icelandic notes
Some stuff I translated from various books in the past two or three days, might be useful even to you advanced people. I often take notes even on the same thing over and over from different books so later when I sit down to write my textbook I can compare all the notes. I did translate them without a dictionary, and the books were also all old, so let me know if you see any mistakes.
I'm keenly interested in the v-insertion and n-insertion as I hadn't before found a book that described them (although the n-insertion is something you already know happens, I had just never seen it described specifically as n-insertion and not "irregular declination"), so if you know of any additional rules please tell me.
As I live in Iceland, if you want me to try and find a book specifically on this or that and translate the useful bits for you, I can certainly look for one in the library. There are lots of small books on a single thing (like "declining nouns" and "comma use").
Every word has a stem, some then have a suffix, then most have an ending.
dóm-ar-i stem-suffix-ending. hest-ur stem-ending. barn-ø stem-nothing.
If -ar- is the suffix, it changes to ur in plural dative (ex. dómari - dómur, rakari - rökur)
-and- to end (lesandi)
-ast- to ust (kærasti)
-un- to an? a-vixl? (skipun, pöntun)
-al- to ul (meðal, óðal, hérað)
-uð- to ð (höfuð)
-ur- to r. akur - akri. gróður - gróðri. vetur - vetri. fingur - fingri. (gimbur, öskur, hestur, söngur, hnöttur, æður, brúður). u is always dropped when the ending gives it a vowel immediately after the r.
-ar- to r. (sumar, höfuð)
-é- to já.? (hné, tré, fé)?
v-insertion:
stöð, ör, dögg, p/þröng, böl, frjóa, læ
j-insertion:
When æ, ý, ey are followed by a, u.
ex. höfðingi, foringi, rafvirki (words ending in -ingi and -yrki conjugate the same way), bær, bæir, fræ, grey, mey, nýr.
j sometimes skotið in after other samhljóð en g,k (á undan a,u)
skel - skeljar. ber - berjum. vefur - vefjar/vefs.
n-insertion:
tunga -tungna, vika - vikna
others: saga, gata, stúlka, hjarta, sól, vinda, rekkja, ekkja, tekja, bylgja, kirkja.
n-insertion is only in genitive plural. Most j-insertion words don't have n-insertion. Most n-insertion words end in j. Usually n is in words where the stem is at (uppgómmæltum lokhljóðum) the back of the mouth at the soft palate, with a stop.
Stems ending in j, n, u never get n-insertion in genitive plural. (ferja, stjarna, völva).
In some words you can choose whether to use the inserted n or not (vinda)
Many words with foreign STEMS conjugate like vélinda: firma, prisma, astma
Body parts too: eyra, hjarta, bjúga, eista, milta
undeclinable words: heima (in phrases), Kína, Dehlí, hugsi (f), andvaka (adj), Þrændur, Vindur, Eistur, Jamtur
irregular words: maður, dóttir, altari, gamall, vondur, lítill, kaupa, duga, einsamall, sannur, kona, bóndi, blástur, dagur, eyrir, bylur, öxl, mús, gröftur
words with a-mutation (a-vixl, where words with a in stem change to ö if the ending has u in it, and words with a in suffix change to u) to ö:
fangi, karl, barn, fata, japani, gamall, taminn, heilagur
to u:
dómari, gáfaður, færastur, ólyfjan
with both:
rakari, markaður
xxx NAMES
foreign - icelandified - icelandic example
(18th century loanwords)
Beck - bekkur - Kvíabekkur
Berg - berg - setberg
Briem - brján - Brjánslækur
Dahl - dalur, dal - Héraldsdalur
Holm - Hólm - Hólmasel
-sen (Danish) - -sen/-son
Schmidt - Smed
-trup/-torp - -þorp (german Bredsdorff taken by Danish Bredstrup, ice ending would be þorp)
(16th-19th century)
Many names taken from Danish or German, also Germans who "translated" their own names into Danish when they were being merchants or famous people. Also people who went abroad for school translated their names.
(18th century - was popular to take up Latin endings)
Widal (Latin) - Viðidal, Vídalín
Thoroddsens - Þóroddsson
-inus - -ín, -inus - Hjaltalín
-man - -mann
(didn't note what century/unnoted)
-søn - -sen
-steen - -stein - Hafstein (Havsteen)
-scheving - skeving
Foreign names with two or more syllables ending in -i (Mussolini) take -s in eignarfall (Mussolinis).
Most foreign names don't decline but you can choose to decline them if you want. This is largely because no one knew how they should decline them in the past, so they just never declined them. The "rules" we have today for declining foreign names are because newspaper reporters used to decline foreign names wrong and guess at how to decline them, those guesses and mistakes have now sometimes become the rule.
