#1: Máltaka

I suppose that it's only natural that I use my first "real" post to explain the title I gave to my new project: Dagleg Máltaka. Dagleg isn't a very exciting word; it's just the feminine form of daglegur, which means "daily."  The masculine suffix -legur (which becomes -leg in the feminine and -legt in the neuter) is a very common means of forming adjectives out of nouns in Icelandic; here, it was appended to the root of the word dagur, which means "day." The more interesting word, and the one that I really want to talk about, is máltaka.

This is a technical word used to describe "language acquisition," and is usually applied to children who are learning a language for the first time. But whereas the English phrase "language acquisition" implies a very passive process, máltaka is a much more forceful word. It's a compound of the words [tungu]mál (language) and að taka (to take), so really, a more precise translation may be "language taking."

And "taking" describes the whole process much more accurately. "Acquisition" is a word we use when we obtain something by unimportant or unspecified means. It implies that language knowledge simply falls out of the sky, or happens by osmosis, or is maybe just casually handed to you in paper bag in the corner of the parking lot at 2am. One, two, three and done; now you can speak a new language! But that's not how it works. Langauge learning is a very active process; even in the case of young children, who are more predisposed to building vocabulary, it requires an enormous amount of work, practice, and time. It's not something that one simply "acquires" like the common cold. No, to really master a language and become fluently proficient in it, you need to reach out and seize it, because if you don't, it's not going to come to you.

This is why I decided to call my blog Dagleg Máltaka, the daily language taking. Each day, I am committing to learn just one new word of this marvelous language, and I will grab onto it and make sure that I don't let it go.  I am taking Icelandic for myself, and not waiting for it to just fall into my lap. It's going to be a long, sometimes frustrating (but more times enjoyable) journey, to be sure, but I am ready for it.

WORD SUMMARY:
máltak/a, máltöku (f): language acquistion [literally "language taking"].

Posted in: Compound Words, Languages, Nouns