is made with the help of the verb of which we here see an ablaut form in 3rd pers. plural, I guess. I don’t know what the infinitive form would be in your language, probably something like [Icelandic] _l__áta_. It has nothing to do with passive. 

I am sorry, I didn’t give due credt to Jakob Jakobsen. I did read the article in Wikipedia, but I missed this booK from 1897: _Det norrøne sprog på Shetland_ (mentioned in the _Norwegian_ Wikipedia). This man (who was commemorated on a stamp from 1980) must be quite famous in _Føroyar_.

In fact, I was really wondering from where Jakobsen got all the material for his apparently extensive writings on Norn. The language became extinct long before he was born!
 ​


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## aaspraak

_F__rostatingslova_ was written in the 1200s. The language in Norway has changed a lot after that time, so I don't know if "med lov skal land byggjast" is the original wording.

I'd guess that it is close to the orginal, if the proverb has been in common use since that time.


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## Jónurin

> It has nothing to do with passive.


 
Oops, sorry about that, I'm sure you're the language expert here.



> I don’t know what it would be in present tense in your language, probably something like [Icelandic] _l__áta_.


 
almost correct, it's _lata _[læta].



> I am sorry, I didn’t give due credt to Jakob Jakobsen. I did read the article in Wikipedia, but I missed this booK from 1897: _Det norrøne sprog på Shetland_ (mentioned in the _Norwegian_ Wikipedia). This man (who was commemorated on a stamp from 1980) must be quite famous in _Føroyar_.


 
Yes, he was one of the key figures when it comes to preservation of the Faroese language, right next to V. U. Hammershaimb. Both of them came up with their own suggestions about how Faroese was to be written. Hammershaimb took an approach that was very much like Old Norse and Icelandic. He had in mind the advantage that we would be able to read Icelandic and Norse with ease. Jakobsen, on the other hand, thought it was most reasonable to be as close to pronounciation as possible. These two suggsetions were fiercely debated, I think during the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, but eventually, Hammershaimb won the battle. I'm not sure when this happened officially. This means that today, we can read Icelandic and understand most of it and vice-versa. Jakobsen's near-pronounciation approach didn't really work anyway, because it didn't represent all the dialects.
One of the funny things about Hammershaimb is that he introduced the _ð_ to written Faroese, although there is no [th-] sound like in Icelandic.



> In fact, I was really wondering from where Jakobsen got all the material for his apparently extensive writings on Norn. The language became extinct before he was born!


 
I don't know, this is what wikipedia says:



> During his fieldwork in the isles, *he interviewed a large number of Shetlandic speakers and scholars ...*.


 
I don't think _Shetlandic_ is the same as _Norn_, but as far as I know Shetlandic is English with features from Norn.


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## DelHielo

This is interesting, I didn´t know they used "Með lögum skal land byggja" in Shetland. This is exactly how we still write it in Icelandic, and it´s the motto of the Icelandic police force. I guess it´s a good example of how relatively little has changed in the Icelandic language from Old Norse.

The verb "skulu" is an interesting one, since it doesn´t have an infinitive, or at least a very strange one, ending in 'u'. "munu"  is the only other Icelandic verb in that category of auxiliary verbs.


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## missTK

I would guess that perhaps they found the Icelandic form and just used that, reasoning that it was close to Old Norse. The coat of arms seems to have been granted in 1975, so long after Norn is supposed to be extinct.

Is the passive without -st normal in Icelandic, or is this some sort of special archaic case?


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## DelHielo

This is not passive in Icelandic. I don´t know the grammatical term, but I think this is an active with the subject ("man") omitted, and not at all necessary. I think it´s the auxiliary verb that allows it, though I´m not sure.

What you have been talking about here is not the passive in Icelandic, it's the *middle voice* or* reflexive*, i believe it´s called. It is formed with -st.  It would be grammatically correct to say "Með lögum skal land byggjast" like the phrase is translated into Faroese/Norwegian/more languages, but that deprives it of the active element, since the middle voice is used  when someone/something does something to themselves, like "kyssast" is kiss (each other, like in German "sich küssen"). That would mean that the country would use law to build itself, but not be built by men using law, like the original phrase.

I don´t know if this makes any sense to anyone...!

(p.s. why does the spell checker deny the word Faroese?)


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## Spectre scolaire

DelHielo said:


> What you have been talking about here is not the passive in Icelandic, it's the *middle voice* or* reflexive*, i believe it´s called.


 This is not surprising, although I didn’t know that _middle voice_ is considered to be a grammatical category in Icelandic. In fact, your countryman Kjartan G. Ottóson has written a PhD (Lund University 1992) with the title The Icelandic middle voice : the morphological and phonological development. Unfortunately, no synopsis seems to be available on the web. 

I am familiar with the _middle voice_ in Greek. Morphologically, _medium_ and _passive_ have partly blended throughout the history of the Greek language, and in _Modern_ Greek, _medium_ is more of a semantic category than a morphological one. Some verbs even have _medium_ form and _active_ meaning. 

What is troubling me is the fact that the motto on our Shetland coat of arms has got no _medium_ marker in the verb. Everybody seems to agree that the ending –*st* is needed. I would find it surprising if Icelandic _medium_ can be expressed with _active_ morphology, a sort of “*Ø *[= zero!] morpheme”.

I wonder if _Albanian medium_ has broken down morphologically to end up as an _active_ form – I would have to consult my ”linguistic curiosities archives” on this point  and it is not next to me for the time being. Is it conceivable that *Norn* has suffered such a fate? 

Við sjáumst! 
 ​


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## Sepia

I don't know what came first, but one thing is sure: This motto is the first sentence in the prefix of the Jutland Law (Jydske Lov), dated 1241, which was passed by the Danish King Valdemar - since Iceland belonged to Denmark for a long time and the law was probably valid there as it was in all of Denmark, I see a close connection. The same goes for Norway. This law book is one of the oldest known civil laws regulating trade, private matters, is still valid where parts of it have not been substituted with more modern laws and has even had a significant influence on the German civil code, the Bürgerliches GesetzBuch (BGB).

The motto normally translates into modern Danish with "Med lov skal land bygges".

Here the verb "bygges" is the passive modus of "bygge" to build.

So in English I see the following options:

With law one should build a state (Land is obviously not the area, but the state)
With law a state should be build
with laws shall _man_[*?*] build a state (as suggested up thread, however, the subject "man" is more or less just a substitute for the missing possibility of converting to the verb itself into passive modus; this is still possible in modern Danish.)

You also see this motto on signs in Danish court buildings.


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