Can someone please point me to a good, free online course in Icelandic, preferably one along the lines of About.com’s German course? I would be most appreciative if someone helped me out, because I’ve been searching high and low (not really, but close enough for government work) for one, and all I could find were travel dictionaries and phrasebooks. Thanks in advance.
If you like, I can hook you up with some Icelandic speakers. My mom’s family is Icelandic, done the whole geneology thing back to 300-something-AD.
Would it be all that much trouble? I’ll consider it, it sounds like a pretty good idea.
300 AD… Man, that’s pretty far back… My family’s German, both sides, and my family tree only goes back till about 1900…
Why the interest, Brainlego? Have you met an Icelander you want to woo? Do you want to read the sagas in their original tongue?
If you just want to know some Icelandic because you’re going to visit, it’s not necessary. I was in Iceland earlier this month, and almost every Icelander speaks fluent English.
I’d just like to say that this thread title would not be out of place cropping up in an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Thank you. You may now return to your regularly scheduled banana boat.
Hahahahaha! I thought the same thing! 
Ginger
nasty red-haired Icelandic girl
Ooph, I spent years trying to forget Icelandic, and it’s not easy. Consider what you’re getting yourself into 
Seriously though, I’m not sure you’ll find anything. I haven’t been in Iceland for the past year or so, but online learning was extremely sparse then. And no one in their right mind wants to learn Icelandic unless they really have to, so I’m not so sure how many options you have outside of that little rock in the ocean where everyone speaks it.
You could get in touch with “Menntaskólinn á Akureyri”, they had the only online learning program in the country last I knew, but it’s an Icelandic High School. Not sure they cater for furriners.
Incidentally, Iceland was settled around the year 900, so I guess that the Ginger geneology would actually go all the way back to ancient Norway, 600 years earlier. That’s pretty far back, but record keeping and geneology has been the regional past time since… ehm… always
— G. Raven
Yep… back through the royalty all throughout U-rup and lord only knows where else… I haven’t seen an updated copy of the family tree. I would imagine it’s more of a forest now that needs a controlled burn.
Iceland and everything Icelandic has always fascinated me. I’m on a mailing list for Emigration to North America from Iceland - I’ve met some relatives I didn’t know before. When you consider that the descendants of Icelandic emigrants in Ameriku (n. America) outnumbers the population of Iceland, it just boggles the mind. And we’re all NICE. Dammit.
I think the nice ones all left for the US and Canada, that would explain a lot of things about modern Iceland
— G. Raven
I really have little clue as to why I want to learn Icelandic. It just sounds like a good idea to me. Then again, so did playing with matches and spray cologne last summer… My arm hair grew back, BTW.
In all seriousness, though, I want to become a polyglot by the time I graduate high school, and since I’ve already got the basics of German to the point of where all I can do now is review and touch up on the finer points, I’m looking for a new language to start learning. Icelandic came to mind becuase I read several articles about the language, and it’s stability. I find it pretty hard to believe that Old Norse and Icelandic are closer than modern and Elizabethan English…
I’m also kinda bothered that a whole bunch of kids my age in Europe speak at least one other language besides their mother tongues. America needs to get off of it’s butt and implement more foreign language programs in our schools, but that’ll be another thread sometime soon…
It’s an incredibly static language. Words used in the sagas are used today.
It’s also a really hard one to learn. I grew up hearing it spoken - although not in my home, but at relatives’ homes and at reunions and the like.
I now proudly know about 12 words. And don’t ask me to spell them, 'cause my character map is vetoing me this month.
Kryddstelpa
-Morrison’s Lament - do you get what the name means? It’s not accurate, but it’s what my friend Steini calls me.
Yeah, it means “Spice Girl”. I take it you would be “Ginger Spice”
— G. Raven
Yay! Although I didn’t get the name from the Spice Girls. I’ve been using Ginger so long I thought maybe they stole it from me!
Takk
Ginger
Welcome to the boards my fellow cold blooded Icelander, and great sig by the way
— G. Raven
Takk fyrir.
Goda Kvoldid!
You could always set up a correspondence course with the SDMB’s own, personal, Icelandic poster. Of course, most of what you would learn would be non sequiters and leaps of logic (and you would not be permitted to learn any sarcasm).
Hahaha
Sorry to say, Brainlego, that Steini and Helga do not have the time to help. Perhaps Morrison’s Lament is the way to go…
Ginger
See if this page is any help.
Thanks for the help, guys. I found a few sites on my own for basic grammar (declination, sentence structure, etc.), and probably can use the material provided until I scrape up the cash for a textbook. I appreciate the help you guys gave me.