Names ending in -es/os/us get -ar endings in ef. in Icelandic (Marcos)
(Name translations that came about from reporters messing around)
Judith - Júdit
Astrid - Ástrið
John - Jón, Jóhannes (if the Bible)
Margaret - Margrét(ar)
Josephs - Jósefs
Smiths - Smiðs
If a name ends on a vowel it takes eignarfall-s-i except if it ends on á, a and sometimes e (then the word doesn't decline).
(Marinó, Ottó), Michelangelós.
-mann names are endingless in eignarfall
-us (if Latin name) declines like Magnús
-an (if family name) declines like Kjartan but is endingless in þgf.
-e (if nickname) have -s in eignarfall (Löve, Waage, Dante, Goethe, Heine)
The rule to have female family names end in -daughter and male names end in -son only appeared relatively recently, because girls from America and such came to Iceland and had -son last names and this pissed Iceland off and so they decided to make a rule about it. There were more complicated rules they tried to introduce at one point, about how the same name could be declined totally differently depending on the gender of the person (talking?) but no one followed them, then they dropped them.
Conclusion: newspapers almost never Icelandify names. It's okay to do so in books, more often done in children's and young adult books. Whether to decline names or not is up to you, you have a choice on foreign names if you want to decline them or not, especially modern names that have no historical declination examples.
NAME INFO FROM OTHER SOURCES:
Kvenmannsnöfn
Antónia verður Antonía.
Anzhela verður Angela.
Marie Aurelia verður María Árelía.
Hanni verði Hanný.
Marian Estephany verði Marían Stefanía.
Lisabeth verði Lísbet.
Karlmannsnöfn
Alexander Ionas (grískt) verður Alexander Jónas.
Frode verður Fróði
Ilias (grískt) verður Elías.
Jacobo verður Jakob.
Joen (færeyskt) verður Jóhann.
John verður Jón.
Knud (danskt) verður Knútur.
Krisstyn verður Kristín.
Miguel (filippeyskt) verður Michael.
Rune (sænskt) verður Rúnar.
Stefan (pólskt) verður Stefán.
Konstantin verði Konstantín.
Wanderley verði Valur.
Raymond verði Reynisson.
xxx
hlékommu - pause comma
Periods are placed:
- after a sentence and paragraph
- after numbers. (ex. á 16. blaðsíðu hefst 3. kafli)
- exception: none after parenthesis mark (í bugðu) or fractions (like dates). So "1)" and "3/4" have no mark.
- after abbreviations (ex. hr. - herra, frh. - framhald)
- exception: none after abbreviated places: Rvík (reykjavík), Khöfn (Kaupmannahöfn)
- If more than one word is abbreviated, do so after the end of each word (ex. a.m.k. - að minnsta kosti, o.s.fru.)
- Person names have period when shortened to one letter (ex. Áslaug G. Bjarnadóttir)
- Periods are used instead of commas in large numbers (1.000.000, not 1,000,000)
- Regular 3 dots (röðpunkta) used when something is omitted in text, like in quotes (same as english)
- no period after measurement abbreviations or "periodic table abbreviations" which i forget the word for (m - meter, g, l - liter, Na, V - volt)
- Place, company, and business names have no period when abbreviated (SS hotdogs for example)
xxx
Comma use: A, B and C (like in England - A, B, and C is not correct)
if verb is directly after subject, verb can also be gerund (strákurinn talar - the boy talks/the boy is talking)
adjectives must have "is" - strákurinn er (adj). just like in english
stelpan (nf) heilsar stráknum (þgf)
subject always in nominative, so:
stráknum(þgf) heilsar stelpan(nf) = means the same thing as the above sentence.
The girl helps the boy / the boy IS HELPED BY the girl. In English we have to change those three words, but in Icelandic, no.
Pronouns sometimes are used in place of someone's name when talking about multiple people.
Hún Sigrún borðar ekki svo mikið - (they) She AND Sigrun don't eat so much
Við Ólafur komum seinna - ég OG ólafur
þið Páll eruð góðir krakkar - you AND páll
Þið strákarnir - you AND the boys
okkur - me and
ykkur - you and
við - me and you/he
þið - you and you/he
heita doesn't use vera - "hann heitir" (he named) - not "hann er heitir" (he is named)
subject - verb - adjective/object - object
Eirikur - lánar - Unu - Penna
Negative words (ekki, aldrei) you must answer with "jú" instead of "já" in questions.
showing posession:
konan á húsið (house is definite)
þetta er hus konunnar (woman is definite and declined)
husið hennar (house is definite, pronoun is declined)
you can put eigin in for stress
hefur þú þína EIGIN stofu? - "have you your OWN..."
declines irregularly: eigin (m), eigin (f), eigið (n)
á hverjum sunnudegi = á sunnudögum
"capitalized letters" and "lowercase letters"
lítlir/stórir bókstafir
I'm keenly interested in the v-insertion and n-insertion as I hadn't before found a book that described them (although the n-insertion is something you already know happens, I had just never seen it described specifically as n-insertion and not "irregular declination"), so if you know of any additional rules please tell me.
