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Tag Archives: Icelandic versus other languages

Nananananananana LEÐURBLÖKUMAÐURINN Posted by on Sep 8, 2016

One of my favourite things about Icelandic is that there’s usually an Icelandic word for anything and everything. Icelandic did at one time steal and borrow from other languages just like almost every other language in the world does, most notably Danish and then later on English, but today extra effort is put to keeping…

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Gotta catch them all! Posted by on Jul 21, 2016

“I caught it! I caught it!” screamed a boy of maybe 10 year old outside my workplace today. I quickly stuck my head out of the door to congratulate him because his joy was just too sincere to ignore. We had a quick chat about his catch and then he went on his way to…

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Lost in Reykjavík Posted by on Jul 14, 2016

The tourist season is at its highest peak while July is here and will probably continue to be so to the end of August. Already we see the results at the place I work at, although we’re not in the tourist business by any stretch. Having a business on the ground floor in an area…

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Sons of Iceland. Posted by on Jun 23, 2016

Football fever is at record heights right now, but along has come an interesting side feature: if Icelanders try to watch the games in any other language than Icelandic they immediately get a bit confused listening to the announcers. The foreign announcers don’t call the players by their own names! This is due to the…

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5 points to reading Icelanders right. Posted by on Feb 25, 2016

As more and more tourists pour in run-ins with the local habits and culture are inevitable. One of the big issues I’ve seen foreigners take with Iceland is rudeness, or what’s perceived as rude. I say “perceived” because in many occasions I find the real problem is a culture shock rather than any real…

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New words for Icelandic Posted by on Nov 19, 2015

On the 4th August this year Samtökin ’78 declared a competition to find new words for the Icelandic language called Hýryrði, Gay Words. By this they meant it was time to find Icelandic equivalents for words that were only used as loanwords from English because – well, as many of you readers probably know already…

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Icelandic – unchangeable? Posted by on Jun 11, 2015

At some point or another anyone interested in Icelandic will come across the popular idea that Icelandic is being kept unchanged, or at least that it has changed very little with time. Occasionally you’ll even hear people claim that Icelandic is so close to Old Norse that Icelanders can still understand it. Alas, all of…

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