Nýyrðasmiðja Málþvottahús

A few geographical names

2012-01-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sahara Desert:
1) Sandheimur: A logical designation for earth's largest desert.
2) Þurrgarðr: The second element 'garður' is used in the old meaning of "world" (Ásgarður, Miðgarður), because of the magnitude of the desert in comparison to other deserts.

Sahel: (Semi-arid belt forming the southern border of the Sahara Desert. The Arabic word sahil literally means "shore, coast", describing the appearance of the vegetation of the Sahel as a coastline delimiting the sand of the Sahara. )
1) Sandheimshvörf (turning point or transitional region (hvörf) bordering the Sahara desert
2) Þurrgarðsþröskuldur (The "threshold" of Sahara)

Lybian desert: Sandheimur fyrir vestan Kóngafljót (The name of the Sahara west of the Nile)

Hudson Bay: Vestrasalt (The Hudson bay, Baltic and Sea of Ochotsk are the ONLY three large landlocked watermasses situated on the same degree of latitude in America, Europe and Asia respectively. For that reason, I though of calling the Hudson Bay, Vestrasalt. If you check the world map, it should seem a logical designation.

Pinsk Marshes (Pripjat Marshes): Pineskjumýrar (The Icelandic name is 'Pripetmýrar', but it predominantly named after the city of Pinsk, judging from the English wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinsk_Marshes?oldid=cur and this name can easily be Icelandicized: Russian names of Cities ending in -sk have the ending -eskja in Old Icelandic literature: Smolensk (Smáleskja), Polotsk (Pallteskja). Analoguous to these formations Pinsk becomes Pineskja and the Pinsk Marshes 'Pineskjumýrar'.

Sea of Ochotsk: Jakteskjusalt (The name of the Sea is derived from the city-name Ochotsk, a settlement at the coast of this marginal sea, which is in its turn derived from the name of the River Ochota, which means 'Hunting' in Russian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhota_River . Surprisingly, the Russian word has the same sequence of consonants as German equivalent Jagd, and I'm strongly under the suspicion that we're dealing with a borrowing from German (Russian abounds with germanisms). Unfortunately, I have no Russian etymological dictionary at my disposal to find out. But this isn't necessary, because we can adapt the first part by the Icelandic germanisms jakt- or jagt. The latter part of the name can be constructed in the same way as the Old Icelandic exonym Pallteskja (as the city of Polotsk in the Ukraine was named by the Varangian vikings). So the last part of Ochotsk, -otsk, becomes -teskja. The 'o's' in the names Smolensk and Polotsk all became 'a' or 'á': (Pallteskja, Smáleskja) and this is a coincidential convenience if we want to use the Icelandic germanism 'jakt' or 'jagd' as the first element. The full result is Jakteskja. I think Jakteskja is the right adaptation of Ochotsk based upon the example Polotsk - Pallteskja.
As for the reason why I used salt as the last element instead of 'sjór' or 'haf': This is because the Sea of Ochotsk is the true far east counterpart of the Baltic, Eystrasalt. This Old Icelandic toponym is the only one in which salt is used in this meaning. If you look on the world map, it's easy to notice that the Sea of Ochotsk is landlocked by the peninsula of Kamtchatka (Kambtjöðkuskagi) and the Asian continent at the Northeasternmost part of Eurasia in the same way as the Baltic is landlocked by the European continent and the Scandinavian peninsula at the Eurasian Northwesternmost. An additional reason is the fact that both watermasses lie on the same degree of latitude. This ensures me of the validity of the neoexonym Jakteskjusalt as the Icelandic name for the Sea of Okhotsk.

Sakhalin: Ámár-Eyland (The name Amur means 'black river' (Manchurian: Sahaliyan Ula (Black river), Mongolian: Хар Мөрөн; Har Mörön (black river), Chinese: Heilong Jiang (Black Dragon River). The European name Sakhalin derive from misinterpretation of a Manchu name sahaliyan ula angga hada (peak/craggy rock at the mouth of the Amur River). So it makes sense to call the island after the Amur River, whose estuary is only narrowly seperated from the island. In order to create a phono-semantic match, I made use of the Old Icelandic adjective Ámur (dark) as the first element in the Icelandic equivalent of the river's name . The addition Eyland is a reference to the Swedish Öland, the oblong coastal island in the Baltic, which is like Sakhalin, only narrowly seperated from the Swedish coast. With regard to similarities in landmass-shapes, Öland in the Baltic is the western counterpart of Sakhalin in the Sea of Ochotsk.

Severnaja Zemlya: Austurheims-Svalbarði (same degree of latitude as Spitsbergen (Icelandic Svalbarði) but situated in Asia (Icelandic: Austurheimur).

Tisza (tributary of the River Danube): Þís (Adaptation of the German name Theiss (compare weiss-/ hvít-, eis - ís)

Eureka - Erkihúrra! (Archhurrah!)

2012-01-26T02:46:00.000-08:00

The first element in the name of Archimedes, Arch is identical to the Icelandic prefix erki- so I combined it with the exclamation húrra (hurrah) to create an alternative for the Archimedean exclamation 'Heureka', meaning 'I've found it! Erkihúrra consist of a hellenism (Erki-) and a germanism (húrra), but the compound is purely uninternational. However it is possible to form an English loan-translation: Archhurrah! A weird sequence of characters don't you think?

One of my heroes

2012-01-18T17:15:00.001-08:00

Aubrey de Grey (Greyinga-Álfrekur), aðalvísindafulltrúi (chief scientific officer) Metaldursáastofnunarinnar (of the Methusalah foundation). If this man succeeds in putting his plan into practice, he will be the greatest scientist ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLRhxvRlKg
http://sens.org/

Greyinga-Álfrekur: Aubrey de Grey (The surname de Grey is of Norman origin and derives from a place-name. The name of the family then becomes Greyingar, which I prepositioned as in the constructions Hrafna-Flóki or Göngu-Hrólfur. I do realize that this prepositioning of genitive plural forms of foreign surnames is bold and radical a construction but the problem was that it solved the problem one encounters when postpositioning it: Álfrekur Greyingaættarinnar?, Álfrekur frá Greyi (too international!)?, Álfrekur af Greyingaætt?. The only true Icelandic solution is to construct foreign names in the same way as "Hrafna-Flóki" or "Göngu-Hrólfur" are formed: Genitive plural of a nick-name, a word or surname followed by the Icelandicized foreign personal name: Greyinga-Álfrekur.
The personal name Aubrey derives from Alberich and consists of alf "elf" and ric "power". Alberich was the name of the sorcerer king of the dwarfs in Germanic mythology. The Heimskringla mentions the form Álfrekur, instead of the possible variants Elfríkur, Elfrekur and Álfríkur: "Það skal eg segja yður, Álfrekur riddari, þegar tíminn til endurgjaldsins kemur.
Methusalah: Metaldursái, Margaldafaðir, Metöldrungur, Margöldungur
(Margaldafaðir is a alternative descriptive name for this biblical figure consisting of met (record) + aldur (age, gen. aldurs-) + faðir (father) or met + aldur + ungur, metöldrungur)
Methusalah Generation (film): Metaldursáakynslóð, Metöldrungskynslóð, Margöldungskynslóð
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/structurefilms/the-methuselah-generation-the-science-of-living-fo
Metusalah foundation: Metaldursáastofnun
http://www.mprize.org/
Methusalah Mouse Prize, MPrize: Metaldursmúsarverðlaun
rejuvenation biotechnologies, rejuveneering: aföldrunarlækningar, uppyngingarlíftækni
preventative geriatrics: forvarnaröldrunarlækningar

