Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/High Icelandic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. Rx StrangeLove 06:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] High Icelandic

This seems a vanity page. On a question for references on the talk page: no answer. More then 10 languange wiki were flooded around the same time by a few Belgian IP's with the same (translated) article. On nl-wiki, Sockpuppets were created to try preventing deletion (see Talk:High_Icelandic#Vanity_Page). Seems someone is trying to use internet and wikipedia to make their hobby-project known to the world LimoWreck 10:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep. It is true that this article and the subject of the article are mostly (but not solely) the work of a single Belgian. However, that does not qualify it for deletion. Neither does any action that the author has taken on other wikis. The fact is that High Icelandic qualifies for a wikipedia article as the subject is notable and the article is balanced and well written. On the issue of notability and references you can for example see the newsgroup is.islenska [1] where the subject Háfrónska (High Icelandic in High Icelandic) and High Icelandic have dosens of posts. Stefán Ingi 12:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. The Háfrónska movement is being watched with some interest in Iceland and many of the words they create are very interesting and would do well to replace older borrowed words. The head of the movement is a notable Icelandic priest, known for his creative use of language himself and for creating words (known as pétríska). That Braekmans seems to behave irrationally at times and not corteously shouldn't deter from the actual content of the articles, once it has been cleaned up to remove obvious bias. --Stalfur 16:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Abstain. Before simply voting, we should notice a few oddities about all this.
    • First of all, in a relatively short period of time, articles have been added to the wikipedia versions in over twenty languages, all by the same person, or at least by the same small group of people.
      Yes, in all probability most (all?) of these articles have been written by Mr. Braekmans. That is not a ground for deletion. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • All these people, mostly anonymous IPs but also a few registered users (in all probability, sockpuppets), are from the same part of Belgium. Despite the fact that he/she/it/they call themself Icelandic hyperpurists, he/she/it/they seem to be able to communicate in any language except Icelandic. See is:Talk:Háfrónska and da:Diskussion:Háfrónska.
      Yes it is doubtful that Mr. Braekmans speaks Icelandic. On the other hand he knows a lot about Icelandic words and their etymology and also about the history of the movement in Iceland to create new Icelandic words instead of borrowing foreign words. Of course he has taken this to a ridiculus extreme with the creation of High Icelandic and that is the impression that the article gives, of course without the use of such loaded words. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • All this creates a quite strong impression of a campaign, no, a propaganda offensive, in which several unacceptable methods are being used.
      Yes, many of his actions stink of propoganda, including his insistance to place a link to High Icelandic in the article on the Icelandic language. Still, that does not say that we should delete this article. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • The vast majority of messages to the Usernet group in question seems to have been written by the creator of Háfrónska himself. Quote: "A loan-word in Icelandic sucks. every Icelander who accepts a loan-word in his language is a coprophiliac. He likes to swallow shit. It is about time that this is going to end. [...] Every Icelander shold stay in a camp for half a year when he is eighteen, he has to wear a device. When he pronounces a loan-word, he shouls get an electro-shock." This is not exactly in line with the moderate language used on the language's homepage.
      Mr. Braekmans has repeatedly shown himself to be capable of writing very different style of text and some of his writings can be considered inappropriate. But the text in the article is appropriate and even acknowledges that Mr. Braekmans has made himself unpopular in several places with his work. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • One question I've asked at several occasions: who is the creator of this language. Well, let's look at the following apology he wrote for the words quoted above: "I came home early in the morning and I was under severe influence of drugs and alcohol, I head-banged all night on black metal music and I was extremely frustrated and foamed of anger." This gives me the impression that Mr. Braekmans is an angry teenager rather than a mature, professional linguist.
    • Yet, it has to be admitted that some of the arguments used by the supporter(s) do make sense. Indeed, there has been a TV programme about it, and the language seems to have been written about in the Icelandic press.
      This is the main point I am making, despite anything, Mr. Braekmans has managed to make High Icelandic noteable and therefore the article should be kept. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • The supporter(s) of the language claim(s) that the language is véry well-known in Iceland, and that there are lóts of people over there who support it. If so, why are there so little Icelanders involved in these articles, and in the discussion about them? Note that even the article on wikipedia.is about this so-called "President of the High Icelandic Language Association", Pétur Þorsteinsson, was entered from a Belgian IP.
      It is an overstatement to say that the "language" is very vell known, but it is known. The Icelandic wikipedia is small and therefore it is not surprising that nobody other than Mr. Braekmans has written the article on Pétur Þorsteinsson but he is infact a minister in an independent congregation in Iceland which has official status. See [2], Óháði söfnuðurinn in the top right column. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • All in all, I don't have the faintest idea what we are dealing with. It could very well be a case of six bored teenagers: one Belgian who together with his Icelandic pen-friend created a list of Icelandic loanwords, substituted them with native equivalents, and subsequently started pushing it all over the Internet. Gosh, I could do something similar for Dutch in two days! And who knows, perhaps suddenly somebody will turn up and say: "There, you see how easy it is to stuff Wikipedia with nonsense?" But on the other hand, perhaps we are dealing with a phenomenon that is notable indeed. Who knows? I'd like to hear some input from Icelandic wikipedians before issuing a vote. —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 12:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
      Yes if somebody were to do something like this and two days later write a wikipedia article about this then that article should be deleted as non notable. But since High Icelandic has been discussed both in print and TV media in Iceland it has become notable and therefore should be kept. This is my personal opinion as an Icelandic wikipedian. Stefán Ingi 16:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete original research and non-notable. Articles like these belittle the authenticity of Wikipedia. --OscarTheCattalk 13:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as original research. --Terence Ong 14:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • No vote yet. On something like this, I'd defer to the judgment of Icelanders: is this movement of any note in Iceland? (Though I understand the poet caps are quite fashionable.) Perhaps we should get reactions from Icelandic speaking Wikipedians on this. Smerdis of Tlön 15:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • I left a message on their article's talk page and their village pump... Hopefully we get some insights from the Icelandic wiki community. But beware of sockpuppets !!! (although it seems the authors can't speak icelandic themselves, on the Dutch wiki there were two newly registered users making us believe they were neutral people who tried to show us how important the subject must be) --LimoWreck 15:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm an icelandic wikipedian and personally voted for keep. It is a very interesting linguistic movement and one which icelandic linguistics have noticed, many judge it to be irrational (such as translating every name in the world) but they do admit that it contains various gold nuggets which in time might find their way into the language. That the original creator of the language is doing his best to push it forward into the limelight shouldn't be seen as deterring, the articles should be cleaned up (as was done on the icelandic entry) to remove obvious bias on his behalf (and we even had to remove several later of his edits) but the overall impression of Háfrónska is interesting and we will be keeping it. Icelanders care a lot about their language and we have committees who do wordsmithing as we are loathe to copy words from other languages (even if it does happen). --Stalfur 16:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • I'd like to add to this that there is no such thing as a "High Icelandic movement" this is the creation of one man and a couple of his online mates in Iceland. (The poet cap does not exist outside the computer generated image.) --Sindri 18:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Weak keep in that case. <sneer> "Activists" </sneer> pose a difficult metaphysical issue. It is possible to impose yourself on public notice by vigorous self-promotion. It seems that otherwise disinterested people in Iceland itself have taken some notice of the armor on the vital egg, and that's enough to make this no longer pure self-promotion. (FWIW, my tongue was firmly in cheek about the poet caps.) - Smerdis of Tlön 21:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • They may be crazies, but if they're notable crazies I'd have to vote Keep. However, it seems like if they were notable they'd have been discussed in the CONLANG group, and a search of those archives found nothing. So, I'm lead to conclude that not only are they jerks, they're nobodies, and can vote Delete with a clear conscience.DenisMoskowitz 15:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
If they're notable crazies, then we should keep the page and ensure it shows them as crazies, a little like the Flat Earth Society page. --OscarTheCattalk 15:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm changing my vote to Weak Keep - based on the arguments of Stefán Ingi and Stalfur, it's looking more and more like these are notable crazies. The Icelandic TV interview may satisfy point 1 of WP:WEB. I know it's tempting to punish them for writing about themselves, but perhaps a better "punishment" would be to make the article as NPOV as we can, possibly removing crufty details such as some of the examples or the large pictures. DenisMoskowitz 16:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Dear People,

