Culture

A lesson in the Icelandic language

Date

23. Jul 202523. Jul 25

Reading time

11 min

Only 350,000 people speak Icelandic, which is among the world’s least-changed languages. Listening to it is like traveling through time—due to the nation’s geographic isolation and conscious preservation, it has hardly changed for a thousand years. With a little bit of training and a handy dictionary, modern Icelanders can read medieval manuscripts with relatively little difficulty—a remarkable fact, given that most modern English speakers struggle with Shakespeare, a ‘modern’ writer in comparison.

To preserve the language, neologisms are often used over loanwords. This means that creating new words for technological innovation is something of a national pastime. However, a unique feature of Icelandic is not just the use of neologisms, but also the repurposing of ancient words that have dropped out of common usage. Some prime examples include:

The word for telephone is sími, from an ancient word for ‘long thread.’
The word for computer is tölva—a fusion of tala (number) and völva (prophetess).
The word for helicopter is þyrla, from a verb meaning ‘twirl.’

And in case you were wondering: the most beautiful word in the Icelandic language is officially ljósmóðir, or midwife. Literally meaning ‘light-mother,’ it was chosen in a nationwide poll conducted by the University of Iceland and the national broadcaster, RÚV.

That volcano...

In 2010, a volcanic eruption in Iceland resulted in large ash clouds that caused enormous disruption to air travel across Europe for a week. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano hit global headlines, and caused headaches for news reporters fumbling to pronounce it correctly (or inventing new ways to avoid saying its 16-letter name). The pronunciation isn’t so hard—listen at 2:15 for how to break it down and say it. Note that it’s a compound name: eyja means island, fjalla means mountain, and jökull means glacier.

The Eyjafjallajökull eruption caused grief for many newsreaders.

A brief history of Icelandic

Icelandic is an Indo-European language of the North Germanic family, meaning that it’s most closely related to modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Frisian, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. Within the Nordic languages, it’s considered to belong to the Western Scandinavian branch, tying it more closely to Norwegian than to Swedish.

Earliest records

The very earliest records of the Old Norse language, the language that eventually became modern Icelandic, would have been carved in runes onto wood and stone in the areas that are now Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Many of these earliest inscriptions are quite basic, either simply naming the owner of an object such as a comb or a knife, or brief funeral epitaphs on runestones. Although many associate the Vikings with runes, it’s worth noting that there is essentially no runic writing in any language that could be called Icelandic. As Iceland was settled in the Christian period and the sagas, the bible, and legal texts were all written with Latin characters, the link between runes and Icelandic is an anachronistic one. In other words: Icelandic has always been written in Latin characters (in case this influences your choice of vacation tattoo).

Settlement Era

Iceland was settled around the year 870 (plus or minus a couple years) by people mostly from Norway, but also Sweden and Denmark. Among the independent landholders and minor chieftains from Scandinavia was also a significant underclass of Celtic slaves, and to this day the influence of Celtic languages can be seen in Icelandic. For example, some very common personal names such as Kjartan and Njáll are Celtic in origin, and a wide assortment of words in modern Icelandic still have Celtic roots, from birds to agricultural implements and even edible types of seaweed.

The language spoken by the settlers in the first decades and centuries of Icelandic history was likely intelligible across the British Isles all the way to the Baltic. Back then, however, it was not known as ‘Icelandic,’ but either called simply dönsk tunga (the Danish tongue) or norrœna tunga (the Nordic tongue). In fact, even as late as the mid-12th century, an Icelandic scribe wrote that the English and the Icelanders were “of one language.”

Changing language vs. frozen language

Over time, the ‘Danish tongue’ began to change, and one of the most significant ways it changed was to severely simplify its grammatical forms. As the period we call the Viking Age faded into history, the people living in Scandinavia began to speak more and more distinctly from one another. Where many other language groups underwent change, however, the Icelandic language remained remarkably stable throughout the Middle Ages. A major reason for this was manuscript production in Iceland—a strong literary culture based around the Icelandic sagas and other important texts such as law codes and mythic poetry likely ‘froze’ the language in place.

While the nature of language change is gradual, the moment that Icelandic truly became Icelandic is often identified with the arrival of the Black Plague in Europe. Prior to this period, Icelandic manuscripts were highly sought-after in the courts of Scandinavian kings as historical documents and art objects, but the Black Plague caused a near-total collapse in trade across the Medieval North. The subsequent loss of contact with continental Europe meant that as the ‘Danish tongue’ slowly changed into what we now call Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, the Icelanders quietly kept telling their stories and speaking in their language, more or less unaffected by the outside world.

