Becoming an "Innlendingur"

Over the past few years, the number of degree-seeking students of non-Icelandic origin has overtaken the number of exchange students coming to the University of Iceland. Students from around the globe have uprooted themselves from their places of origin in search of a new place to grow, wanting to study alongside Icelandic students. To be sure, enrolling in an Icelandic-language program can be quite challenging to the non-native speaker, but it is worth mentioning that a great number of Icelandic students also struggle with the language of Icelandic academia. 

What I am getting at is the acceptance of the use of bilingual dictionaries, a matter that lies close to my heart.

Photo / Helga Lind Mar

The key to a new language environment

I was brought up in German- and Icelandic-speaking households, while the society around me spoke Swedish. It took me a few years to get my mother tongues in order; my monolingual relatives were quite grateful when I finally got things figured out. Before starting my undergraduate studies in Iceland, I had heard and spoken the language, but never had to read and write it. What followed was a peculiar experience of relearning my own native language in an environment of doubt and disbelief in my success.

Language is merely a means to convey content, not the content itself. This is something polyglot children learn from a very young age - there are many words and ways to describe the same meaning, the difference between syntax and semantics. Bilingual dictionaries give simple translations of words from one language to another. For a child who was brought up in an environment of constant code switching, a bilingual dictionary is the key to getting used to a new language environment. 

Don’t you just want to write it in English instead?

International students, or those with backgrounds similar to mine, have frequently heard that their programs are for Icelanders and therefore in Icelandic and that they should have already adapted. Yet when they try their hardest to submit coursework in Icelandic, their efforts are often dismissed with comments like, “Don’t you just want to write in English instead?” Oh, the outcry that would follow an advisor commenting on a dyslexic student’s paper with, “Why don’t you use a dictaphone instead?”, but belittling a new Icelander’s attempt at being an innlendingur is not considered newsworthy. 

Understandably, accommodating new language learners in classes that are not meant to teach languages presents certain challenges, but that is the reality of increased international mobility. The University of Iceland prides itself on being a leading international university, lending a helping hand to other European universities in their work toward becoming leading research universities themselves. It is upsetting, then, that similar solidarity is not shown in our own classrooms, but that international students are sometimes bullied into quitting. Especially in the natural sciences, where most higher-level researchers revert to universal broken English to facilitate communication among labs around the globe, students switching from one language to another should not be frowned upon by academic faculty and staff, but encouraged, or at least supported. 

The general population in Iceland no longer consists of purebred fishermen, and the modern Icelander is not necessarily a direct descendent of Ingólfur Arnarson - so why would university students have to be? The students in any classroom should be a representative sample of the society in which they live. Surely, not everyone has the same fields of interest, but education should be equally accessible to all, no matter their background.