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Iceland Holds Funeral for 700-Year-Old Glacier Killed by Climate Change

posted by martyb on Monday August 19 2019, @06:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the Ok-is-not-okay dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

On Sunday a funeral was held in Iceland to commemorate Okjokull, what was once a vast glacier, reports the Associated Press. It was estimated to span 15 square miles (38 square kilometers) in 1901. It now takes up less than half a square mile (under 1 square kilometer), according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigurðsson presented to the audience, which included Iceland's Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and around 100 others, a death certificate for Okjokull. In a symbolic move, a plaque was planted with a message to future generations. It reads:

"Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it." 

The funeral is actually a few years late, as Okjokull lost its glacier status in 2014. Since jokull is Icelandic for volcano, the former glacier now just goes by Ok -- named after the volcano it rested atop.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday August 19 2019, @06:58PM (2 children)

    by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Monday August 19 2019, @06:58PM (#882268)

    Since jokull is Icelandic for volcano

    "Jökull" is Icelandic for glacier. "Eldfjall" (literally "fire mountain") is Icelandic for volcano.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Monday August 19 2019, @08:45PM (1 child)

    by zocalo (302) on Monday August 19 2019, @08:45PM (#882310)
    You get that kind of structure a lot in Icelandic place names. The longer pronouns are often a sequence of nouns that describe the location in question, so if you learn a few of the common root nouns you can get a pretty good idea of what a given place is going to be just from the name. In this case, the mountain was - and still is - called "Ok", so the now-ex glacier within it, "Okjokull", was literally "Ok's Glacier".

    As for TFS though, I don't think it's a translation error so much as a transposition error. If you swap "volcano" and "glacier" and it makes a bit more sense: "Since jokull is Icelandic for volcano glacier, the former glacier volcano now just goes by Ok -- named after the volcano it rested atop."
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:30AM

      by KritonK (465) on Tuesday August 20 2019, @10:30AM (#882551)

      former glacier volcano now just goes by Ok -- named after the volcano it rested atop

      A volcano resting atop another volcano—wow!