9 Things to You Should Know About Icelandic Language

1. Icelandic includes some neat-looking letters

There are 32 letters in Icelandic. It’s the English alphabet including the letters á, æ, ð, é, í, ó, ö, þ, ú, and ý, and excluding the letters c, q, w, and z.

2. Icelandic hasn’t changed much

Icelanders like to boast that they can still read their old Sagas from the 12th century. But, it is indeed more comfortable to study Grettir’s Saga in Old Norse than it is to learn Beowulf in Old English.

3. Non-Icelanders can’t say the word Eyjafjallajökull

As you may have seen when Eyjafjallajökull exploded in 2010, the Icelandiclanguage is a mouthful. Despite their best efforts, columnists all over the globe carved the name of the volcano. Icelanders thought it was witty.

4. The longest Icelandic word is 64 letters long

If you consider Eyjafjallajökull is a mouthful, say vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur. At 64 letters, it is typically viewed the longest Icelandic word. It indicates something along the lines of ‘a keychain ring holding the key to a room shed used by road workers in a place called Vaðlaheiði.’

5. Icelanders can’t say words starting with the letter v

Icelanders might giggle at how foreigners say their words, but a lot of them have difficulty speaking simple English words starting with the letter v. So they’ll say things like, “Icelanders are very good at English,” which is deep thinking that the letter v exists in their alphabet, but the letter w does not.

6. Some Icelandic words fail

Despiteefforts to create new Icelandic words for everything, loanwords sometimes persist. For instance, the word spergilkál (asparagus + cabbage) was designed for broccoli, but Icelanders use brokkólí, and the word bjúgaldin (sausage + fruit) was designed for banana, but they use banani.

7. Icelanders speak on the inhale

When Icelanders speak on the inhale, they are creating something called an ingressive sound. They manage to do it with the word já (yes).

8. If you’re going to learn one Icelandic word, let it be jæja

Icelanders use the word jæja all the time, and it doesn’t turn forms, grammatically-speaking. It means ‘well,’ ‘okay, so…’, or ‘alright, shall we go.’

9. Icelanders say please in a roundabout manner

Although Icelanders have a way of requesting something respectfully, there’s no excellent word for, please. Perhaps that’s why some Icelanders use the word plís, which is just the English word please spelled according to Icelandic meeting.

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