I am the neologistic skáld Timbur-Helgi Hermannsson. I have indeed 'dumped' 8 articles at once on various wikipedias. I wanted to have a small version on other wikis. That has been interpreted as using wikipedia for the spread of ideas. And I can understand this argument. Many accuse me of fascism and manipulation. I am not like that at all. Read the preface of the High Icelandic language centre.
The truth about High Icelandic is that I work 14 hours a day (with Icelanders like Pétur Þorsteinsson, the president and many others) on creating killer-neologisms and I have a lot of Icelanders who support me in my neologistic endeavours. The hreintunguþingið, a forum for Icelandic language purist will come on line next month in order to speed up neologistic endaevours and the development of High Icelandic as a solid language variant
There has been an article in the newspaper DV in the early nineties (written by Sigurður Hreiðar). Ari Páll Kristinsson, a former linguistic advisor of the Icelandic broadcast service wrote a column in Tunguatak (1996?), a paper about Icelandic language use. I have done 2 radiointerviews in the late nineties, the first time with Ásgeir Eggertsson, who has been working for the, I don't remember the name, it was "Tölvuverkfræðiþjónustan", I visited the building of the Icelandic language commission at Aragata, Reykjavík twice in the 90's and had a chat with Baldur Jónsson, the president of the commission. But these records can't be found on the net. This was long before Háfrónska.
I choose the name High Icelandic in 2003, because it is the most logical name for a purer form of Icelandic (think of High Norwegian (høgnorsk) the most conservative form of Norwegian, or Tolkiens High Elfish (Sindarin).
The pictures are important because High Icelandic is also a subculture, the nýyrðaskáldshúfa, Fjallbarnið (I added the webpage of the Mountain child as a link on the English wiki page. It is under construction. It showes that High Icelandic is more than a language variant, it presented as kind of life-style, a fashion and art.
A lot of Icelanders do like my project and many Scandinavists in the world love studying the word-list.
Two Ductch wikipedians Mig de Jong and Bessel Dekker have pushed other people to remove the article based on their own aversion of the phenomenon. Mig de Jong has send a message to other wikipedias to influence the people to delete the page. Before it was decided whether or not the page should be deleted.
Will you please stop accusing people? Nobody is "pushing" anyone, and the claim that Mig de Jong and Bessel Dekker act out of some kind of aversion against this phenomenon is merely your speculation. If you say that others try to influence voters, you're doing exactly the same thing with your statements - it's called 'discussion'. Xyboi 19:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I ask here is: listen to the facts and make an objective, neutral judgement. Mig de Jong and Bessel Decker are pushing aside evidence (like the TV program) and the statement of Icelanders on this discussion that High ICelandic is a known phenomenon in Iceland along with reference value of the work with regard to etymology, neologistic work. Maximiliaan