various neologisms

2012-01-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

Balearic islands: Skipshöfðaeyjar (THE Balearic Islands are attached to the mainland of Spain at Cabo de la nao (ship's cape, skipshöfði) by a submarine plateau. An alternative name for the Balearic islands could be 'Skipshöfðaeyjar', like the Cape Verde islands in West Africa were named after Cape Verde, the westernmost point on the African continent.)
Portugal: Andlitsland, Andlitsströnd (Andlitsland liggur við Aftanshafið (German Abendmeer, Atlantische Ozean: Google "Kurzgefasstes vollständiges" and "Abendmeer")
Nefland (because Lisboa, the Capital is situated in the "Nose" of Portugal or the Iberian Peninsula as a whole. The word 'nose' can be regarded as a toponymical element denoting the westernmost part of a head-shaped landmass, which is the Iberian peninsula)
Portuguese: Andlitlendingur, andliska, andliskur/Neflendingur, neflenska, neflenskur
Brazilian Portuguese (language): Bríslenska
Douro: Dofrá (The name of the British city of Dover (Icelandicized as Dofrar (Íslensk Orðabók, 1992)) is derived from the Celtic river-name Dour and has the same origin as the Portugese Douro, a name presumably given by the Celtic tribes that inhabited the area before Roman times. The Celtic root is *dubro- (Modern Welsh dwr "water" and its Irish cognate dobhar. This means that the truly Icelandicized name of the Poruguese river becomes Dofrá.
Porto (City of Porto): Dofrárhöfn (Douro-port)
Port (wine): Dofrárveig (The vineyards where the Port grapes are grown are situated along the banks of the River Douro, so the river can be used to refer to the wine, if fact to a greater extent than the city-name Porto).
Algarve: Hökuhérað (The "chin" of the face of the Iberian penisula. The anatomical term "chin" could be applied toponymically when refering to a "southwesternmost point of land". If you take a look at the profile of a human head, that's exactly the position of the chin.)
Iberian penisula:
1) Anddlitsskagi
2) Nefskagi (Refers to the face-shape of the Western coast-line of the peninsula but also to the idea of "westernmost land". The position of a nose and face on the profile of a human head points to the western- or Easternmost part of a land-mass and applies to the Iberian penisula, which was considered as the Westenmost region in antiquity)
3) hökuskagi (referring to the "chin", the southwesternmost point on the peninsula but also to the fact that the whole peninsula itself is the southwesternmost part of Europe)
Pyrenees: Skagaskilsfjöll (The natural wall of the Iberian peninsula)
Ebro: Íberafljót (the word Iberian and Ebro have the same origin. Íberafljót = river of the Iberians)
Galicia: Ennisland (see Not only does Javier Bardem show a different side of himself in the 2002 feature Mondays in the Sun, so does Spain. This comedy/drama is shot in Galicia, the forehead of the "face" of the Iberian peninsula, ... http://www.metroactive.com/metro/11.05.08/dvd-mondays-0845.html
Tagus (River): Naselfur, Nefá (The River running into the Atlantic at the 'Nose of Portugal')
Lisboa: Nefós, Nasarhöfn (The River at the nostril or nose of the Iberian penisula), Nasós (nostril-estuary)
Basque: Bugtverji
Sevilla lowlands: Kverkflóaslétta, Kverkslétta (The use of "chin" (haka) as a toponymic element denoting the southwesternmost point on the head-shaped Iberian peninsula (Algarve region) can be extrapolated further by calling the gulf of Cadiz "kverk(a)flói". The Íslensk Orðabók mentions for 'kverk' (in the singular form): hornið milli höku og háls, hakan neðanverð. "Kverk" as a toponymic element then stands for a region "situated slightly east from the southwesternmost chin-like point on a head-like landmass (chin)). The Spanish lowlands at the gulf of Cadiz could be called kverkslétta or Niðurspánn (because it is the only lowland in Spain to any significant extent). The city of Sevilla could then translate as Kverksléttaborg or Niðurspánarborg, the Guadalquivir river is the Kverkelfur or Niðurspánarelfur, the Guadalquivir marshes are the Kverkelfarmýrar or Niðurspánarmýrar and Cadiz Kverknes.
Trafalgar: Njörvahvarf (because it is the Northvesternmost point of the strait of Gibraltar and Hvarf has existed as a designation of the Nordwestermost point of Scotland, Cape Wrath,
Cape spartel (Morocco): Serkjanjörvahvarf (the westernmost cape in the strait of Gibraltar on the african continent)
Balkan: Bálkn (Balkan can be easily icelandiczed: bálkn, which sounds like the neuter nouns gálkn and hólkn.)
Richard the Lionheart: Gramdýrsnegg-Ríkarður
Sacred College: Kjörguðsjarlar (College of cardinals who elect the pope)
Sulphur: synonyms for 'brennisteinn': vítisgula, Surtshallur
Neanderthal man: Nefmaðurinn (Neanderthals had the largest noses of all hominids)
antioxidant: holdryðvarnarefni (andoxunarefni contains the loan-word 'oxun')
Psiloriti mountains: Seifseyjarfjöll (the mountain-range on the birth-island of Zeus)
Evangelista (Italian masculine name): Erindis-Helgi
Trabzon (Turkish port): Trafshöfn (Earlier name: Trapezus)
Sadducees (Jewish sect): Saðverjar (Not exaggerated an adaptation if you compare with: Samaritan - Samverji, Nazarene - Naðverji, Moabites - Móverjar)
Essenes (Jewish sect): Essningar

Miscellaneous neologisms

2011-12-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

nanometre: hármýrjungur (In nanotechnology, the nanometre is most often refered to a technology that operates at the scale of ten thousandth of the breadth a human hair. The 10.000th part (mýrjungur from mýrio- 10.000th part, like þriðjungur). It is unnecessarily to use the full compound "hárbreiddarmýrjungur-" because when referring to comparisons in magnitude, "hair" is always used with reference to its breadth, because hair-lenght may vary greatly (cfr. the word for "capillary" is formed with hár (hárpípa). http://www.nanodic.com/General/Nanometer.htm and the term "hair-breadth" is informally used for ten to the minus fifth metre (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair's_breadth )
nanotechnology: hármýrjungstækni: Of course, nanó- and the loan-translation dverg- is shorter, but hármýrjungs- is an uninternational, alternative approach that describes its smallness more thoroughly
nanorobot: hármýrjungsþjarki, vélögn

angström: örmýrjungur (The "micro-scale (ör-) myriadth (mýría (10.000), mýrjungur, the 10,000th part, like þriðjungur). It is unnecessary to add 'stika' or 'metri' to denote this unit of lenght because the ångström is the only name in use for a "ten billionth of a basic unit". There can't be any mistake whatsoever here.)

