English or Icelandic?

The study of Icelandic medieval studies at the University of Iceland is in crisis, according to scholar Tryggvi Gíslason, the former headmaster of Akureyri College. Gíslason claims that for the last three decades, foreign researchers have dominated the field of Icelandic medieval literature, language and history. However, they have not been able to portray their findings adequately or lecture on a permanent basis at the University of Iceland, due to the fact that their spoken Icelandic is usually poor. Gíslason therefore wonders if postgraduate courses, which deal with the Sagas and other aspects of Iceland’s “golden period” in the first centuries after settlement, should be held in English rather than Icelandic. Incidentally, a new program in English, the M.A. in Medieval Icelandic Studies, started this autumn at the University of Iceland and has been well received so far.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />