Every Single Word in Icelandic

Afsakið.

I have noticed that one of the differences between a human and a tree or a stone or a mountain is that humans do not sit still very much. They are always running around doing many different and important things. (Like shopping in a súpermarket, or taking little humans to a school where they learn how to be big humans.)

Because they are always running around, humans sometimes bump into each other.

That is why they invented the word “afsakið”. 

Afsakið means “excuse me”, and you can also use it if you are trying to get someone to pay attention to you, even if you have never bumped into them. (Or to say you are sorry that you haven’t updated your blog in a very long time.)

Pulsa (or pylsa, if you insist).

“Pulsa” is an Icelandic word for a thing that people like very much to stick into their mouths and eat.

“Pylsa” is another Icelandic word for the same thing.

Both of them mean “hot dog”, and they are both very useful if you visit me in a flying machine, because my people are good at making them. (Hot dogs, not flying machines.)

Now you are probably thinking: “Why are there two words in Icelandic for the same thing, Iceland? Why are your people so silly?”

This a very good question.

The people who say “pylsa” think that the people who say “pulsa” are doing it all wrong. They say “Stop saying pulsa! Start saying pylsa! That is the right way!” They can get very angry about this, even though both pulsa and pylsa taste exactly the same.

But the people who like saying “pulsa” (like this people who help me with this inter-net) just do not listen to this. They think that saying “pylsa” would be like saying “hot canine” instead of “hot dog”.

And that is all.

Your friend,
- Iceland

PS It was Rán who made the pulsa and pylsa in the drawing. She also made this book for you.

Skemmtilegt.

My people’s language has many words that change depending on what people are using them to talk about. “Skemmtilegt” is one of these words.

It means “fun”. (But do not confuse it with “fönn”, which means “snow”. I will tell you more about that later.)

It is a word that does not like to stay the same. A human man can be skemmtilegur, but a human woman can be skemmtileg. A human baby is sometimes skemmtilegt. And if you have many men, they can be skemmtilegir, and many women can be skemmtilegar, and many women and men together can be skemmtileg.

Many people who are trying to learn my people’s language think that this is not very skemmtilegt.

Bless bless,
- Iceland

Suggested by my friend Chris Laurel who said “it’s fun to say (at least for an English speaker)”.

Eyja-fjalla-jökull.

This is a famous word that many people have heard with their ears. Some of them have even tried to say it with their mouths, even though they do not understand what it means.

But don’t worry, I will explain it now so this does not happen to you.

“Eyjafjallajökull” looks like one word, and it is, but it also has three moving parts in it — eyja, fjalla and jökull.

“Fjall” means “mountain” and “eyja” means “island”. But if you put them together they mean “Eyjafjöll”, which means “Island Mountains”. (My people gave them this name because they could see my Vestmannaeyjar from them.)

And if you put “jökull” at the end it means “The glacier on top of the mountains you can see the islands from”.

Because Eyjafjallajökull is very famous (it has been on your television) you know that it is a volcano. But even if it is a volcano, it doesn’t have the word “volcano” in it.

Many humans find this confusing, but if you think about it with your brain, it is really very clever.

Bless bless,
- Iceland

P.S. This word was suggested by ibreakfortutles who said “coolest word ever”. (The picture comes from Boncherry, via Emma.)

Útlenska.

I have noticed that many humans visit me in flying machines to look at my water-falls and my mountains, and maybe climb all over me, and make moving pictures with me in them to put on their Vimeos.

But other humans are not like this.

They just do not “give one shit”* about waterfalls and mountains, and instead they only want to go to töff bars to meet my people, and explain many “awe-some” things to them, and drink many drinks with them, and dance to loud music with their feet with them, and maybe even try to kiss them on their mouths when they are not looking.

If you are a person like this, you will notice that when you first go into the töff bar to meet my people, they will be saying very clever and witty things to each other, and you just will not understand any of them. Maybe you will be confused about this, but do not worry. (You are not “crazy in your brain-house”.)

The reason you do not understand them is that they are speaking “íslenska”, and you just do not know how to do this.

You only speak “útlenska”. It means “a language which is not íslenska.”

Maybe there is a blogg about every single word in útlenska, but this is not it. (This blogg is only about every single word in íslenska.)

Bless bless,
- Iceland

P.S. Do you like the picture of the Icelandic tongue? Rán made it.

*I do not know what humans mean when they say this, but it does not sound very good.