Nanosecond: ljósfet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement see under the paragraph of "light-nanosecond") When you combine the word light with the name of a time-unit you express a distance (lightyear), when you combine light with a unit of lenght you express a time-frame: ljósfet (the time light needs to travel a distance of 1 foot. This is so extremely close to a nanosecond that ljósfet can be used to express the time-frame of a nanosecond.)

barn: kjarnekra (barn (symbol b) is a unit of area defined as 10 to the −28 m2 (100 fm2) and is approximately the cross sectional area of an uranium nucleus.)

outhouse (1 millionth of a barn, rarely used in practice): öreindarreitur

shed (10−52 m2, or 1 yottabarn, rarely used in practice): niftlumýrjungsreitur (a typical neutrino (niftla, físeind) cross section is some ten thousand sheds. mýrjungur = a 10.000th part, from mýrío- 1/ 10.000, Icelandic mýría- + -ungur, as in þriðjungur)

planck area: plakkneskur teigur, teiglingur, reitur, reitlingur, reiteind

Hubble parametre: Hugbeldringsstika (The surname Hubble derives from Hugbald (Icelandic Hugbaldur), so the family name for one individual of the Hubble family (Hugbeldringar) becomes Hugbeldring(ur) + -s +stika (parameter)

Jurassic Park (movie)
1) Skriðrisagarður (sounds better and more elaborated than risaeðlugarður)
2) Miðlífsgarður (The most prominent and sensational of all beasts presented in the movie, the tyrannosaur Rex, is actually a LATE CRETACEOUS species, not a strictly JURASSIC one, so this gives us a reason to refer to the entire mesosoic era and use Miðlífs- (Mesozoic) in the Icelandic translation of the movie's name. Still, this doesn't completely renders "Jurassic" inappropriate a term in this case. Apart from its function as a strict designator of the "central mesozoic epoque", it can also be used in a broader or let's say more popularized sense of "anything that has to do with the largest land animals that ever lived". And indeed, the largest of dinosaurs came about in the Jurassic.)

Vosges Mountains:
1) Vasgáfjöll (Exonym mentioned in the first volume of the Icelandic magazine Gefn from 1870, probably an icelandification of German exonymic equivalent Wasgenwald) http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2043282
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogesen
2) Veiðiguðsfjöll (The construction veiðiguð (hunting god) is phonetically similar enough to the name of the Celtic hunting-god Vosegus, whom the mountain range was called after, that we can, in my opinion that is, construct an Icelandic exonym from it)
2) Frakkneskur Svartiskógur (Because it has the same geological characteristics as the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine).

sea mile (sjómíla): hnútstund (knot-hour) The knot (pronounced not) is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile (which is defined as 1.852 km) per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. This means that the term 'knot-hour' is equal to a seamile.

Stalinism/ Stalinist: Stælinsstefna/ Stælinssinni (The Russian name Stalin means 'man of steel'. The Icelandic adjective stælinn (hard, stiff, but also quarrelsome, argumentative) is derived from stál (steel). We can use the adjective as a surname to denote the russian dictator: Stælinn)

kamikaze: hrapherjabylgja

nazism/ nazist (person)/ nazist (adj.): þjóðherjastefna, aðylfingastefna/ Þjóðherji, Aðylfingur / þjóðherja-/ aðylfskur (A friend of mine told me that þjóðherji wouldn't exclusively apply to 'nazism' but also to 'Prussian', which were known for there militarism, but I disagree: the first element in the term 'national socialism', nationalism translates as 'þjóðerni' in Icelandic, which has the same first element þjóð in þjóðherji. The masculine personal name Adolf consists of the elements athall (noble, Icelandic Aðall) and wulf (wolf, Icelandic úlfur or -ólfur). The full name would be Aðalúflur or Aðalólfur, but the most sound-similar adaptation is to contract it to Aðólfur. The names of family members AND FOLLOWERS of Aðólfur are called Aðylfingar, which can be used for all national socialists. The adjective derivation 'nazist' or 'nazistic' becomes aðylfskur.

Switzerland, Swiss: Gnáfylkin, Gnáfold (compare adj. foldgnár), Gnáfylkjamaður, Gnáfylkja- (after the epiteth 'roof of Europe')

Archaizing hyperpurists of Iceland unite!

2011-12-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

Isn't it a great feeling to have a mother-tongue in which you can easily form terms for postultramodern concepts with lexical building blocks that are unchanged since the era of Icelandic saga literature. No Icelander should be ashamed to be a bloody, exaggeratedly archaizing hyperpurist. There's no evil in it when you don't impose these views upon other individuals.

Names of auxiliary languages

2011-12-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

1. Esperanto
Like the language itself, the name esperanto is almost unassailably international and I would be surprised if any linguist, however purist he may be, would have meade attempts to adapt it to the phonology of their language, let alone translate it completely. I used voneska or vonarmál in my ultrapurist High Icelandic model, but these solutions are surely too far a leap of radicalism for the more moderated Icelandic crowd. Still an in between solution, a succesful addaptation of the word without exaggerated corruption that would violate its interational character, could be palatable for most Icelandic neologists.

a) I thought of omitting the initial e- as is seen in many borrowings from Romance languages in Germanic languages:

espagnol (sp.) - spanska (isl.)
espacia (sp.) - espace (fr.) - spássía, spesíudalur (isl.)
espiritu (sp.) - esprit (fr.) -sprítt (isl.)
epinanca (sp.) - épinards (fr.) - spínat (isl.)

b) Secondly, I would let the word end in -anska, as in danska, franska, spanska, which works as a designator of a language.
The ending -anska is completely relevant because but you might as well regard the meaning of Esperanto it as 'the language of hope' (cherished by Zammenhof, to unite people of different languages)
Even though "speranska" is a loan-word, no language in the world has made even the slightest alterations to this word, so 'speranska', even though we're still dealing with a foreignism, is already very hyperpuristic an adaptation.

Ido: the name of a simplified form of esperanto, which was derived from the Esperanto word ido meaning 'offspring'. It actually has the same origin as the suffix -íð (eng. -ide) in klóríð (eng. chloride), so if we make use of -ska as in speranska we get: íðska, which, on omission of the 'eth' becomes íska (íðneska would be inappropriate because it gives rise to an unconvenient connotation with -iðn). Many languages end in -íska, and this speaks in favour of using this suffix on its own as the name of an interantional language.

