#28: Hreindýr

To build upon yesterday's entry on Christmas, today I want to talk about reindeer. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the English word is simply a compound of "rein" and "deer;" after all, they are a type of deer and you can strap reins to them a la Santa Claus. But it turns out that this isn't the case at all. Instead, the word reindeer has Nordic roots, just like its Icelandic cognate hreindýr.

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#27: Jól

I thought it might be nice to follow up yesterday's somber post with a happier one, so today I'm going to talk about the Icelandic word jól. It's a seasonal word that is absolutely everywhere in Iceland at the moment, and that's because it means "Christmas." With only 10 days left to buy all of the gifts, cook all of the food, and mentally prepare to deal with your extended family, now seems like a good time to talk about all things jól.

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#26: Ártíð

What is the opposite of a birthday? Not all cultures celebrate birthdays to the same extent that we do in America, but most languages at least have a word or phrase that means "the anniversary of one's birth." However, it is a curious phenomenon that many of those languages do not have a corresponding word to denote the anniversary of one's death. Icelandic, though, does have such a word-- ártíð.

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#25: Að Poppa

Today's entry is going to be a quick one, because I'm in the process of finishing up some of my graduate school applications! The word that I've chosen is fun to say, and useful if you're a habitual snacker, but I don't have very many insightful remarks to make about it. It's að poppa, and it's a verb that specifically means "to make popcorn."

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#24: Rafmagn

Today's word describes something that people use all the time-- not just in Iceland, but in most parts of the world. It's rafmagn, which literally means "amber power." But you may know it better as electricty.

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#23: Þáttur

Often, learning new vocabulary is a simple matter of memorization and retention: all you really need to know is hundur means "dog," köttur means "cat," et cetera. But when you encounter a word that has numerous different meanings, things can get a little tricky. Today's word is one of those-- it's þáttur, and it basically means "part," but it also has a large handful of situation-specific uses which I'll touch on here (skip to the end if you want a quick summary of them).

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#22: Peysa

Today's word is one that should come in handy now that winter is on the horizon... even if, so far, this month has been underwhelmingly warm. It's peysa, and it means "sweater" (or "jumper" for those of you overseas).

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#21: Dýragarður

One of my favorite places to go when I was younger was Dýragarðurinn í Bronx. Of course, I knew nothing of Icelandic back then, so I called it by its English name-- the Bronx Zoo. Now that I am living in New York City again, I've been meaning to have another fun-filled day at the zoo, as I'm long overdue for a visit. But until then, I'll just talk about zoos on the internet, starting with the Icelandic word for them (which, as you have probably guessed, is dýragarður).

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#20: Að Gúgla

I've pointed out in several previous posts that Icelandic is generally resistant to foreign loanwords. That's definitely true-- there's a strong linguistic purism movement in Iceland, which means that whenever a new word is needed, it is typically constructed from pre-existing Icelandic roots. The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies and several other organizations involved in regulating the language are very supportive of this, which is how we get a word like sporðdreki ("tail dragon") instead of something boring like "skorpió." Sometimes, these sorts of things are even crowd-sourced, with competitions being held in schools or via milk cartons. The carton to the left, for instance, asks consumers to come up with a word for reality television shows. The word that the carton puts forth is raunveruleikaþáttur (which does literally mean "reality program"), but people with better ideas are encouraged to submit them on the company's website. You can find six pages of word contests there, and vote for your favorite suggestions if you're so inclined!

Of course, a few loanwords occasionally slip through the cracks and enter the language anyway. Some are very old borrowings from Danish, vestiges of a bygone time when Iceland was under Denemark's dominion. But some are very new, having snuck in through the back door that is slang. Today's word is one of those recent neologisms-- að gúgla. It means "to google."

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#19: Batavegur

Whenever something bad happens, whether it's an illness or a natural disaster or any other kind of crisis, we always hope for a speedy recovery. But the unfortunate truth is that sometimes recovery takes a while, because most things just can't be fixed with the flip of a switch or the push of a button. Instead, recovery is usually a slow and continuous process, which is exactly what is reflected in the Icelandic word batavegur.

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#18: Lundi

Today's word doesn't have much of an interesting history behind it, nor is it a particularly useful word for most people. But, it's one that's worth mentioning because I chose it as a mascot for this little project of mine. It's lundi, and it means "puffin."

Surely you've noticed my little puffin up at the top of the page there, right?

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#17: Útlenska

If you encounter an Icelandic noun that ends in -(n)ska, it's a decently safe bet that it refers to some kind of language. In addition to popping up in íslenska and enska, it also appears in words like danska, spænska, hebreska, finnska, kínverska (Chinese), þyska (German), and even klingonska. That's because it's a suffix much like the -ese in "Japanese" or the -ish in "Swedish." Of course, there are exceptions (such as latína, úrdú, and norræna [Old Norse]), but they are relatively rare. And, floating in this sea of -(n)ska words there is also útlenska, the Icelandic term for "foreign language." But perhaps a more accurate translation would be something like "Foreignese."

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#16: Að Nenna

We've all had those moments when we just don't feel like doing anything-- rainy days and lazy Sundays when the only thing that sounds appealing is lounging around on the couch and eating our favorite comfort foods. Today's word is perfect for times like this, or days when you're seriously procrastinating on something important, or even when you're just feeling indifferent. It's að nenna, a verb with no precise English equivalent.

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#15: Appelsínugulur

Today's word can be used to describe many things that I really like-- pumpkins, tigers, autumn, and a surprisingly large portion of my wardrobe. It's appelsínugulur, and it's the word for my favorite color: orange.

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#14: Öndvegi

Today's word is one that, at first glance, may not seem all that useful to know. It's öndvegi, and it means "seat of honor." Sure, you may use it at an awards banquet or a big celebratory dinner, but how often do you go to those? And how often do you go to those in Iceland? It seems like öndvegi might be one of those dusty words that hardly ever gets taken off the shelf, but it turns out that that's not true at all. That's because the genitive form of the word-- öndvegis-- is actually a very handy and adaptable prefix in compound words.

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#13: Feðgar

I've already touched on untranslatable words in a previous post, but the truth is that "translatability" as a general concept doesn't really exist at all. At best, translation is merely a form of approximation. It's all about finding the "closest match" to a word in a different language, and when you do that, chances are that some subtle aspect of the original word-- perhaps its connotation, or maybe an extra layer of meaning, or something encoded in the actual sound of the word-- will be lost. This is perhaps best seen in words that describe family relations, like the Icelandic word feðgar.

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