A European language in danger of disappearing due to AI and the English language – a former prime minister sounds the alarm
Katrin Jakobsdóttir. Credit: Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP / Profimedia
Katrín Jakobsdóttir, former Prime Minister of Iceland, has said that the country's language is at risk of being eradicated in just a generation, as a result of the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing dominance of English, The Guardian reports.
Katrín, who resigned as prime minister last year to run for president after seven years in office, said Iceland was undergoing a “radical” change in language use. According to the former prime minister, more and more people are reading and speaking English, while fewer people are reading Icelandic, a trend exacerbated by the way the language models are trained.
“We have a huge responsibility”
She issued the warning before attending the Iceland Noir crime fiction festival in Reykjavík, following the unexpected release of her second novel in the genre, which she co-wrote with Ragnar Jónasson.
“Many languages disappear, and with them die a lot of value, a lot of human thought,” said Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
The Icelandic language, which has only about 350,000 speakers, is among the least modified languages.
“Having this language that is spoken by so few, I feel we have a huge responsibility to preserve it. Personally, I don't think we're doing enough to do that,” she added, saying Iceland's youth “are absolutely surrounded by material in English, on social media and other media.”
Partnership with an American artificial intelligence company
On the other hand, Katrín said that Iceland has been “quite proactive” in promoting the use of artificial intelligence in Icelandic. Earlier this month, Anthropic announced a partnership with the Icelandic Ministry of Education, one of the first national AI education pilot projects globally. The initiative will give hundreds of teachers in the country access to AI tools.
Katrín said that during his tenure in government, officials could see the “threats and dangers” posed by AI, reflecting the importance of using Icelandic texts and books for AI training.
Citing what happened in Iceland during Danish rule until 1918, when the Icelandic language came under Danish influence, she warned that changes could happen “very quickly”.
“We've seen that here in Iceland before, because of course we were under the Danes for quite a long time, and the Danish language had a big influence on the Icelandic language,” added the former prime minister.
She said the situation was quickly changed by a strong movement of Icelanders.
“Maybe we need a stronger movement right now to talk about why we want to preserve the language? That's really the important thing we should be talking about here in Iceland,” Katrín Jakobsdóttir added, adding that the “fate of a nation” could be decided by how it treats its language, as language has shaped the human way of thinking.
