I thought it might be nice to follow up yesterday's somber post with a happier one, so today I'm going to talk about the Icelandic word
jól. It's a seasonal word that is absolutely everywhere in Iceland at the moment, and that's because it means "Christmas." With only 10 days left to buy all of the gifts, cook all of the food, and mentally prepare to deal with your extended family, now seems like a good time to talk about all things
jól.
Jól comes from Old Norse, in which the word
jól originally referred to a pagan midwinter festival before it came to mean "Christmas" as well. From this Old Norse root also came the Faroese
jól, the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish
jul, and possibly the Old English
geōl, which evolved into the modern English word "yule." The word "jolly" is also likely cognate with all of these words, though it's difficult to construct its etymology for certain.
Even though
jól has a singular meaning, it is a
plurale tantum.
Pluralia tantum are words that only have plural forms, just like the English words "pants" and "goggles" (you can't say "a pant" or "a goggle"). As such, it can only be modified by a plural adjective and only takes plural verbs. Thus, "Merry Christmas" is not "gleðilegt jól" but rather
gleðileg jól. And if you want to tell someone that Christmas is coming, don't say "jól er að koma;" say
jól eru að koma. When talking about Christmas, it is also acceptable to use the definite form, which is
jólin: "The Christmas" is bad English but perfectly good Icelandic.
Like most Icelandic words,
jól readily forms compounds, and if you find yourself in Iceland during November or December, chances are good that you'll encounter a lot of them. That's because you can tack
jóla- onto just about anything! For instance, most families will have a lovely
jólatré (Christmas tree), adorned with
jólaskraut (Christmas ornaments) and under which they hope to find many
jólagjafir (Christmas presents; singular
jólagjöf). As you walk around town looking at all of the
jólaljós (Christmas lights), you'll probably hear some
jólaklukkur (jingle bells) and maybe a
jólalag (Christmas carol) or twenty. But soon, it will be time to go home and enjoy your
jólamaturinn (Christmas dinner) with some
jólaöl (Christmas ale) and
jólakökur (Christmas cookies) for dessert. And, of course, there's
Jolásveinn, the "Christmas lad" who is called Santa Claus in many parts of the world. Iceland, however, doesn't have a Santa Claus; instead, they have 13 of their own
jólasveinar that we call "the yule lads" in English. Each Icelandic
jólasveinn comes to town on a different night before Christmas day and partakes in his own unique brand of mischief. They are also sometimes associated with the Christmas Cat (
Jólakötturinn), which is said to eat children who do not receive nice new clothes by Christmas. You can read more about these fascinating Icelandic traditions
here and
here. Personally, I'm all in favor of bringing some of them over to the States!
And, for all of my Jewish friends, the word for Hanukkah is simply
hanukkah in Icelandic. Although
ljósahátíð ("light festival") is sometimes also used to describe Hanukkah, this word can also refer to other festivals of light like Diwali. Iceland is a predominantly Christian country, and before that it was predominantly Norse pagan. As such, most holidays observed in other faiths don't have unique Icelandic names. This actually makes things easier, though... there are fewer new words to memorize!
WORD SUMMARY:
jól, -a (n pl.): Christmas
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