Icelandic Vocabulary - Modern Neologisms

Modern Neologisms

It is often the case in Icelandic that words for new concepts or ideas are composites of other words, veðurfræði (‘meteorology’), is derived from veður (‘weather’) and -fræði (‘studies’); or simply that old disused words are revived for new concepts. Like other Germanic languages, Icelandic words have a tendency to be compounded. This means that many small component words can be connected together to create a word with a new meaning. Take the example to right, hlutabréfamarkaður (‘stock market’), which is made from the words hluti (‘share’), bréf (‘document’) and markaður (‘market’).

However, many neologisms are coined using only the stems of existing words complying with ancient practice. Two examples are þyrla (Helicopter) from a verb meaning twirl and þota (Jet) from the verb þjóta (rush). All in all the neologisms are coined by compounding or using the still active ablauts or umlauts. Both provide nearly inexhaustible sources.

However, there are some notable exceptions to this rule. Kaffi, for example, is an icelandicised version of the French café or Italian caffè, both meaning ‘coffee’; that is to say that it has been adapted to the rules of Icelandic orthography. There are numerous other examples, including banani (in that case there was a proposed alternative, bjúgaldin, literally curved fruit, but that did not gain popularity). In situations like this, it may be awkward or impossible to create words for things that simply do not exist in Iceland by nature; therefore some form of a loanword may have to be used.