As I live in Iceland, if you want me to try and find a book specifically on this or that and translate the useful bits for you, I can certainly look for one in the library. There are lots of small books on a single thing (like "declining nouns" and "comma use").
Every word has a stem, some then have a suffix, then most have an ending.
dóm-ar-i stem-suffix-ending. hest-ur stem-ending. barn-ø stem-nothing.
If -ar- is the suffix, it changes to ur in plural dative (ex. dómari - dómur, rakari - rökur)
-and- to end (lesandi)
-ast- to ust (kærasti)
-un- to an? a-vixl? (skipun, pöntun)
-al- to ul (meðal, óðal, hérað)
-uð- to ð (höfuð)
-ur- to r. akur - akri. gróður - gróðri. vetur - vetri. fingur - fingri. (gimbur, öskur, hestur, söngur, hnöttur, æður, brúður). u is always dropped when the ending gives it a vowel immediately after the r.
-ar- to r. (sumar, höfuð)
-é- to já.? (hné, tré, fé)?
v-insertion:
stöð, ör, dögg, p/þröng, böl, frjóa, læ
j-insertion:
When æ, ý, ey are followed by a, u.
ex. höfðingi, foringi, rafvirki (words ending in -ingi and -yrki conjugate the same way), bær, bæir, fræ, grey, mey, nýr.
j sometimes skotið in after other samhljóð en g,k (á undan a,u)
skel - skeljar. ber - berjum. vefur - vefjar/vefs.
n-insertion:
tunga -tungna, vika - vikna
others: saga, gata, stúlka, hjarta, sól, vinda, rekkja, ekkja, tekja, bylgja, kirkja.
n-insertion is only in genitive plural. Most j-insertion words don't have n-insertion. Most n-insertion words end in j. Usually n is in words where the stem is at (uppgómmæltum lokhljóðum) the back of the mouth at the soft palate, with a stop.
Stems ending in j, n, u never get n-insertion in genitive plural. (ferja, stjarna, völva).
In some words you can choose whether to use the inserted n or not (vinda)
Many words with foreign STEMS conjugate like vélinda: firma, prisma, astma
Body parts too: eyra, hjarta, bjúga, eista, milta
undeclinable words: heima (in phrases), Kína, Dehlí, hugsi (f), andvaka (adj), Þrændur, Vindur, Eistur, Jamtur
irregular words: maður, dóttir, altari, gamall, vondur, lítill, kaupa, duga, einsamall, sannur, kona, bóndi, blástur, dagur, eyrir, bylur, öxl, mús, gröftur
words with a-mutation (a-vixl, where words with a in stem change to ö if the ending has u in it, and words with a in suffix change to u) to ö:
fangi, karl, barn, fata, japani, gamall, taminn, heilagur
to u:
dómari, gáfaður, færastur, ólyfjan
with both:
rakari, markaður
xxx NAMES
foreign - icelandified - icelandic example
(18th century loanwords)
Beck - bekkur - Kvíabekkur
Berg - berg - setberg
Briem - brján - Brjánslækur
Dahl - dalur, dal - Héraldsdalur
Holm - Hólm - Hólmasel
-sen (Danish) - -sen/-son
Schmidt - Smed
-trup/-torp - -þorp (german Bredsdorff taken by Danish Bredstrup, ice ending would be þorp)
(16th-19th century)
Many names taken from Danish or German, also Germans who "translated" their own names into Danish when they were being merchants or famous people. Also people who went abroad for school translated their names.
(18th century - was popular to take up Latin endings)
Widal (Latin) - Viðidal, Vídalín
Thoroddsens - Þóroddsson
-inus - -ín, -inus - Hjaltalín
-man - -mann
(didn't note what century/unnoted)
-søn - -sen
-steen - -stein - Hafstein (Havsteen)
-scheving - skeving
Foreign names with two or more syllables ending in -i (Mussolini) take -s in eignarfall (Mussolinis).
Most foreign names don't decline but you can choose to decline them if you want. This is largely because no one knew how they should decline them in the past, so they just never declined them. The "rules" we have today for declining foreign names are because newspaper reporters used to decline foreign names wrong and guess at how to decline them, those guesses and mistakes have now sometimes become the rule.