For your information. The user signing with Maximiliaan is the same one as the one calling himself Timbur-Helgi Hermannsson. [3] Good thing that's clear, because on the nl-wiki, it was a registered user, and it's clearly a sockpuppet now.... --81.11.185.4 21:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't remember my log in, so Ihad to change it into Maxximiliaan And you knew from the start that it was me, you'd just had to ask. Furthermore, it is competely normal that I defend the project. Maximiliaan

Right, not having 5 logins would be easier to remember. Please read Wikipedia:Vanity_page. It's not up to you to write about your own invention, nor to fake other users writing it... --81.11.185.4 21:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
It is not completely my own invention. I compiled neologisms that have become obsolete during the last 200 years. This is almost 40% of the vocabulary. My contribution to the whole thing is maybe just 20% of all 12000 neologisms of the High Icelandic word-database. I just made a compilation of words that have existed, work of other neologists (sources added) and words created by myself during the last 15 years. When you add the pure part of the ICelandic vocabulary to these words it is called High Icelandic. So it is a compilation project based on the work of many people and has a high value as a neologistic reference work. It is noticed in Icelandic to an extent significantly enough to deserve a wikipedia entry. Maximiliaan
  • Improve Verifiability or Delete. The five links shown in External Links section are very poor sources. Without me knowing anything about this subject before the AfD, after reading all the relevant material it appears to be a somewhat notable movement. I can't tell how notable this is until good sources are provided. Cdcon 19:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The sources are mostly in Icelandic. I can vouch for them being "proper". Djöflaeyjan.com is a known webzine and Ísland í dag is a national TV shown without fee on the largest pay-per-view channel Stöð 2. --Stalfur 22:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
This policy indicates that you should include English-language sources whenever possible, as this is an English site. I can't read the Icelandic sources, but according to the policy, I don't necessarily have to take them into account when making my argument.  Cdcon  23:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as per user Stalfur. Icelandic Wikipedians of good standing have verified that this movement exists and is notable. Capitalistroadster 22:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Stalfur and Stefan Ingi.Staffelde 01:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete "I work on creating killer neologisms" - doesn't get much more incriminating than that. Denni ☯ 04:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"Killer neologism" is a term used in the following sense: It is almost impossible to create a neologism of such a quality that it will uproot an inveterate loan-word. This is called 'the blocking principle'. It is hard to break habits, especially in the spoken language. A killer neologism is a neologism of such a quality that it can break this habit. I was told about this term by some of the Icelandic neologists I'm in touch with. I don't think it can be found in terminology lists. But it expresses the phenomenon well. Timbur-Helgi Hermannsson

