A tale of enthusiastic experts and puristic professionals: The Icelandic case

Ari Páll Kristinsson
The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
Table of contents

Icelandic terminology planning is an integral part of language policy and planning in general. This holds true both as regards the language-ideological foundations and the largely positive attitudes among members of the Icelandic speech community, as well as for the organizational language planning structures that took shape in the late 20th century. Icelandic is the official language of Iceland, and at the time of writing (in 2024), Icelandic is the first language of about 83% of its 400,000 inhabitants. Institutional and legislative support to terminological activities in Iceland is inseparable from the implementation of Icelandic language policy and planning as a whole.

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