Icelandic Language Day ( is, dagur íslenskrar tungu, English: "day of the Icelandic tongue") is a festival celebrated on 16 November each year in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

to celebrate the

Icelandic language Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic lan ...

. This date was chosen to coincide with the birthday of the Icelandic poet

Jónas Hallgrímsson Jónas Hallgrímsson (16 November 1807 – 26 May 1845) was an Icelandic poet, author and naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Icelandic journal Fjölnir (journal), ''Fjölnir'', which was first published in Copenhagen in 1835. The mag ...

. In Autumn 1995, the Icelandic Minister of Education, Science and Culture,

Björn Bjarnason Björn Bjarnason (born 14 November 1944) is an Icelandic politician. His father was Bjarni Benediktsson, Prime Minister of Iceland, Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs and Mayor of Reykjavík. Matriculating from Reykjavík Junior ...

, suggested that one day a year should be proposed to celebrate the Icelandic language, which has been well-preserved in its original form over the centuries, unlike most other languages; and the efforts to preserve this unique symbol of the country. As such, on 16 November, the Minister of Education, Science and Culture awards the Jónas Hallgrímsson Award to someone who has “in a unique way contributed to the Icelandic language”. The Minister may also visit a local area of Iceland's schools and cultural institutions, for example in 2004

Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir (born 4 October 1965) is an Icelandic politician, who has been chairman of the Reform Party since 2017. Þorgerður was deputy chairwoman of the Independence Party from 2005 to 2010. She was the Minister o ...

visited

Ísafjörður Ísafjörður (pronounced , meaning ''ice fjord'', literally ''fjord of ices'') is a town in the northwest of Iceland. The oldest part of Ísafjörður with the town centre is located on a spit of sand, or ''eyri'', in Skutulsfjörður, a fjord ...

and in 2005 she visited

Reykjanesbær Reykjanesbær () is a municipality on the Southern Peninsula (''Suðurnes'') in Iceland, though the name is also used by locals to refer to the suburban region of Keflavík and Njarðvík which have grown together over the years. The municipalit ...

References

See also