  • Delete article and all associated images, non-notable neologistic vanity. Angr/talk 12:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, the subject is notable as is evidenced by the media coverage in Iceland and the fact that this project has been adopted by notable personalities besides Braekmans. The English and Icelandic versions of this article give a fair and balanced view of the project as there are people who can counter the obviously biased contributions from mr. Braekmans. I would not be surprised to find the articles in the other languages in a rather poor shape but that does not detract from the quality of this one. --Bjarki 14:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per the Icelanders above. —Nightstallion (?) 15:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Bjarki. A borderline case, to be sure, but I'd say the Icelandic media coverage is just sufficient to merit an article on the topic. Haukur 16:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete this is one mans hobby and obsession, it is as irrelevant as my plastic model building hobby. --Sindri 17:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. After long deliberation. The discussions of the last few days have given me a rather strong antipathy against the creator of the language and his numerous sockpuppets. However, Icelandic media coverage and the like... Since our resident Icelanders quite unanimously confirm that it is a notable phenomenon, I'll rely on them. I dó believe the most propagandistic elements need to be removed from the article. —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 23:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep per majority of local Icelanders . Delete the stupid pictures please. Pavel Vozenilek 00:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Btw, the version on Czech Wiki is literally translated English version (including the pics). (Who got interested in translation there is beyond me.) Pavel Vozenilek 00:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree on the pictures, we really don't need to display 4 propaganda images. I say pick one and delete the rest. --Bjarki 21:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. This is a subject that has already been discussed in the Icelandic media, and therefore is not original research. Wiwaxia 09:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Well the discussion in the Icelandic media is not the source for this article so it doesn't realy make this not original research. (AFAIK the Icelandic media used wikipedia as its source)--Sindri 13:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The article on the Icelandic and English wikipedia was already accepted by Icelandic wikipdians at that time. May I remind you that the original stub on the ICelandic wikipedia was written by an Icelander, not by myself. Maximiliaan.
  • Keep. There is no reason to delete this. However, I suggest that Jozef Braekmans be barred from further editing of this page, whereas he is unable of taking a neutral stance with regards to this page - he will continue to edit and improve on this page indefinatly if allowed to do so. Likewise, this page should be cleaned up and made more verifiable. In this case verifiability is tough since the entire language was created by one man, however lengthy Usenet discussions on is.islenska should provide some level of verification, and likewise the Háfrónian website. Jozef: you know my e-mail address. If you disagree with me, feel free to mail me. --Smári McCarthy 19:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. This article is not encyclopedic, no matter how many sockpuppets it's inventuor uses. Migdejong 21:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
The people on the Afrikaans wikipedia are very displeased with the way the Dutch wikipedian Migdejong sends advices on his own behalf to all wikipedias to delete the page. I just don't like to be accused of unfair tactics by someone who plays such tricks. Timbur-Helgi Hermannsson, nýyrðaskáld
Sigh, You have nothing to like or dislike. Mig de Jong may send his messages where he likes. However, the one using "tricks" and "unfair tactics" is yourself, by writing an article about your own hobby project, which qualifies perfectly as WP:VANITY... --LimoWreck 03:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
For the 1000th time: Since half a year, things have evolved very quickly and it is no longer a hobby project of myself. There is a movement, a small one, but a movement and she is lead by Pétur Þorsteinsson. And the original stub on the Icelandic wikipedia was written by an Icelander, not by myself. Maximiliaan
Reality check: this still ís the English WP right ? Not the icelandic one ? You have writtin this article yourself and different other versions, and you áre using these article as "verifiable source" on different other sites, blogs, groups, etc... If the subject ís that relevant, some neutral non involved user will create an article in the long run; however, you now that this version is a WP:VANITY page, solely used as propaganda, and all the problems we see now are actually those we are warned for in WP:VANITY --LimoWreck 14:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Cut down to appropriate size and rewrite to reflect that this project is basically a word game played by a small group. Otherwise, weak delete. --Palnatoke 06:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • delete this version of the article, as a matter of principle. However, if the subject really has some notability, a moderate, NPOV, balanced, non-propagandastic article may be created in time (as long as it's not submitted by another sockpuppet). I see most people vote keep but change the article, well, i'm afraid not much won't change unless this propaganda-version is deleted, so a new user can start from scratch... —Preceding unsigned comment added by LimoWreck (talk • contribs)