The method of using the suffix -ska to coin names for auxiliary languages has the property to reduce word-lenght significantly: henska (hand + -ska = henska (táknmál, fingramál (sign language)), lenska (drunkard's language, from landi (kind of moonshine)), blenska (blanda + enska, Pidgin English, contracted form of blendingsmál), frenska (franglais), einska (ideolect)

Neologisms 12/12/2008

2011-12-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

þyngdarvíti: black hole
Móðurþokan: synonym for 'Vetrarbrautin' (our milky way)
Korpúsarinn: Le Corbusier (The name, Le Corbusier, is French. It is a different version of his grandmother's surname, Lecorbésier. The name translates in to English as "the crow like one". The icelandic name is based upon the similar word Korpur: Korpúsarinn.)
nýplatneskur: neoplatonic
nýplatneska: neoplatonism
nýplatneskusinni: neoplatonist
Mynnishæðaey: Manhattan (see English wikipedia article Manhattan)
Gengusar(heims)metabók: Guinness record book (The Icelandic form of the surname Guinness is Gengus. The origin is the Gaelic MagAonghusa, which easily icelandicizes into Magengus (Engus is the form found in Old Icelandic literature) after the example Magbjóður (MacBeth). The prefix 'mag' was dropped except for the "g" which became the initial of the bastardized name. MagAongus slowly transformed into Guinness. We can ape this transformation by adding 'g' to Engus: Gengus (Gengus, Gengusi, Gengusar). compounds: Gengusarbjór, heimsmetabók Gengusar.)
Hrafjáll / Hrafælskur: Raphael / Raphaelian (compare: Michael - Mikjáll)
Kambrýningaland: Cameroon
Huddsynskur flói: Hudson bay
lésveyskur: lesbian, lesbosian (This seems like a very strange construction, but it is the only one founded upon the oldest Icelandic spelling for the name of the island found in Icelandic literature: Lésvos http://www.facebook.com/pages/L%C3%A9svos/111642312192786?sk=wiki , see also Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin. There is a tendency however to icelandify these names by replacing the Greek ending "-os" in "-ey" in the names of Aegean islands: examples are:
Lemney (Limnos) http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemney
Roðey (Rhodos) http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3dos
Kíey (Chios - Ensk-íslensk orðabók með alfræðilegu ívafi: Chi-os. n. Chios, Kíey, eyja í austanverðu Eyjahafi, af sumum til forna talin fæðingarstaður Hómers.
We can do the same with Lésvos and call it LÉSVEY. Derivations of Lésvey would be Lésveyskur, which would stand for: - inhabitant of the island of Lesbos but also lesbian (why should the ending -"-eyskur" be disturbing? After all, Lesbos was the island where the Greek poetess Sappho wrote about female homosexual love. There have been many attempts in the past to adapt the adjective Lesbian to Icelandic phonology and there's obviously no consensus about its definitive form: Lespa, Lespískur, Lesbískur, so why not take the oldest spelling of the word, slightly altered by the change of -os into -ey as a reference point upon which a solid definitive spelling can be founded. Furthermore, the more reductionist form LÉSKUR could also be possible.
lestund: 100 milion (lest = tonne, a million units, + und (hundred, as in þúsund (þús-hund-rað) = 100.000.000)
mikiljón: milionaire (after meðaljón)
mýsopi: microlitre, ýrill
maurahaus: millimetre
örvíddaröst, þursund: billion (In the same way as 'lightyear' expresses the distance light travels in a year, örvíddaröst expresses the amount of times in which a "micro-scale object" fits into a "kiloscale" space: a billion times. The second possibility, þursund is a combination of þurs(i) (giant, greek gigas, a billion units) integrated into the word þúsund (thousand)
hneitill, ikla, iklingur: crystal (from hneita, the crystals of salt that form on stockfish and the sugar-crystals that form on dried dulse-leaves. ikla is the diminutive of jaki, which is formed by adding the diminitive suffix -la to jaki (it sounds like its English etymological cognate -icle in icicle.)
hneitilfræði, iklufræði: crystallography
hneitla, ikla: crystallize
hneitlun, iklun: crystallization
hneitlaður, iklaður: crystallized
hneitiltær, iklutær: crystalline
hneitilsgerð

Uninterantional Icelandic names for the magnitudes of thousand.

2011-12-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

In the Western world, specific names for larger numbers did not come into common use until quite recently. The Ancient Greeks used a system based on the myriad, that is 10.000; and their largest named number was a myriad myriad, or "one hundred million". The Romans, who were less interested in theoretical issues, expressed 1,000,000 as decies centena milia, that is, "ten hundred thousand". But it was only in the 13th century that the (originally French) word million was introduced. Until then, the name of the largest number in Latin that was uncompounded was mille (1000).
In the Icelandic as well in other Germanic languages, the possibility exists to create alternatives for the names of the magnitudes of thousand based on the Greek myriad instead on the Latin mille.
In Icelandic the ending -und in þúsund (1000, -and in English, -und in German) derives from the word hundred: þús-hund-rað (þús, thous-, taus- means 'a lot', and rað, red, -ert (*raþ, number).
In a parallel universe, history with regard to the lexical development of names of large numbers could have been different. Imagine a 15th century English mathematician developping the first magnitude of thousand, a million, by using the Graeco-English myriad (10.000) instead of the Latin mille and letting it end on -and (= hundred) as in thousand (thous-hund-red): myriand, which is exactly 1000.000. It really is possible to create an alternative term for million from the Greek myriad when developping it on an Anglos-Saxon morphological substrate. All right, first part of the problem solved. We have a solid name for the first magnitude of thousand, now the only thing we have to do to develop the other large numbers is applying the same method that was used in the creation of the existing names of multitudes of thousand: by cutting the initial character of the name of the first magnitude of thousand (as was done with the 'm' in million: billion, trillion) and replace it by the first characters of the Greek or Latin maybe even the native English names of cardinal numbers. Consider this model:

million (myriand)
billion (biryand or dyriand)
trillion (tririand)
quadrillion (tetriand, tesseriand or quadriand)
quintillion (pentriand or quintriand)
sextillion (hexriand or sexriand)
septillion (heptriand or septriand)
octillion (octriand)
nonillion (novriand)
decillion (dekriand)
undecillion (undekriand)

This scenario isn't unthinkable. Imagine if the creators of the large numerals in the 15th centrury had chosen the Greek largest single-name numeral myriad instead of the ten times smaller Latin counterpart mille to base their names upon. These words look weird at a first glance's sight, but so would be the existing ones, if we weren't used to them.

