Bjarkason (son) or Bjarkadóttir (daughter)

You don't? Ever heard the truism, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?


Right.

So would your child be *insert name of choice* Bjarkison ?

If so that seems odd, its easier to identify relatives if they share your last name. Assuming your name isnt common (mine isnt).
Also wasnt aware scandinavia didnt include iceland.

There's some sleight of hand going on there: the "i" changed to an "a"! This is obviously much more arcane and mysterious than I'd thought.

I remember hearing about some Roman emporers who were pretty much loved by their people. To the point where they didnt need gaurds protecting them.

That's interesting, I didn't know any cultures still did that. Most patronymic names just became surnames, hence why we have millions of Johnsons/Williamsons/Davisons etc. in the English-speaking world. Fine with me though since my patronymic name would be Paulson which is rather uninteresting.

The Icelandic language has four cases, which usually change the spelling of the word in question slightly. My name doesn't change much, it just goes Bjarki -> Bjarka -> Bjarka -> Bjarka

A good example of how these grammatical cases change the spelling is the Icelandic word for horse, which is "Hestur". It goes:

Hestur
Hest
Hesti
Hests

Those would be the nominative, accusative, dative and genitive cases of the world Hestur (Horse)

You forgot the Johansson!

That's not English.

The Icelandic language hasn't changed in the last 1000 years actually, I can read texts written in early medieval times without much trouble.

Our language, and our names are very archaic...

And to think I hated welsh for its mutations. Icelandic seems even worse when it comes to them.

Thanks for the info

A question for the people of United States: Is it true that when buying a car you have to pay extra for manual gears?

I'd consider that a good thing, I mean; I barely have any idea what the [censored] someone was saying in English 200 years ago much less 1000.

Great idea for a thread.

I'm pretty happy with New Zealand and highly doubt that I'll ever move to anywhere else indefinitely. Travel, sure, but I think NZ will always be where I'll settle.

Well, no, but the same principle is at play, once persons who follow a patronymic system move away to a system -- English -- that doesn't.

Actually Africa has improved a bit, since they can't legally sell hostile tribesmen to Westerners any more. The Middle East is rapidly moving backwards compared to 30 or 40 years ago.

That's really cool, I didn't know that. I can read medieval Dutch texts but it takes a bit of effort. Especially when it isn't transcribed to a modern script, since medieval handwritings are quite different. All the abbreviations were killing me during my med. palaeography exam.

Well I wonder as to the legal process when it comes to patronymic names. I don't believe they'd allow you to give your child such a name as their surname in most countries. For instance my son's patronymic name would be Shaneson (There is no such name as Shaneson, but that is technically what it would be) but I don't believe they would allow me to do that, not that I would want to bestow such a horrible name. I assume that if this is still the norm in Iceland then it's actually part of the legal naming process.

In most countries, you can name your child according to whatever whimsy strikes you. The only important thing is that the birth certificate state that X is the son/daughter of Y and Z, born on --.--.----


Can we stop talking about Africa and the Middle East like they're giant countries? Am I the only person who thinks this is really inappropriate? Could we also stop referring to Africa and the Middle East as if they consist of backwater savages?

I wondered that too, then i played the NASCAR races in Gran Turimso 5 All cars are the same and the track doesn't allow overtaking in corners, so it's all about the drivers' skill.

However, i still find it boring


I believe it was Winston Churchill who said "The best argument against democracy is 5 minutes with an average voter" Now if you'll excuse me, i'll go and prove him correct by voting in the presidential election

Thank you. To be fair, people who already know English don't really need to learn other languages, so they're not encouraged as much when they're in school and it makes it even more difficult for them.
Well it is, at least in my opinion. I believe many people think English is not a beautiful language because they are forced to learn it at school without any attempt to make them appreciate it. English has an enormous amount of fantastic literature, music, and movies, and this quality owes a lot to the refinement and specific qualities of the English language (its rich history of borrowing words from different languages, its ablity to evolve rapidly, its flexibility, the variety of accents...).

No.

It's a fairly big deal here, but we don't go as all out as Americans tend to. We have parades, but they're nowhere near as extravagant as the ones you'd find in the larger American cities.

Generally, young kids and families will often go and watch the parade, and that's about it. For people between the ages of 18-35, it's common to go down to the pub early in the day and spend the day drinking. It's usually a good day.

To be honest, I find the tourists get much more into it than Irish people do. Most Irish people just use it as an excuse to drink all day (other excuses include birthdays, christenings, passing exams, winning ten euro on a scratch card, it's Tuesday, I found 20 cent in my pocket, it's any day ending in 'y', etc.)

For the Americans again. Can you tell when speaking to someone, if they have an upper class or 'posh' accent. Is it easy to distinguish rich kids and the like? I know England has a very diverse range of accents for such a small place.

There's that, too.

Take note, foreigners: if you express an interest in Australia we will exaggerate the dangers to Timbuktu and back, but if you start going on about how dangerous it is here we'll play them down and point out that it is, in fact, reasonably safe here (unlike England, where they sometimes get as much as an inche of snow, which we all know is enough to bring doom and terror down on all ). This doesn't do much to help you understand us, but it may help you realise that you don't .

I feel I should point out that there have been some pretty impressive (for anywhere, not just relative to that continent ) kingdoms and empires in Africa. Also, there's a huge range of environments, climates, ethnicities, and stability in Africa... 'cause, y'know, it's an entire bloody continent made up of numerous nations which each have complex, unique histories .

Scandinavia is basically Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They, plus Finland, Iceland, ?land, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland, make up the Nordic Countries.

I love that guy. Gret quotes, and some are funny as hell (the drunk/ugly one is the best imo).

Not Finland ? But Finland used to be part of Sweden iirc.

True, but Scandinavia(n peninsula) is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Peninsula, unlike "nordic countries".