The pictures are necessary to give people people a graphic example of the 4 most important symbols of the High Icelandic subculture: the Hammerflag (Þorsfrónvé), the Armoured Egg of Life (brynfjöregg), the Woman and Child of the Mountains (fjallmæðginin) and the cap of the neologistic poets (nýyrðaskáldshúfa. I disagree with the opinion that it is a vanity page, because I have clearly mentioned the fact that I'm inpopular as a person with many Icelanders because of my behaviour on usenet. Further more, the word 'one-man project is no longer appropriate. The project started out as a one-man project, but now it's a different scenario. I haven't created the High ICelandic symbolism alone. So the text 'Braekmans also created High Icelandic symbolism is wrong. Pétur Þorsteinsson and some other Icelanders provided the bulk of the symbolism. Maximiliaan
  • Keep - I hate the way wikipedia has been abused here by one Belgian person. But since it seems to be notable in Iceland it should stay. On these kind of issues it is best to let wikipedians in good standing from the countries it is about inform you and listen to them. In this case it is virtually impossible for a wikipedian not in Iceland or not interested in Iceland to form his/her own opinion. I regret the delete votes therefor. Waerth 17:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
    I have to add one thing. I have to conquer that for some reason MigdeJong has decided to make a crusade against this article. Not because he knows anything about the subject matter. But that is his style. He has done the same thing with me on some issues. Waerth 17:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't doubt Migdejong's respect for the wikipedia values. But respect for these values are so big that any kind of violation makes him react like a furious mediaval witchhunter. Don't let fury blind you from the fact that the phenomenon is known in ICeland and has got media attention. I have done wrong and I admit it. I used the name maximiliaan because I forgot my password. I really have a bad understanding of wikipedia and this resulted into the "sockpuppet-misunderstanding". If you check my IP address on all my comments, you will find only one. I use maximilian because it is my wiki-name now. I'm not a dishonest man. Maximiliaan
Please do not react any further. I hate it that I have to side against a fellow wikipedian. That is bad enough. Waerth 19:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Just a little anecdote as input into this discussion, although it seems exhausted at this point: Braekmans' work looks to me like art - an art of parody of Icelandic linguistic purism, along the lines of some other recent Icelandic artists who have challenged the distinction between "art" and "real life". One should not forget that until a few years ago there was a radio program on the Icelandic state radio that specifically and categorically criticised certain developments of Icelandic as being "foreignisms" and suggested "good Icelandic" alternatives. The line between "good" and "bad" Icelandic has indeed been drawn on the basis of the concepts of "pure" and "original" words, vs. the bad foreign loan-words and loan-structures. This is also by no means a peculiarity of the Icelandic language establishment but can be seen in some other recently independent states as well - especially those that promote the idea of "one language - one nation - one state". Braekmans work (especially the images) are attempts to bring these ideas to their (absurd) logical conclusion. Also, his wordlists demonstrate how infinitely poorer and uglier Icelandic would be if it were truly devoid of loan-words. The wordlists are also, as stated here by Braekmans himself, very useful. Myself, as a contributor on the Icelandic wikipedia, have often been able to find there old Icelandic words for historical things, that are nowhere to be found elsewhere on the Internet or in modern dictionaries. Just recently I was able to retrieve there the Icelandic version of the word "carrack" (a type of ship), which I had been looking for all over the place (in specialised literature as well as in dictionaries and on the Net). It is, of course, a foreign loan-word, like most Icelandic words that have to do with ships and sailing, but Braekmans had found the specifically Icelandic version, and suggested a High Icelandic neologism for it that I would never dream of using. But... thank you Braekmans for finding this word for me. In my mind there is no doubt that these word-lists are important and impressive as Icelandic lexicographical work. I cannot, of course, judge whether High Icelandic is relevant on other wikipedias, or how it should be presented as I feel that it is intended to defy classification, but as a contributor I have found it very interesting, funny and also practically useful. -- Akigka
Well Akigka ... as far as I read wikimedia's goal ... it is a goal to produce an encyclopedia about all human knowledge in all languages. So our endgoal is that all lemma's will have equivalents in all other languages. Will this ever happen ... no because it is to much work. But if the Iceland wikipedians judge this article to be worthy I feel that it means (because it is a subject with regards to Iceland) that it has to be placed in all language wikipedia's eventually. As the only way to make all human knowledge available to everyone is to have it in all languages! Waerth 23:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't read Icelandic papers since many years so I have no knowledge about the recent articles in newspaper. I do have the first mentionings in the press of my early work in the 90's, when the word háfrónska didn't exist and my work still qualified as a solo-project
These are the only articles from that time I know about.