This model of creating alternatives for the names of the multitudes of thousand seems to be better adaptable to Icelandic phonology in addition of the fact that there is lexical artefact in the old language that sounds very similar: mýr (a great many). This is what the Íslensk orðsifjabók (Icelandic etymological dictionary) got to say about this word:

mýr: 'mergð, grúi'. vafaorð, e.t.v. s.o. og myr (s.þ.) en ý tilkomið vegna þess að lærðir menn tengdu það við lat. mýrias, gr. mýrias (ef. mýriados) 'tíu þúsund' af mýrios (ótölulegur).

The Icelandic model goes as follows (and I would like to express my thanks to an Icelandic friend of mine who has helped me adjusting these construction)

mýrjund (million, myriand), tvírjund (billion, duriand), þrírjund (trillion, tririand), fjórjund (quadrillion, quadriant), fimmjund (quintillion, fifriand), sexjund (sixtillion, sixriand), seyjund (septillion, septriand), áttjund (octillion, octriand), nírjund (nonillion, niniand), tírjund (decillion, dekriand), ellefjund (undecillion, undekriand), tólfjund (dudecillion, dudekriand).

*mýrjungur, mýrjungs- is the equivalent of the suffix myrio-, which means 1/10,000th
*mýrjund- could serve as the equivalent of mega- in mýrjundlest- (megatonne), mýrjundlát (megadeath), mýrjundrið (megahertz), mýrjundstafur (megabyte, but also gagnalest, a data-tonne), as well "mega" used in youth culture to express something fabulous. The same can be done for the other prefixes of the metric system: giga- (tvírjund-), tera (þrírjund), peta (fjórjund-), exa (fimmjund-); examples: terabyte: þrírjundstafur, þrírjundstafa-
*myrjöld means 'a million years', names for larger units of time can be formed by replacing -und by -öld: tvírjöld (a billion years, a gigayear), þrírjund (a trillion years): Jörðin er talin hafa myndast fyrir um 4,55 tvírjalda.

The term mýrjund for million and mýrjöld for "a million years" or a "megayear" could have been constructed at any point in Icelandic literary history. The Greek word has been around for thousands of years and could, in theory, have been borrowed even by medieval Icelandic scribes to construct a neologism like mýrjund at any time in Icelandic literary history. As for the other construction miklund (another possible construction, based upon the international metric prefix designating a million units: mega- (from Greek megas, the etymological cognate of Icelandic mikill) there's no lexical artifact, no historical basis in Icelandic literature to give this construction nay validity. The fact that this prefix 'mega' has been confirmed only as late as 1960 as a designation of " a million units" makes it unlikely for the 19th centrury hyperpurists and further down the road the Icelandic medieval scribes (if they would ever have experienced the urge to do so) to have come up with constructions like miklund.

Stærðfræðiorðaskrá: More thourough icelandifications

2011-12-03T15:12:00.000-08:00

To my surprize it's possible to Icelandicize foreign proper names by turning them into adjectives and use them as concepts rather than strictly personal names because this terminological method is not uncommon. An example we all know is the word Cartesian, derived from Descartes (Icelandic Karteskur)or Arguesian from Desargues (Icelandic Argeskur), see Ensk-íslensk stærðfræðiorðaskrá).
In the same way, we can easily form similar constructions like Nýtúnskur (Newtonian, from Nýtún, an Icelandicized form of the toponym Newton, new town, new village), Smiðsynsk stjarneðlisfræðistofnun (SAO, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), allneskur geislabelti (Van Allen's radiation belt), mikjálsynskur víxlunarmælir (Michelson interferometer), dobbsynskur sjónauki or dobbsynsk hásjá (Dobbsonian telescope) , meilangavískar sveiflar (Milankovič cycles), Makksvellsku fjöllin (Maxwell Montes on Venus), pálísk einsetulögmál (Pauli exclusion principle), Hrylfskar töflur (Rudolfsine tables, from Hrólfur, the Icelandic form of the German Rudolf), koparnísk heimsmynd (Copernican system, the Latinized Slavic surname Koparnik means 'copper-smith', hence the adaptation kopar- in koparnískur), platneskur for platonic, ect. I Icelandicized part of the names of mathematicians that are used in the terminology of the Ensk-Íslensk stærðfræðiorðaskrá.

