This week we’re going north! Icelandic is a fun language -- and actually closer to Old Norse than any of the other Scandinavian languages are today. This is largely due to the isolation of Iceland; not so much in the modern day, but in the past. Isolated populations tend to maintain older forms of a language than non-isolated ones do, especially if they have written language as well.
The word itself is gluggaveður, meaning ‘window weather’. It’s the sort of weather that’s fun to watch but not to be out in. Snow, rain, storms…beautiful, or if not beautiful then at least interesting or impossible to look away from, but only from the other side of glass. Miserable to be caught up in.
Of course, there’s not just metaphorical bad weather in the world; there’s plenty of times where there are metaphorical storms -- be it as petty as personal drama or as all-encompassing as systematic oppression.
Sometimes it’s alright to sit behind the equally metaphorical window and let things work themselves out. Sometimes that’s the best choice you can make. But sometimes you have to give up being a spectator, give up your warm cozy couch, and walk out into the storm, because if you don’t? If we don’t? That storm will never end.