Names ending in -es/os/us get -ar endings in ef. in Icelandic (Marcos)
(Name translations that came about from reporters messing around)
Judith - Júdit
Astrid - Ástrið
John - Jón, Jóhannes (if the Bible)
Margaret - Margrét(ar)
Josephs - Jósefs
Smiths - Smiðs
If a name ends on a vowel it takes eignarfall-s-i except if it ends on á, a and sometimes e (then the word doesn't decline).
(Marinó, Ottó), Michelangelós.
-mann names are endingless in eignarfall
-us (if Latin name) declines like Magnús
-an (if family name) declines like Kjartan but is endingless in þgf.
-e (if nickname) have -s in eignarfall (Löve, Waage, Dante, Goethe, Heine)
The rule to have female family names end in -daughter and male names end in -son only appeared relatively recently, because girls from America and such came to Iceland and had -son last names and this pissed Iceland off and so they decided to make a rule about it. There were more complicated rules they tried to introduce at one point, about how the same name could be declined totally differently depending on the gender of the person (talking?) but no one followed them, then they dropped them.
Conclusion: newspapers almost never Icelandify names. It's okay to do so in books, more often done in children's and young adult books. Whether to decline names or not is up to you, you have a choice on foreign names if you want to decline them or not, especially modern names that have no historical declination examples.
NAME INFO FROM OTHER SOURCES:
Kvenmannsnöfn
Antónia verður Antonía.
Anzhela verður Angela.
Marie Aurelia verður María Árelía.
Hanni verði Hanný.
Marian Estephany verði Marían Stefanía.
Lisabeth verði Lísbet.
Karlmannsnöfn
Alexander Ionas (grískt) verður Alexander Jónas.
Frode verður Fróði
Ilias (grískt) verður Elías.
Jacobo verður Jakob.
Joen (færeyskt) verður Jóhann.
John verður Jón.
Knud (danskt) verður Knútur.
Krisstyn verður Kristín.
Miguel (filippeyskt) verður Michael.
Rune (sænskt) verður Rúnar.
Stefan (pólskt) verður Stefán.
Konstantin verði Konstantín.
Wanderley verði Valur.
Raymond verði Reynisson.
xxx
hlékommu - pause comma
Periods are placed:
- after a sentence and paragraph
- after numbers. (ex. á 16. blaðsíðu hefst 3. kafli)
- exception: none after parenthesis mark (í bugðu) or fractions (like dates). So "1)" and "3/4" have no mark.
- after abbreviations (ex. hr. - herra, frh. - framhald)
- exception: none after abbreviated places: Rvík (reykjavík), Khöfn (Kaupmannahöfn)
- If more than one word is abbreviated, do so after the end of each word (ex. a.m.k. - að minnsta kosti, o.s.fru.)
- Person names have period when shortened to one letter (ex. Áslaug G. Bjarnadóttir)
- Periods are used instead of commas in large numbers (1.000.000, not 1,000,000)
- Regular 3 dots (röðpunkta) used when something is omitted in text, like in quotes (same as english)
- no period after measurement abbreviations or "periodic table abbreviations" which i forget the word for (m - meter, g, l - liter, Na, V - volt)
- Place, company, and business names have no period when abbreviated (SS hotdogs for example)
xxx
Comma use: A, B and C (like in England - A, B, and C is not correct)
if verb is directly after subject, verb can also be gerund (strákurinn talar - the boy talks/the boy is talking)
adjectives must have "is" - strákurinn er (adj). just like in english
stelpan (nf) heilsar stráknum (þgf)
subject always in nominative, so:
stráknum(þgf) heilsar stelpan(nf) = means the same thing as the above sentence.
The girl helps the boy / the boy IS HELPED BY the girl. In English we have to change those three words, but in Icelandic, no.
Pronouns sometimes are used in place of someone's name when talking about multiple people.
Hún Sigrún borðar ekki svo mikið - (they) She AND Sigrun don't eat so much
Við Ólafur komum seinna - ég OG ólafur
þið Páll eruð góðir krakkar - you AND páll
Þið strákarnir - you AND the boys
okkur - me and
ykkur - you and
við - me and you/he
þið - you and you/he
heita doesn't use vera - "hann heitir" (he named) - not "hann er heitir" (he is named)
subject - verb - adjective/object - object
Eirikur - lánar - Unu - Penna
Negative words (ekki, aldrei) you must answer with "jú" instead of "já" in questions.
showing posession:
konan á húsið (house is definite)
þetta er hus konunnar (woman is definite and declined)
husið hennar (house is definite, pronoun is declined)
you can put eigin in for stress
hefur þú þína EIGIN stofu? - "have you your OWN..."
declines irregularly: eigin (m), eigin (f), eigið (n)
á hverjum sunnudegi = á sunnudögum
"capitalized letters" and "lowercase letters"
lítlir/stórir bókstafir