Archimedean: Erkimeðs- (This Greek personal name means 'master of thought' and is derived from the Greek element archos (master) combined with medomai (to think, to be mindful of). The first element is identical with Icelandic prefix erki-, the second medes can be adapted to -með, like in the Arabism Múhameð. The reason this is wasn't done is because there has never been real uniformity in the icelandification of Greek and Latin names. In the Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin, the Greek personal name Euclides and is adjectival derivation Euclidean were entered as Evklíð and Evkliðskur respectively, no -es or -esar here, while Euripides, an other name ending in -es preceded by the consonant 'd', became the semiadapted, halficelandic Evrípídes, instead of Evripíð. The Icelandic Evklíð is similar to the French Euclide and both are examples of good adaptations. So my proposition for the name Archimedes and its derivative Archimedean are Erkimeð and Erkimeðskur/Erkimeskur respectively, instead of the far too unicelandic Arkimedesar- or Arkimedískur.
Erkimeðsstuðull (Archimedean constant, the number Pi)
Erkimeðskuðungur (Archimedean spiral)
Erkimeðsvirðing (Archimedean valuation)
Erkimeðsraðsvið (Archimedean ordered field)
Banach-: banaks
Bartlett: bartleskur
Bayes, bayesian: bæjeskur
Bertrand's: bjarthrafneskur
Boolean: búlskur
Brownian: brúneskur
Cantor: kantreskur
Cauchy: kósískur
Cevian: sefjanskur (sefjanskur þríhyrningur)
Chebyshev: Tébbískur
Cholesky: kóleskur
Dirichlet: ríkleskur (Di- is omitted because it is prepositional, compare: Descartes - Karteskur (Cartesian))
Dynkin: dynkneskur
Feuerbach: fúrbekkings- (Feuer, fire, Icelandic phonosemantic match = fúr + bach (brook, Icelandic bekkur), Fúrbekkingar (Feuerbach family), Fúrbekkingur, Fúrbekkings- (Individual of the Feuerbach family)
Fermat: fermskur
Galois: galeiskur (compare: Bourgeois - Burgeis, courteois - kurteis); galeiskt mengi
Gaussian: gáskur, gásneskur
Gödel: gæðleskur (It derives from a Germanic and later Anglo-Saxon baptismal name of the pre 8th century, of which the principle element was 'god' meaning 'good', plus a varied range of suffix, most of which are simple patronymics and diminutives, or are compounds and descriptive as in the surname "Godwin" meaning good-friend. The Icelandic construction is as follows: góður (good) + -ill (gæðill), + -eskur (gæðleskur, gödelian)http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Gohn
compounds and derivations: gæðleskun (gödelization), gæðlesk fullkomleikasetning (Gödel's incompleteness theorem)
Grassmann: grassmennskur
Haar: hærskur (Haar is originally a Dutch surname meaning 'hair' (Icelandic hár, adjective derivation: hærskur)
Hamel: Hamleskur
Hamiltonian: hamltúnskur
Hartogs: hertyggskur
Hausdorff: húsþyrpskur
Heron (from Alexandria): Herneskur
Hessian: hessneskur
Hilbert: hilbirskur (from Hildibjartur, Hildibirtingur, Hildibirskur, but here we adapt it after the modern name: Hilbirskur)
Hippocratic: Jóveigs- (Greek name Latinized form of the Greek name Hippokrates, which meant "horse power", derived from the elements hippos "horse" and kratos "power". The Icelandic equivalent is Jóveigur
Jacobian: jakobískur
Jacobson: jakobsynskur
Jordan: Jórdanskur
Kendall's: kendælskur (Two possible origins here: Kendal in Westmorland was originally named Kirkby Kendal, and is recorded as Cherchebi in the Domesday Book of 1086 and as Cherkaby Kendale in "Records of Kendal" from 1090 - 1097. The toponym means "the valley of the River Kent", from the ancient British (pre-Roman) river-name "Cunetio" with the Olde English pre 7th Century dael, which means valley or Kendale in Yorkshire is in the parish of Driffield, and derived it's name from the Old Norse kelda, spring, with dalr, valley. Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Kendall
So, one thing we can be certain of: whatever the etymology, the second element is 'valley' for certain. Best way to proceed is to leave the first element as it is and add the adjectival derivation of Icelandic dalur: dælskur.
Klein: klénskur
Kronecker: krónakarneskur (Kron = krón- + ecker = akarn +eskur)
Landau: Landár- (The place-name Landau, from which this surname is derived consists of Land (land) + au (watery place, related to Icelandic á and agi). The best possible addaptaion is Landá, gen. Landár-)
Laplace, laplacian: plássneskur (plássnesk liðun (Laplace expansion), plássneskt virki (Laplace operator), plássnesk mynd (Laplace transform)
Laurent: lafranskur
Lebesgue: Beggneskur (The article in the name 'le-' can be dropped like the prepositional 'Des-' in Descartes (Cartesian, Karteskur) or Desargues (Arguesian, Argeskur. Besgue derives from the verb bégayer, which means 'stammer, stutter'. The most appropriate adaptation of the name is Begg- + neskur)
Leibnitz: lífnískur (From the city of Leibnitz (Slovenian: Libnica, adapted with German leib- which is the same word as leib (body, Icelandic líf)
Lie: lískur
Möbius: möbbskur
Pascal's: Páskals-
Picard: píkarðneskur (see http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Picard )
Pythagorian: þagreskur: þagresk setning (Pythagoras's theorem), þagreskt svið (pythagorean field), þagresk aljafna (pythagorean identity), þagreskur þríhyrningur (pythagorean triangle), þagresk þrennd (pythagorean triple).
Riemann: rímanneskur, rímennskur (from ricmann, meaning 'king's man')
Russell: hríslneskur, Hrísils- (Fjölnismenn called the contemporary British politician John Russell 'Jón Hrísill'. Compounds: Hrísilsþversögn (Russell-paradox)
Steinitz: steinískur
Sylow: sylveskur
Turing: þýrings- (surname is a habitational one derived from Thüringen in Germany, Icelandic Þýringaland)
Venn: Fenjungs- (This name is of English topographic origin for someone who lived by a marsh or fen (Icelandic fen, fenjar, Fenjungur (comp. land -lendingur)). The name derives from the Old English pre 7th Century 'fenn', translating as 'a low-lying marshy area', and is first recorded at the end of the 12th Century.) compounds: Fenjungsmynd (Venn diagram) http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Venn
Wronskian: vornskur http://surnames.behindthename.com/name/wronski )
Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory: Sermlesk-Frekklesk mengjafræði (Origin of the surname Zermelo is the place-name Tormählen (Google Zermelo Tormählen), but this name is unicelandicizable so I adpapted it as Sermill - Sermleskur -Sermlingar). The origin of Fraenkel is frank (Icelandic Frakkur + -ill Frekkill, Frekkleskur). see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A4nkel

Úllakan (Hooligan)

2011-12-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

The surname Hooligan derives from Irish Uallach, which means 'proud'. Because of the sufficient phonetic similarity with Ceallach, the root of the old Hiberno-Icelandic personal name Kjallak(u)r, it is possible to create an exact Icelandic version of the name without the need of a validating lexical artifact in the Old Literature: Úllakan

http://www.libraryireland.com/names/oh/o-huallachain.php
http://www.libraryireland.com/names/on/o-nuallachain.php

The pronounciation of the root of the surname Hooligan: ullach (proud) is OOlakh (Icelandic: ÚLLAK). http://namenerds.com/irish/trad.html

The 'l' is written twice because of the doubling of the character in the root uallach (compare: kjALLAK(u)R (from ceALLACH) 'O huALLACHain - ÚLLAKAN (the ending -ain is the diminutive ending -an, -án in Icelandicized Irish personal names: Kjartan, Kvaran, Dufan, Brjánn).
The 'h' in Hooligan is formed by adding the patronymic prefix 'O' as in O' Hara. But I decided to keep 'Ú' as the initial character because there isn't one existing Icelandic name or word of Irish origin beginning with húl-, but we do have one beginning with Úl-: Úlaðstíri (Ulster) and because of this example, the force of folk-etymology would always make people favourize the version without the initial 'h'. Morover, variants of the surname do exist: Oolihan, Oolahen, see
http://www.houseofnames.com/hooligan-family-crest?a=54323-224
An example of this folk-etymology in Icelandic names of Irish origin is mentioned in the book 'Keltar á Íslandi' by Hermann Pálsson: ROÐÍAN: Hinn gáfaði höfundur Göngu-Hrólfs sögu hefur ekki gripið slíkt nafn úr lausu lofti. Mér hefur komið til hugar að það sé með einhverjum hætti tengt við nafnið ROTHNÍAN í MetDinn. og kunni að eiga rætur að rekja til orðsins ruithen, kvenkyns 'ljósgeisli', EN VITASKULD HEFUR ÍSLENSKA ORÐIÐ 'ROÐI' ÞÁ ORKAÐ Á MYND NAFNSINS.

I propose Úllakan as the Icelandic equivalent of Hooligan.