The ‘rediscovery’ of Icelandic

To skip nearly half a millennium of Icelandic history, one could say that the language was ‘rediscovered’ in the early 19th century by a young Danish scholar named Rasmus Rask. Rask was fascinated by the then-emerging field of historical linguistics. Pioneered by Sir William Jones, who only decades earlier had hypothesized that Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit shared a common ancestor, the field of historical linguistics was cutting-edge science in the early 19th century. From an early age, Rask was an eager reader of ancient Icelandic literature and history, and through his scholarship and even travels to Iceland, he demonstrated how the Icelandic language uniquely preserved many of the most archaic features of the Germanic languages, culminating in the 1809 publication of Introduction to the Icelandic or Old Norse Language, the first modern, systematic grammar of Icelandic.

If you’re anything like us, you’ll find this all fascinating—but keep in mind that Iceland is still a very modern society, and you’re just as likely to hear Icelanders say “skrolla á Facebook” as anyone else in the world. And although Icelandic is indeed a conservative language, that isn’t to say that it’s simply unchanged since the Viking Age. Still, knowing about the unique features of the Icelandic language adds depth to your travels by better appreciating the culture of this beautiful island!

The Icelandic alphabet and pronunciation

Travelers will immediately notice the letters Æ, Ð, and Þ as some of the more exotic features of the Icelandic language. However, what many may not know is that these letters originally were borrowed into Icelandic from English. The characters Ð and Þ specifically originated from the runic alphabet and were imported into Icelandic alongside another letter known as the ‘wynn,’ which eventually dropped out of use. It’s interesting to think that these letters, which seem to many so distinctively Icelandic, were originally from the British Isles. In fact, their original use in English is the reason why many popular representations of Old English use the incorrect form of ‘Ye Olde.’ This was never common English usage, but instead ‘Þe,’ or ‘The.’ The character Þ was sometimes written in a way that resembled Y, and over time, the original pronunciation of the character was lost, leading to some historical confusion!

Æ/æ (called “ash”) is pronounced like the i in tide.
Ð/ð (called “eth”) is a voiced th, pronounced like the th in there.
Þ/þ (called “thorn”) is an unvoiced th, pronounced like the th in think.

Notes on pronunciation

In addition to these unique letters, here are three more important aspects of Icelandic pronunciation:

Aspiration: Icelandic uses aspiration to distinguish certain sounds (e.g., between /b/ and /p/, /g/ and /k/), which is different from how English distinguishes them (voicing). In a non-technical sense, aspiration is often used to create an ‘h’ sound with your breath.
Stress: Stress is almost always on the first syllable of words, which can be different from English and affect the rhythm of speech. Icelandic can also have rather long words, making it hard for some to know where exactly to place the stress.
Colloquial speech: In casual conversation, words can merge, shorten, or contract in ways that can be challenging for learners to discern. For example, a common question such as “what are you doing” (Hvað ert þú að gera?) is most often heard quickly as something like “hva’rtu a’ gera?”

The A to Ö of Iceland

Want to hear a little of the language? This catchy song was created by Inspired by Iceland a few years back, with a video filmed in and around beautiful Seyðisfjörður in East Iceland.

Welcome to your new ear-worm: the A to Ö of Iceland.

A little Icelandic small talk: Useful Icelandic phrases

Although Icelandic grammar and pronunciation can be difficult to learn, you certainly don’t need to learn it all to get by. While it’s true that nearly all restaurants, tourist attractions, travel agencies, and transport options will have English-speaking staff, simply learning a couple of phrases can go a long way toward deepening your travel experience. Below are some basic Icelandic travel phrases you should try out—we especially recommend practicing your Icelandic when you order the famous pylsa, or Icelandic hotdog!

A guide to pronunciation is given in parenthesis.

Icelandic names

One of the most unique features of the Icelandic language is the naming convention. Traditionally, Icelandic uses patronymics, meaning that individuals are named after their father. So a child with a father named Jón would have the last name Jónsson or Jónsdóttir, depending on gender.

Although this is the convention, there are always exceptions. Some Icelanders have chosen to be named after their mother, for example, and some older families with roots abroad have kept their family names, such as Zoëga. Other Icelanders may still legally retain their patronymic but instead use their first and middle names as a day-to-day alias.

“Given how Icelandic names work, the phone book and other registries are all organized by first name”

Because of the patronymic system, Icelandic can seem like a more casual language to foreigners because there is no equivalent usage of forms like ‘Mr Smith’ for a man named John Smith. In a patronymic system, your last name is simply your father’s (or sometimes mother’s) name, so it doesn’t make much sense to call someone ‘Mr Jónsson.’ This extends to even the most famous Icelanders, including the President and Prime Minister—you can see this especially often in the foreign press, referring to politicians as ‘Mr Benediktsson,’ for example. To Icelandic ears, the first name is simply the correct name to use—it has nothing to do with being more or less formal! In fact, given how Icelandic names work, the phone book, library collections, and other registries are all organized by first name.

