Letter from Iceland #50
The Little Book of Icelandic—Slang answer key
Blessuð og sæl!
Ah, Icelandic.
The language that everyone struggles to learn, and the language we Icelanders struggle to keep alive. It is an uphill battle in a world of globalization and global migration. And here in Iceland, where we have had massive immigration over the last decade, it is definitely a challenge.
Case in point: just now I called Costco to enquire whether they had a specific product in stock, and the clerk answered the phone in English, to make it clear from the get-go that our conversation would be in English. This is the default experience in Costco, and in much of the service industry here in Iceland. The people working in those jobs don’t speak Icelandic, so we Icelanders speak English.
Now, this is a sensitive topic, and before people get all huffy about it, let me say this: I get it, and I am not dissing anyone for not learning Icelandic. I am fully aware that we need people at this time to fill jobs, and not everyone is going to stick around forever, so putting in the time and effort to learn one of the most difficult languages in the world is not high on everyone’s list of priorities.
Still, we Icelanders really do appreciate when people make the effort to say “Góðan daginn” or “ég tala ekki íslensku” (I don’t speak Icelandic), or “getum við talað ensku?” (can we speak English), rather than getting a tetchy “English please” (which unfortunately happens far too often).
But on to this week’s Little Book of Icelandic installment. In case you are new here (hello! welcome!) I am posting the entirety of that book for paid subscribers, along with a voice file for each one (read by me personally, not some godforsaken AI 😜), so you can hear the Icelandic words spoken out loud.
And today we have the answer key to the slang words that have entered the Icelandic language, that I wrote about last week. Read on, or …
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