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Sleep, you pig – scary Icelandic lullabies. Posted by hulda on Sep 3, 2015
Sofðu nú svínið þitt svartur í augum Farðu í fúlan pytt fullan af draugum. (= Sleep now you black-eyed pig, fall in a deep pit of ghosts.) Lately this little lullaby has been popular on quite a few social media sites, gathering people’s attention simply by being a really horrible-sounding thing to sing to the…
Reciting Icelandic poetry. Posted by hulda on Aug 27, 2015
If I had to describe Icelandic as a language, one word would come to mind immediately: poetic. For most of their existence Icelanders have always valued poets highly, so highly in fact that an important person was practically assumed to be a skilled poet and even the poorest farmer could (and often would) show off…
Destroying Iceland for charity? Posted by hulda on Aug 20, 2015
This week arrived with troubling news: the police were investigating two Scottish men who had apparently driven quite a long way off-road in Iceland, which is illegal. Let’s repeat, it’s illegal to drive off-road in Iceland, everywhere, no exceptions. Why the general ban? It’s because Iceland’s highlands are moss and lichen -covered, and the damage done…
Laugadalur – hot spring valley Posted by hulda on Aug 13, 2015
Near downtown Reykjavík is a historical site that’s almost hidden by all the other activities around it, though the whole area takes its name from this place: Laugadalur, the valley of hot springs, is now better known for the Botanical Garden, one of the best swimming pools of Reykjavík, an ice skating rink and a…
Icelandic donut craze. Posted by hulda on Aug 6, 2015
A few days ago a friend of mine who lives in the UK contacted me and made some complaints about the state of affairs in their home country. “What about Iceland”, she then asked me, “what’s in the news?” I quickly opened a news site and found out the day’s main news were someone stealing 60…
Verslunarmannahelgi, party time in Iceland! Posted by hulda on Jul 30, 2015
We’re preparing for yet another festival here, this time one that’s called Verslunarmannahelgi (= tradesmen’s weekend), our equivalent of the Labour Day. Originally started as all merchants’ holiday, it has turned into a country-wide one where people, merchants or not, party happily throughout the long weekend. People are already busily gathering food, getting ready to drive…
Filling in your Icelandic. Posted by hulda on Jul 21, 2015
The one big difference between written and spoken Icelandic it would probably be this: spoken Icelandic has more words. Well – non-words, actually, more like fillers and exclamations of various types. Some are used for the typical purpose of a filler word, to patch a pause in conversation while the speaker is thinking of how to…