Why Icelandic Creates New Words, Not Borrows Them

Walk down a street in London, New York, or Sydney, and you’ll hear a language built on centuries of borrowing. English is a proud and promiscuous thief, happily snatching words like sushi (Japanese), schadenfreude (German), and bungalow (Gujarati). When a new concept like the ‘computer’ or the ‘telephone’ emerges, English doesn’t hesitate—it simply adopts the term. But travel to the windswept island of Iceland, and you’ll find a radically different approach. In Iceland, you don’t use a ‘computer’; you use a tölva. You don’t call someone on a ‘telephone’; you use a sími.

This isn’t an accident. It’s a conscious, deliberate, and fascinating policy of linguistic purism, where a nation actively chooses to create new words from its ancient roots rather than borrow them. It’s a story of cultural identity, national pride, and poetic word-smithing.

A Fortress of Language: The “Why” Behind the Policy

To understand why Iceland guards its language so fiercely, you have to look at its history. For centuries, Iceland was a remote and isolated nation, which naturally helped preserve its language, a direct descendant of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. When you read the ancient Icelandic Sagas, written in the 13th century, you’re reading a language remarkably close to modern Icelandic.

The real catalyst for linguistic purism, however, came from a position of defense. From the 14th century until 1944, Iceland was under foreign rule, primarily by Denmark. During this period, the Danish language began to seep into administration, trade, and daily life. For Icelandic intellectuals and nationalists, preserving their unique language became a powerful symbol of their cultural independence and a cornerstone of their fight for sovereignty. The language wasn’t just a communication tool; it was the vessel of their history, their literature, and their very identity as a people.

This movement, formalized in the 19th century, continues today. The government-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies is tasked with, among other things, coining and promoting new Icelandic words for modern concepts. They are the guardians at the gate of the Icelandic lexicon.

Inside the Word-Smithing Workshop: How New Words are Born

So, how do you invent a word for “jet plane” or “podcast” using 1,000-year-old linguistic material? The Icelandic language committee has a few clever methods.

1. Compounding: The Art of Combination

The most common technique is to combine two existing Icelandic words to describe a new concept. The results are often beautifully transparent and poetic.

• Computer is tölva. This masterpiece combines tala (number) and völva (a prophetess or seeress from Norse mythology). So, a computer isn’t just a machine that computes; it’s a “number-prophetess” that divines information from data.
• Electricity is rafmagn. This joins raf (amber) with magn (power or might). This is incredibly clever, as it mirrors the origin of the word “electron”, which comes from the Greek ēlektron, meaning amber—the substance the ancient Greeks used to discover static electricity.
• Television is sjónvarp. A straightforward but elegant combination of sjón (sight) and varp (a projection or throwing). It’s a machine that “throws sight” at you.
• Police is lögregla, which combines lög (law) and regla (rule or order).

2. Re-purposing Old Words

Sometimes, the committee finds an old, forgotten word in the sagas and gives it a new lease on life. This connects the modern world directly to Iceland’s Viking past.

• Telephone is sími. This word is derived from an Old Norse word for a “thread” or “cord.” What is a telephone, after all, but a thread that carries a voice?
• Screen (on a device) is skjár. This was an old word for a window pane, which was historically made from a stretched and dried animal membrane. Today, it refers to the glass pane that displays our digital world.
• Jet plane is þota (pronounced “thota”). This word comes from an old verb meaning “to rush” or “to move very fast.”

3. Calques: Loan Translations

A calque is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word translation. Iceland does this to absorb the *idea* of a foreign word without absorbing the word itself.

• Meteorology becomes veðurfræði. This translates the Greek roots perfectly: veður (weather) + fræði (study/science), just like meteor + logos.
• President is forseti, from for (before/in front of) and seti (sitter), literally “one who sits in front”, a direct parallel to the Latin praesidens.

The Modern Challenge: Purity vs. The Internet

This all sounds wonderfully romantic, but is it sustainable in the 21st century? The rise of the internet, social media, and global pop culture presents the biggest challenge yet to Iceland’s language policy.

The speed at which new slang and tech terms emerge is faster than any committee can handle. While the official word for a ‘podcast’ is hlaðvarp (from hlaða niður ‘to download’ + varp ‘broadcast’), many younger Icelanders will simply say podcast. English loanwords, known as “tökuorð”, pepper the colloquial speech of the youth. They might sörfa (surf) the web, call someone a nörd (nerd), or think something is kúl (cool).

There is a growing tension between the officially sanctioned, pure Icelandic and the hybrid language spoken on the streets of Reykjavík. For purists, this is a worrying trend. For others, it’s the natural, unavoidable evolution of a living language in a connected world.

Yet, the commitment remains. The very act of creating and debating these new words keeps the language dynamic and reinforces its importance in the national consciousness. Icelandic is a living monument to the idea that a language can be both ancient and modern, a testament to a culture that treasures its heritage enough to actively forge its future. Whether it’s a beautiful struggle or a losing battle, it remains one of the most fascinating linguistic experiments in the world.