Köðnungur samþegn (Borgari Kane)

2011-12-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

The surname Kane derives from Gaelic cath "battle" combined with the diminutive suffix -an, -án. This name doesn't occur in an Icelandicized form in the Old Literature, but can be constructed easily from existing names. The first part of the name is Kað- (Cath-) as in Kaðlín (Caithlin), Kaðall (Cathal), the second part is the diminutive -an, occuring in Kjartan, Kalman, Dufan. Kane as a personal name is Kaðan. The chief character in the movie is Charles Foster Kane (Köðnunga-Karl), which means that Kane is a family name, so we have to make a derivation from Kaðan. For that reason we have to take the singular form of the Old Norse style collective family name: Kaðan - Köðnungar
I chose samþegn and as opposed to the original Icelandic translation of the movie-title I postpositioned the word. I know that titles like Herra are prepositioned but these are exceptions and not naturally icelandic, so I post-positioned samþegn. It it also very uninterantional. The number of lightyears of difference between Icelandic and other languages shouldn't ever be reduced.
Therefore my choice is the eccentric: Köðnungur samþegn

"Kjalli" instead of "sella"

2011-12-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

If there has to be a synonym of foreign origin for fruma (cell): sella, why must it look so much like the international word. The word should be kjalli instead of sella.

Kjallari derives from Latin cellarium, derived from cella, which is the etymological root of the modern biology term cell. If kjallari corresponds with cellarium, then cella corresponds with something like Kjalla or Kjalli in Icelandic.

Why not using the more uninternationally sounding kjalli instead of the simplisticly adapted sella if it is really necessary that fruma has a loan-word as a synonym.
I made the word masculine (KJALLI) because it sounds a bit like 'karl' and because their has to be some "gender balance" with the feminine fruma. Maybe it's phonetical similarity with karl makes it a good candidate as a shorter word for sáðfruma.

ljorka (laser)

2011-12-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

1) LEYSIR: This neologism is a lousy attempt to ape the sound of the Anglo-Saxon acronym LASER, which hasn't even remotely anything semanticly in common with the Icelandic verb "að leysa".
2) LJÖRVI: is the other alternative which unfortunately hasn't gained acceptance with the wider public. It is based on the acronym laser: Light (LJós) Amplification by Stimulated (að ÖRVa) Emission of Radiation. It's still somewhat a loan-translation of two words in the acronym (light and stimulate), but qualitatively superior to the 'lélegur leysir', which sounds too uninternational, too little eccentricly icelandic. The problem with ljörvi, but this can as well be said of leysir, is that the connection with the word ljós is lost, where in neologisms like tölva, the connection with töl- and völva is retained.
3) LJORKA: This is really my final attempt. The short o in ljorka is not the same sound as ó in ljós but still more closely than the ö in ljörvi. I hope the connection with both ljós and orka is retained. Another good thing is that the word isn't by any means tributary to the idea behind the word laser. Yes, ljós is used as the first element in a name for the device, but this is so obvious a choice. The vast majority of neologists would come up with light as the first element when having to coin a name for the device, so this can hardly be considered no loan-translation. the second element orka just refers to the power of the beam and don't occur in the English acronym. For that reason, the only connection between LJORKA and LASER is the acronymic nature of both words. If that's too unpuristic, I'm glad to be a loan-word lover!

But, of course, the "market" still have to kind-a-like this word.

Note: It is even possible to call a boy after a "laser beam": Ljósgeir (Sound a bit like Ásgeir; Ljós- is a first element in Icelandic personal names: Ljósbjörg, Ljósbjört, Ljósborg and Ljósbrá, Ljósálfur)

Milskuorðasafn (Icelandic names of cocktails)