- A page-long article in DV, one of the four main Icelandic newspapers (edition of Januari 30, 1999, page 51)

- An article in Tunguatak (late 90's, I can't remember the date), a paper about language use for the people of the Radio broadcast service (Ríkisútvarpið), written by the language advisor (málfarsráðunautur) of the service, Ari Páll Kristinsson, a later president of the Icelandic language committee (Íslensk málnefnd). Ten of my neologisms were mentioned in that article.

- In the late nineties Ásgeir Eggertsson had a interview with me on the national radio ( ríkisútvarpið) about my neologistic work. This program was called 'Samfélagið í nærmynd' (May 13, 1996). In the interview the opinion of Baldur Jónsson, the then president of the Icelandic language committee was asked about my neologistic endeavours and said that some of my neologisms were impressive. Ásgeir Eggertsson left the radio broadcasting service short time after. I don't have Baldur Jónsson's e-mail address, but here's Ásgeir's. http://www.lv.is/employees.asp?catID=12&teg=alphabetical&EmpId=13 you can call him on this number: 003545159112

But I can't find the edition of tungutak anymore. Can the Icelanders on this page could help me and search the archives for me? Because some Dutch wikipedians are convinced that I'm a sockpuppet and a manipulator, the above mentioned records are but bullshit for them until evidence is presented. I will scan the DV artcle tomorrow and put it on a page. But Icelanders need to help me find the article written by Ari Páll Kristinsson. These records should shed a disambiguating light on the nature of High Icelandic. For the time being, I added the link to an article about High Icelandic in Birtir, the local paper of Akranes. I happened to find this. Maximiliaan

This is the article in DV, one of the four main Icelandic newspapers (edition of Januari 30, 1999, page 51) http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/DV.article.january.30.1999.pdf

  • Keep. This article and this hafronska linguastic movement seem to be a kind of concept art or a joke and in Icelandic it is very witty. Not untrue but an art of parody of Icelandic linguistic purism like Akigka has noted. There has not been much media coverage about háfrónska in Iceland, I searched through the database of the main Icelandic newspaper and found no occurences of this word. The websites of the movement are like parodies or art and make totally no sense to me but many other movements are the same - strange and unlogical. Salvör 03:00, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Madam, the High Icelandic Language Movement is a srious movement. No humour or jokes, but serious neologistic work. Everything that is pronouncable with human sounds must be translated in Icelandic: 50 million place-names on earth, millions of names of organic compounds, all personal names of 6 billion people. With the aid of artificial intelligence this job can be done in one day and low cost by 2070. Now it is still an absurd project in the eyes of most Icelanders. Paying a team of 1000 toponymologists appointed by the ministery of culture would mean that taxes would have to be raised in Iceland. Icelanders would never accept this. So it is up to the High Icelandic language movement to lay the foundations for these projects now so that the first computer expert systems can easily built further on our lists. We have started the fjörgynjaráætlunin, the translation of the earth's place-names into Icelandic. At the end of March the first part of a list with the place-names of Britain (a 5000 names), names from A to E will be published on the net along with information about the etymology of the English place-names and the choice of the Icelandic equivalents. Maximiliaan

The article has been deleted on the Swedish wikipedia. the people there didn't take any of the arguments here into account. Sad, reallly sad. Maximiliaan.


Ahoy. This evening I mentioned this debate to a couple of coleagues of mine, who notified me that a certain Icelandic radio show holds regular vocabulary competitions, in which there are typicly five or so words mentioned that people are asked to define; according to my sources said radio show has during recent months had one or two words from Háfrónska per week, which I'd say is a definite reason for there to exist such an article on Wikipedia. Like it or not, Icelandic vocabulary is taking a few words from Jozef Braekmans invention - heck, I even use a few myself. --Smári McCarthy 00:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.