Due to the way that Icelandic grammar works, personal names also need to be able to change like other words in the language. This both means that a personal name can change given its context (a woman might be named Anna, but you speak to Önnu), and that new names have to be approved. There is even a government-run committee that decides which names are appropriate for newborns. There has been much discussion around this practice in recent years, as Icelandic demographics change and the country becomes more diverse. Some worry that this practice is overly conservative, while others feel strongly that it’s an important part of Icelandic culture. Nevertheless, included in the official list are also names recognizable to speakers of many other languages, including Frank, Jenny, John, Henry, Emma, and more.

Learn Icelandic online

Let’s get this out of the way first: there is no Duolingo for Icelandic. The topic is much-discussed among Icelandic language learners, and there have even been petitions to Duolingo for the digital language-learning platform to include Icelandic. At the time of writing, this has yet to happen—but believe it or not, there are in fact other ways to learn languages online!

Íslenska fyrir alla, or “Icelandic for Everyone,” is a popular series of textbooks used in a variety of classroom settings. The books are freely available as PDF files online and include links to listening exercises.

Another popular option for many Icelandic learners is Icelandic Online, a free online course. The course is geared toward immersion learning, meaning that in lieu of memorizing grammatical structures, you will instead read text and listen to dialogues, organically learning the vocabulary and grammar from usage and context.

Learning Icelandic through apps presents a more limited selection compared to other languages, but several options cater to various learning styles.

Multi-language platforms like Memrise and Drops include Icelandic in their offerings, providing a diverse approach to vocabulary and phrases. For those prioritizing spoken Icelandic, Pimsleur offers audio lessons centered on conversational skills and dialogue.

Many vocabulary apps also have good resources for learning Icelandic. Anki, a flashcard app available for desktop, Android, and iOS, is an essential tool for many language learners. You can either build your own deck of vocabulary cards, or use a pre-made deck like IceFlash 4K, which was developed with the University of Iceland and features the 4,000 most common Icelandic words with translations into English, Polish, Chinese, or Ukrainian.

Finally, LingQ offers Icelandic with a strong emphasis on authentic native materials. Learners can read, listen to, and watch real-world content, with a built-in dictionary for saving and highlighting new vocabulary.

The best Icelandic-English dictionary is online through the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies (aka Árnastofnun), and it’s very comprehensive and contains key grammatical information that’s essential for language learners.

While not a dictionary in the strict sense, BÍN is an indispensable resource for both Icelandic language learners and native Icelanders themselves. Instead of giving you the definition of a word, it gives you all possible inflections and conjugations, helping you find the right form of the word.

Note that although great advances have been made in machine translation in just the past couple of years, Google Translate and AI both routinely mistranslate Icelandic. So although it can be fine for finding directions or figuring out a restaurant menu on the fly, we recommend the other resources above for serious language learners.

The website Ylhýra offers short texts for online language learners. The advantage of learning with Ylhýra over a student reader or textbook is the mouse-over vocabulary feature, which allows you to look up the definition of a word by simply hovering over it. With graded texts starting at a very basic level and going into more intermediate and advanced material, Ylhýra is a great way to get some practice reading Icelandic!

In an effort to help non-native Icelandic speakers, the Icelandic national broadcaster RÚV has recently launched a new language learning feature: Orð. Through the use of AI, Orð provides automatic subtitling for popular RÚV programs. We especially recommend “Landinn,” a slice-of-life travel show which showcases life for normal Icelanders in more rural areas of the nation. Note that RÚV Orð is only available for viewing within Iceland.

YouTube also offers a wealth of great resources for learning Icelandic. Below are just a couple of channels worth checking out, but there seem to be more and more every day!

Looking for a relaxed way to learn Icelandic? The Viltu læra íslensku? video series offers subtitled videos designed to help beginners grasp basic Icelandic vocabulary within practical contexts.

The series features scenarios from everyday life, such as going to the dentist, taking the bus, grocery shopping, looking for an apartment, and visiting a restaurant, as well as classroom settings. Each video is accompanied by exercises to help you remember the new words. While the material may be a bit old, it’s still a very useful and easy-to-use resource for anyone starting to learn Icelandic.

Why is Icelandic so hard to learn?

