Nouns
Noun gender (kyn nafnorða)
Icelandic nouns have one of three grammatical genders. Unfortunately this word gender in English is a bit confusing, think of it more like genre or category.
The three categories are known as masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Noun cases (föll nafnorða)
Icelandic has four cases nominative (nefnifall), accusative (þolfall), genitive (þágufall), dative (eignarfall). The case of Icelandic nouns can be determined by prepositions or verbs.
Noun articles (greinir nafnorða)
Icelandic uses no indefinite article (a/an in English). The definite article is usually attached at the end of a word. We also have a detached definite article but it can only be used in front of an adjective which describes the noun. The detached definite article is rarely used. It is much more common for the adjective to be followed by with a noun which has the attached definite article.
Maður = a man
Maðurinn = the man
Hinn vitri maður = the wise man
But it's more common to just say: Vitri maðurinn = the wise man
The detached definite article is always hinn for masculine words, hin for feminine words and hið for neuter in nominative. In plural it's hinir (m), hinar (f) and hin (n) in nominative. The attached definite article is not completely regular, although some endings are common for each gender.
Here are examples of nouns in the nominative case: without an article, with the attached definite article and the detached definite article. The top 3 are masculine, followed by 3 feminine nouns and finally 3 neuter nouns.
| Garður, garðurinn, hinn góði garður (m) | Vetur, Veturinn, hinn góði vetur (m) | Hamar, hamarinn, hinn góði hamar (m) |
| A garden, the garden, the good garden | A winter, the winter, the good winter | Hammer, the hammer, the good hammer |
| Peysa, peysan, hin góða peysa (f) | Kanína, kanínan, hin góða kanína (f) | Tunna, tunnan, hin góða tunna (f) |
| A sweater, the sweater, the good sweater | A rabbit, the rabbit, the good rabbit | A barrel, the barrel, the good barrel |
| Hús, húsið, hið góða hús (n) | Te, Teið, hið góða te (n) | Ár, árið, hið góða ár (n) |
| A house, the house, the good house | Tea, the tea, the good tea | A year, the year, the good year |
Again, it's not common to use the detached definite article. It would be more natural to just say: Góði garðurinn, góði veturinn, góði hamarinn, góða peysan, góða kanínan, góða tunnan, góða húsið, góða teið, góða árið.
We will go into articles in more detail later, including how they are declined by cases.
The gender of the word also effects the declination of the adjectives that describe it. We'll also go into that in more detail later.
Plural (fleirtala nafnorða)
Icelandic nouns have singular and plural forms. The way plural is formed is not regular, although you will notice patterns that depend on the form of the word.
| Einn maður (m) | Margir menn |
| Einn stóll (m) | Margir stólar |
| Einn hóll (m) | Margir hólar |
| Einn stóll (m | Margir stólar |
| Eitt tungumál (n) | Mörg tungumál |
| Eitt bál (n) | Mörg bál |
| Eitt blað (n) | Mörg blöð |
| Eitt hlað (n) | Mörg hlöð |
| Ein skál (f) | Margar skálar |
| Ein nál (f) | Margar nálar |
| Ein kona (f) | Margar konur |
| Ein rós (f) | Margar rósir |
| Ein dós (f) | Margar dósir |
As a general rule, Icelandic noun gender is unpredictable.
However, there are some ways that you can sometimes use to make an educated guess at the gender of the noun. Usually a noun ending with -i, -ur, -ir is masculine, -a, -eit is feminine and -n, -að, -at, -it is neuter. Unfortunately, there are still quite a few exceptions from this.
If you know the gender of a noun and see another noun with the same ending and need to guess the gender of that word, it's sensible to guess they have the same gender. This in no way guaranteed though. For example, we already saw above how tungumál (n) has the same ending as skál (f) for example.