Of leaves and languages

The recent rain has stripped the trees of their beautifully coloured leaves and transformed them into a thick moist blanket. Leaving a note of sadness in my heart. But on my daily lunchwalk I didn't have time for sadness as I was listening to radioservice dedicated to the annual Icelandic Language Day, which is today. I remember well the first Icelandic Language Day, in 1996. There had been a catastrophic glacier outburst flood (jökulhlaup) a few days earlier in the river Skeiðará, bringing icebergs big as condominiums tens of kilometers downstream and I went with a group of friends to see the consequences. During the few hours drive as we chatted away, we decided that for every foreign slang word we used, we had to pay a fine. I can't remember how high the fine amounted to in the end, but it made us very aware of how easily words can infiltrate in our language and how carelessly we use them. We also wondered, when is a word a foreign slang and when does it become a part of the language? I still don't have an answer. In a text I found on the English language, it says that around 70% of all words are of Anglo Saxon origin, whereas the origin of the remaining 30% of modern English words are of Latin (~29%), French (~29%), Germanic (~26%) and well, the rest is a mix of other languages, such as viking influenced origins!
Anyway, to celebrate the icelandic language day, why don't we all pronounce together loud and clear Eyjafjallajökull!


P.s. anyone know why sometimes blipfoto doesn't "respect" the thumbnail choice?