First of all: we’re of the opinion that contrary to what you may have heard, Icelandic isn’t actually that bad! But nevertheless, there are some unique features of Icelandic that make it a little harder for some to learn. We certainly can’t explain all Icelandic grammar to you here (and something tells us you might not want us to…), but below are some of the top reasons why Icelandic can be hard to learn.

Inflection just means that a word changes depending on how you use it. So unlike in English, where a word largely remains unchanged (though technically, the -s in plural forms is an inflection), a word in Icelandic can vary greatly depending on how it’s used. For example, a cake is simply kaka, but when you eat it, it becomes köku. This means that it takes more than looking up a word in a dictionary and then using it—you also have to learn its paradigm, or the pattern it follows. Icelanders call this beyging, or ‘bending.’ Many foreigners also find it odd that proper names bend as well. One of the more egregious examples of this is the male name Egill, which becomes Agli in some forms (don’t ask why!).

Related to its inflection system is the gender system in Icelandic. This is by no means limited to Icelandic—many modern European languages retain grammatical gender—but Icelandic, like modern German, has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. This means that for all nouns, the words for objects, people, and places, you have to learn whether it’s a he, she, or it!

Although the idea of grammatical gender has nothing to do with biological gender (a book, for example, is feminine!), the use of gender in Icelandic has caused some debate in recent years. One of the biggest developments in this direction has been the introduction of a gender-neutral pronoun, hán, which is roughly equivalent to the gender-neutral use of ‘they.’

Like gender and inflection, this is by no means limited to Icelandic. Depending on what role a word takes in a sentence, it can be one of four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, or genitive. We’ll spare you the details, but the upshot is that this adds some complexity to the forms of a word.

Icelandic does not have a proper standalone definite article: in other words, there’s no ‘the’, at least not exactly like in English. Icelandic instead suffixes its articles, meaning that they are directly added onto the end of a word. A word with no article can therefore be read as either having the indefinite (‘a/an’) article, or no article, meaning that there’s no distinction made between the forms ‘horse’ and ‘a horse.’

When you add all of these factors together—inflection, case, and the use of suffixed articles—it means that for a given noun, there are no fewer than 16 possible forms of the word: quite intimidating for many language learners!

“For a noun, there are no fewer than 16 possible forms of the word”

Frequently asked questions

Because Icelandic can be such a tricky language, it’s not always easy to tell what’s true and what’s not. To help clear things up, here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about Icelandic from visitors.

We hope that if you’ve made it this far, the answer should be clear! In case it’s not, the national language of Iceland is, in fact, Icelandic! In the past, Iceland was a Danish colony, and this can still be seen today by the fact that Danish language classes are still a compulsory part of primary education. In addition to compulsory Danish, nearly every Icelander these days also speaks fluent English. So while it’s by no means the official language of Iceland, you can certainly get by with English.

As we’ve said above, Icelandic is a relatively informal language, and first names are the preferred form of address. Surprisingly, using the English word please is widely accepted and common in everyday Icelandic conversations due to English exposure. For more formal situations, vinsamlegast (meaning ‘kindly’) can be used, often seen on signs or in official announcements.

However, politeness in Icelandic often stems from tone and phrasing. Using polite verb constructions like “Gætirðu” (Could you) or “Værirðu til í að” (Would you be willing to…) conveys courtesy. Another possibility is “Gjörðu svo vel,” which means roughly “here you go.” Often used when offering things to people, depending on the context, it can mean anything from “after you” to “enjoy your meal!”

The most iconic Icelandic saying is without doubt þetta reddast. Meaning something like “it’ll all work out”, it’s come to represent a certain mindset of many Icelanders. Seen in a positive light, ‘þetta reddast’ is a way of not worrying about things you have no control over. Some Icelanders, however, are not as big of fans of this phrase, identifying it with a certain carelessness and even laziness. Nevertheless, it’s probably one of the most common sayings in the Icelandic language, and nearly all Icelanders will have a strong opinion on it!

It might not surprise you to learn that the language most closely related to Icelandic belongs to another small island nation in the North Atlantic: the Faroe Islands! Our close linguistic cousins, Faroese and Icelandic are more or less mutually intelligible. However, Faroese features a more prominent influence from Danish, as they are still a territory of that country.

Erik Pomrenke

Born into a multilingual family, Erik has always had an interest in language. After having worked as both an English and German teacher, he moved to Iceland to pursue studies in historical linguistics. He’s since worked as both a journalist and marketer for many publications in the Icelandic travel industry. When not immersed in spreadsheets, you can find him hiking in the mountains, or else reading about the culture and history of Iceland.

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A lesson in the Icelandic language

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That volcano...