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🔗 Languages 🔗 Iceland

The Basque–Icelandic pidgin was a Basque-based pidgin spoken in Iceland in the 17th century. It consisted of Basque, Germanic and Romance words.

Basque whale hunters who sailed to the Icelandic Westfjords used the pidgin as a means of rudimentary communication with locals. It might have developed in Westfjords, where manuscripts were written in the language, but since it had influences from many other European languages, it is more likely that it was created elsewhere and brought to Iceland by Basque sailors. Basque entries are mixed with words from Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish. The Basque–Icelandic pidgin is thereby not a mixture between Basque and Icelandic, but between Basque and other languages. It was named from the fact that it was written down in Iceland and translated into Icelandic.

Only a few manuscripts have been found containing Basque–Icelandic glossary, and knowledge about the pidgin is limited.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Geology 🔗 Mythology 🔗 Iceland 🔗 Norse history and culture 🔗 Mythology/Norse mythology

The sunstone (Icelandic: sólarsteinn) is a type of mineral attested in several 13th–14th-century written sources in Iceland, one of which describes its use to locate the Sun in a completely overcast sky. Sunstones are also mentioned in the inventories of several churches and one monastery in 14th–15th-century Iceland and Germany.

A theory exists that the sunstone had polarizing attributes and was used as a navigational instrument by seafarers in the Viking Age. A stone found in 2002 off Alderney, in the wreck of a 16th-century warship, may lend evidence of the existence of sunstones as navigational devices.

🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Iceland

Although Iceland is reliant upon fishing, tourism and aluminium production as the mainstays of its economy, the production of vegetables and fruit in greenhouses is a growing sector. Until the 1960s this included commercial production of bananas.

In 1941, the first bananas in Iceland were produced. They have been produced since that time, about 100 clusters a year each about 5–20 kg (11–44 lb), but are not currently sold. In the wake of World War II, the combination of inexpensive geothermal power (which had recently become available) and high prices for imported fruit led to the construction of a number of greenhouses where bananas were produced commercially from 1945 to as late as 1958 or 1959. In 1960, the government removed import duties on fruit. Domestically grown bananas were no longer able to compete with imported ones and soon disappeared from the market. Icelandic banana production was much slower due to low levels of sunlight; Icelandic bananas took two years to mature, while it only takes a few months near the equator.

The urban myth that Iceland is Europe’s largest producer or exporter of bananas has been propagated in various books and other media. It was mentioned, in an episode of the BBC quiz programme QI, and on a forum connected with the show. According to FAO statistics, the largest European producer of bananas is France (in Martinique and Guadeloupe), followed by Spain (primarily in the Canary Islands). Other banana-producing countries in Europe include Portugal (on Madeira), Greece, and Italy.

Although a small number of banana plants still exist in greenhouses and produce fruit every year, Iceland imports nearly all of the bananas consumed in the country, with imports now amounting to over 18 kg (40 lb) per capita per annum. The Agricultural University of Iceland maintains the last such farm with 600-700 banana plants in its tropical greenhouse, which were received as donations from producers when they shut down (then the Horticultural College). Bananas grown there are consumed by the students and staff and are not sold.

🔗 Iceland 🔗 Lighthouses

Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse (transliterated as Thridrangaviti) is an active lighthouse 7.2 kilometres (4.5 miles) off the southwest coast of Iceland, in the archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar. It is often described as one of the most isolated lighthouses in the world. Þrídrangar means "three rock pillars", referring to the three named sea stacks at that location: Stóridrangur (on which the lighthouse stands), Þúfudrangur, and Klofadrangur. The lighthouse was commissioned on 5 July 1942.

🔗 Women's History 🔗 Iceland

On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women went on strike for the day to "demonstrate the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society" and to "protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices". It was then publicized domestically as Women's Day Off (Kvennafrídagurinn). Participants, led by women's organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day. Ninety percent of Iceland's female population participated in the strike. Iceland's parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal pay the following year.