The Páll Guðmundsson from Rjúpufelli fund has allocated a grant to support the publication of The Icelandic Heritage in North America to be published by University of Manitoba Press this year.
The book was published in Icelandic Sigurtunga – Vesturíslenskt mál og menning in 2018 by the University of Iceland Press. The editors are Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir professor, Höskuldur Þráinsson, professor emeritus, and Úlfar Bragason, professor emeritus.
The book comprises a collection of articles describing the results from recent Icelandic studies on language and cultural identity among people of Icelandic origin in North America and the development of the Icelandic spoken in the Canada. The project was funded by RANNÍS (The Icelandic Centre for Research) but this new grant is intended to finance the publication of the articles for English speaking enthusiasts on the Icelandic cultural heritage in North America. The articles in The Icelandic Heritage in North America have been adjusted to English speaking readers, and new articles have been added to the collection.
Western-Icelandic is a so-called heritage language or when a language the immigrants and their descendants speak in a community where another language is the primary language. Studies on the nature and fate of such languages have become more prominent all over the world due to their contribution to the knowledge on language development in diverse circumstances. This book is a contribution to these studies.
The presidential couple Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Eliza Reed write forewords.
About the fund
The focus of the fund is the strengthen the bond between the University of Iceland and the University of Manitoba, Canada by providing students and scholars of one university grants to study or conduct research at the other. Projects that adhere to the purpose of the fund may also be funded.
The fund is based on a contribution from Páll Guðmundsson from Rjúpnafell to the University of Iceland in 1971 in his last will and testament. Páll was born on 26 June in 1887 and was a farmer in Saskatchewan, Canada. Páll died 11 May 1966.
The University of Iceland Trust fund oversees funds and gifts that the University has received from its foundation in 1911.