In many countries, institutions have been set up to standardize and
modernize a language, such as the Icelandic Language Commission founded
in 1964. This institution tries to modernize Icelandic by reviving old Icelandic
words which appeared in the sagas rather than accepting loan words. They
have two five-minute broadcasts a week on the radio and have succeeded in
making the population take an interest in their language. Examples of
revived words with a new semantic content are: simi (telephone) which is the
old word for "wire" or "thread", pjalfa (to train) which meant "to work
hard". A lot of new creations are composita using tw9 Icelandic words, such
as ftug-maOur (pil~t) coming from flug (flight) and matiur (person, or gervitung/
(satellite) coming from gervi (artificial) and tungl (moon) (Jonsson,
1979). Such a policy is possible in such a small and compact community as
Iceland, especially as the language here is an integral part of the Icelander's
identity. In other communities a better policy might, according to Wilts
( 1983), be to observe the forms created by the speakers themselves rather
than try to impose forms upon them.