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Íslenska Icelandic
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Indo-European	Germanic	Iceland	Extended Latin

Contents 1 History 2 Loanwords 3 Difference between words 3.1 Geta vs. kunna

History

After Iceland’s independence from Denmark in 1944 a lot of Danish loanwords were replaced with own inventions. Some Danish words remained, like kartafla ( : kartoffel) but most of the vocabulary was replaced. This tradition has always been something of a signature characteristic of the Icelandic language and the language has very few loanwords overall in comparison to other languages in the world. Like the other Scandinavian languages, Icelandic uses compound words, which means that they’re taking many words and sticking them together to get a new one. This method is important when making own words for something.

Examples:

Vegbref - Passport (Road letter)
Tölva - Computer (portmanteau of ”töl” (number) and ”völva” (seeress)
Veðurfræðdi - Meteorology (Weather studies)

Loanwords

Even though the language has very few loanwords, there are still a number of common example. Often, an Icelandic has been suggested but has not become popular amongst the speakers. An example of this is banani (banana), where the proposed word was bjúgaldin (curved fruit) but did not gain popularity. Other loanwords are often words that came with Christianity like kirkja and biskup, and the aforementioned Danish loanwords. It’s hard to keep up with creating new words for every new technology or study, therefore many English words are used for technology terminology. Even though there are officially an Icelandic word, the speakers often use the English word instead. An example of this is the word for ”to download” which is hlaða niður (load down). However, downloada is also commonly used.

Examples:

Bíll - Car (automobile)
Kaffi - Coffee
Tóbak - Tobacco

Difference between words

Geta vs. kunna

Both of these verbs mean ”to be able to”, that is ”can”, but are used in different contexts. Kunna is ”to be able” to in the sense of having a skill to perform or to do something or ”to know how to do something”. Geta, on the other hand, is used in all other senses. Also notice that when the verb geta is used, the following verb is always in the part participle, but not for kunna. You can find the conjucation of both by clicking the words in the heading.

Examples:

Ég get farið í bíó á morgun.
I cannot goLiterally: gone to the cinema tomorrow.

Við kunnum að tala íslensku
We can speak Icelandic.

Icelandic pages
Introduction · Adjectives · Adpositions · Articles · Irregular verbs · Lexicon · Nouns · Numbers · Pronouns · Questions · Sounds and Writing · Verbs · Vocab

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