Icelandic language

Icelandic ⁱ/aɪsˈlændɪk/ ( íslenska ) is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian formerly constituted West Nordic; Danish, Eastern Norwegian and Swedish constituted East Nordic. Modern Norwegian Bokmål is influenced by both groups, leading the Nordic languages to be divided into mainland Scandinavian languages and Insular Nordic (including Icelandic).

Most Western European languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, but considerably more conservative and synthetic than, German. By virtue of its being in the Germanic family, which as a whole reduced the Indo-European case system, it is inappropriate to compare the grammar of Icelandic to that of the more conservative Baltic and Slavic languages of the Indo-European family, many of which retain six or more cases, except to note that Icelandic utilises a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also has many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, as does Latin. For example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. The conservatism of the Icelandic language and its resultant near-isomorphism to Old Norse (which is equivalently termed Old Icelandic by linguists) means that modern Icelanders can easily read the Eddas, sagas, and other classic Old Norse literary works created in the tenth through thirteenth centuries.

Egill Ólafsson

Egill Ólafsson (born 9 February 1953), is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, actor and legal and copyright expert. He is married to the actress Tinna Gunnlaugsdóttir.

Education

Egill Ólafsson studied playing guitar and piano when he was young and was part of a boys' brass band under the direction of Karl Otto Runólfsson.

During he was a student at Hamrahlid College from 1970 until 1974 Egill Ólafsson sang in choir of the school Kór MH.

1970 he started to study at the Tónlistarskólanum (music school in Reykjavík). The disciplines he was studying were singing and composing. In 1976 Egill Ólafsson graduated at Tónlistarskólanum in Reykjavík.

Professional life

He specialized in legal matters and copyright issues, but also composed for many types of music including music for choirs, brass band music and music for strings and trumpets. He has composed around 30 theatrical works. He composed for musicals Grettir, Eva Luna and Come Dance With Me, the latter having a run on off-Broadway in 1996. His works have been played by various ensembles like Spilverk þjóðanna, Stuðmenn, Hinn íslenski Þursaflokkur, Tríó Björns Thoroddsen, Blái hatturinn, Les Grand Tango and The Icelandic Soundcompany.

The Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser is a reality television show which started in the United States in 2004. The show centers on overweight and obese contestants attempting to lose the most weight and to fight for a cash prize. There are different variations of The Biggest Loser around the world. Each country has made its own adaptation to the show; however, the contestants always have the same goal: to lose the highest percentage of weight (or most weight) to become the Biggest Loser. There is no minimum or maximum weight limit for the show but most males tend to weigh over or near 300 lb (136 kg). Females tend to weigh over or near 200 lb (91 kg).

Each country has its own variation of the show. Some seasons will have a single contestant on a team, couples, or families, these usually rotate depending on the season and the directors.

International versions

Biggest Loser records