2011-11-26T07:16:00.001-08:00

appletini (apple-martini): Eplateiningur (Epli + Marteiningur)
Alexander: Sandríska, Sandrísk milska
alien secretion cocktail: grændreyramilska
amaretto sour: súramrettingur
ambrosia cocktail: ódáinsmilska
Anna's banana frozen cocktail: bjúgaldinsmilska Önnu
April in Paris: Vortími í Frakklandshjarta
Bahama Mama: Norðvesturindversk milska (The bahamas could be called 'the north west-indies, Norðvesturindverskar eyjar)
B-52: heiðhvólfsvirki (After the nick-name of the bomber, stratofortress ( = stratosphere fortress)
Bacardi breezer: gosreyrveig, bágherðlingur (Diminutive form of Bágherðlingur (see Bacardi cola), expressing the lower alcohol content of the mix (soft rhum, soft bacardi). Reyrveig (cane spirits) is the pure Icelandic equivalent of romm (rhum))
Bacardi cola: Bágherðinga-Brúnka (The family name Bacardi is like its french cognate Bacquart Germanic of origin, consisting of the roots "bag" (bagan = battle, Icelandic bág- in báglyndur) et "hard" (= harður). The full Icelandic family name is Bágherðingar. Another possibility is Reyrveiga-Brúnka (Cane-spirits (rhum)-brunette. The name of the beverage is the singular form Bágherðingur or Bágherðinga-reyrveig (reyrveig = rhum)B and B (brandy and cognac): bentneskuð (benskt) kampaveig (benedictined cognac)
Benedictine: Bentbræðraveig, bentingaveig, bentneskt (benskt) brennivín (Derived from 'Bent', the pet-form of Benedikt. Bendictine is an herbal liqueur beverage developed by Alexandre Le Grand in the 19th century and produced in France. It is claimed that at the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy, monks had developed a medicinal aromatic herbal beverage which was produced until the abbey's devastation during the French Revolution and that from this Le Grand developed the formula now in us)
Black Velvet (Guiness and champagne): Kampa-Gengus, Kampavín-Duflöð (The Icelandic form of Guinness is Gengus. The origin of this Scottish surname is the Gaelic MagAonghusa, which easily icelandicizes into Magengus (Engus is the form found in Old Icelandic literature) after the example Magbjóður (MacBeth). The prefix 'mag' was dropped except for the g which became the initial of the bastardized name. MagAongus slowly transformed into Guinness. We can ape this transformation by adding 'g' to Engus: Gengus (Gengus, Gengusi, Gengusar). compounds: Gengusarbjór, heimsmetabók Gengusar. Another possibility is Duflöð: The Book Keltar á Íslandi by Hermann Pálsson meantions the ending -flaith, which occurs in Irish-Icelandic names like Kormlöð. Here it means 'power', 'independence', but he mentions a similar meaning for the word: beer, ale: Flaith (2) kvk. bjór, öl. Sama orðið og -laith; f-ið er þegið frá orðinu flaith (1). So Duflöð in Irish Icelandic can mean 'black beer'. Of course this could refer to 'porter beer' also, but the fact that the word is constructed from Hiberno-icelandic lexical blocks makes it more appropriate to use it as the designation for the national 'black beer' of Ireland: Guinness.
Bloody Aztec: hlautmilska, upptyppingshlaut
Bloody Mary: dreyradrotting
Blue Curaçao: Kurseyjarblámi
Bourbon whiskey: Búrbóni, Búrbónahvatn (spelling used in the Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin for 'Bourbon')
Brandy Alexander: Sandrísk Kampaveig (Cognac = Kampaveig. The word 'veig' is used exclusively for 'spirited drinks' like whiskey, which was called 'bretaveig'. This word also means 'gold' and 'powerful'. In the latter it is especially in personal names. "Veig" er poetiskt ord þegar þad skal þída godann drick ellegar ogso gull, enn þegar þad þidir valorem internum hlutarins so er þad i almenu bruke, ,,ecki vil eg kav pa þessi veigalav su klæde, ,,hafdu storar þackir fyrir giafirnar sem þu fieckz mier. mier þiki mikil og god veig i þvi bædi skickiune og bikarnum`. (ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans) If so, "veig" would be an appropriate word to designate "golden-coloured" alcoholic beverages like whiskey and brandy (cognac). The region around the French town of cognac is called 'Le grand et le petit champagne' (not to be confused with the Champagne-region in Northern France). This means that we can use kampa- as a prefix in the word for cognac. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Champagne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_Champagne
Cognac is made of grapes, like the bubble champagne. All these arguments make Kampaveig a valid designation of the French Cognac. There's no need to have recourse to unicelandic adaptation like Koníak.
Broadway cocktail: Breiðvegarmilska
Bronx cocktail: brynsk marteiningur (a The Bronx Cocktail is essentially a Perfect Martini with orange juice added. The Bronx is named after Jonas Bronck (Jónas Bronk, Icelandic Bronck + -skur = bryn(k)skur, brynskur, Brynska stjórnarumdæmið: Bronkverji, Brynskur)
Café Zurich cocktail: Súrískt kaffi
Cape Codder: þorskhöfðamilskan þorskhöfðungur
Chocolate Martini: Guðgætismarteiningur (The botanist Carl von Linné named the cacao tree 'Theobroma cacao'. 'Theobroma is Greek for "the food of the gods' and Linné based the name upon the beliefs of the Aztecs and Mayas, who considered cacao to be man's inheritance from Quetzalcoatl, the god of the air. We can create a pun can be created on góðgæti (delicacy): guðgæti (not that the two g's in this word correspond with the two 'k's' in 'kakó'.
Cointreau: Kvintrjáungur (This name is related to the Old French "cointerell", designating a gentleman, and is a figure in the Medieval work Reynard (the fox). The problem was to adapt the first part but luckily the Íslensk orðsifjabók mentions kvint, an old Icelandic word borrowed from Old French which is exactly the same word.)
Colorado Bulldog: Gljúfárfylkis-bolabíti (Gljúfá = the river that erodes the grand canyon = colorado river + bulldog = bolabíti)
Columbia: Kólmlandsfáni (The drink appears as stacked horizontal layers of yellow, blue and red, which matches the three colours of the Colombian flag. For Kólmland, see http://extremeicelandic.blogspot.com/2011/10/icelandicized-geographical-names-based.html )
Corpse Reviver: Uppvakningarmilska
Death in the Afternoon: Hemingavegskampavín (also named 'the Hemingway Champagne', invented by Ernest Hemingway (Hemingavega-Ernusti)
Duncan MacLeod: Magljótunga-Dungaður, Dungaðarmilska (The name Léod is a Scottish adaptation of Old Norse Ljótr: Magljótur (built after Magbjóður, MacBeth), the derived family name Magljótungar and Duncan is the Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Donnchadh meaning "brown warrior", derived from Gaelic donn "brown" and cath "warrior", which existed in the an Icelandicized form Dungaðr (Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson))
Earthquake: Ljóðrekinga-Hinrik eða jarðskjálftamilska (The Tremblement de Terre (or "Earthquake") Cocktail has been attributed to the French Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The name is derived from its effects, which tend to "shake up" the drinker. As for the icelandic name one can choose between the name of the painter: Þolósu-Ljóðrekinga-Hinrik or simply Ljóðrekinga-Hinric (The name of the city has no historical Icelandic exonym unlike German (Tholosen). I Icelandicized the name after the original Latin and, importantly, also the present-day Occitan name Tolosa. The name of the village Lautrec is of Germanic origin and consists of Laut (people, Icelandic Ljóð- as in Ljóðey, Ljóðólfur, see Íslensk orðsifjabók, ljóð(u)r (1)) and ric (rich, Icelandic ríkur,-rekur). The full family name is Tolósu-Ljóðrekingar. The name Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec becomes Tolósu-Ljóðrekinga-Henrik, but the short cut sounds better Ljóðrekinga-Hinrik. A painting of the master is often referred to as 'a Lautrec', so Ljóðrekingur as a designation of the cocktail could go as well.
Gibson: Gibbsyningur, Gibbingur (cocktail made by Charles Dana Gibson. The name Gibson means 'son of Gib', which is in its turn a short form of Gilbert (Icelandic Gíslbjartur, pet-form Gibbi, Gibbason, Gibbsyningar or Gibbingar.)
Golden Cadillac: gullkaðlakur The surname Cadillac has Latino-Celtic origins. It appears to have originated from the Celtic catus, meaning 'battle' or 'struggle', which is related to Icelandic höð, hað-, the Irish Icelandic Kað- (Kaðlín (Caithlin), Kaðall (Cathal). The Íslensk orðsifjabók mentions
Kaðall karlkyns karlmannsnafn. Tökuorð úr fornírsku Cathal, samkvæmt fornírskur cath 'bardagi', samanber höð. Sjá Kaðlín
Kaðlín kvenkyns kvenmannsnafn fornírska Catilin. Sjá Kaðall.
The most common suffix in northern France is -acum meaning 'place of', 'property'. Its origin is Celtic *-ako (compare Breton -eg, Welsh -og, Irish -ach, same thing). The book 'Keltar á Íslandi' (Hermann Pálsson) mentions this Irish suffix. It is normally adapted -akur in Icelandic personal names of Irish origin. The adaptation of the surname Cadillac is: Kaðlakur, Kaðlaks-The name of the cocktail is Gullkaðlakur.
Green Vesper: Malurtar-Vestmey (See Vesper; The Kina Lillet is replaced by absinth (malurtarveig))
Flirtini: Víkingseista (Richard Christy, noted heavy metal drummer and writer for The Howard Stern Show, likes flirtinis but calls it a "Viking's Testicle" to make it sound more manly.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flirtini
Hanky-Panky: Klækamilska
Happy Jack: Hamingju-Kobbi
Incredible Hulk: Grænrisamilska (Victor Alvarez, a bartender at the restaurant, mixed Hennessy with Hypnotiq to dilute the fruity flavor, resulting in a green beverage that quickly became a hit.)
Irish flag: Íravoð
Italian Stallion: Skóskagastóðhestur (Yes, Italy is not only the penisula, but 80% of americans of Italian origin are from Sicily and the southern province of Campania, so the prefix Skóskaga- applies. See wikipedia article "Italian American")
jackalope: hjartarhéri (The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore (a so-called "fearsome critter") described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns or deer antlers and sometimes a pheasant's tail (and often hind legs).)
Jack Daniels: Kobbaveig, Tensár-Kobbi (Jack is the pet-form of Jacob and translates as Kobbi in Icelandic (e.g. Kviðristu-Kobbi, Jack the Ripper). It is a Tennessee whiskey. The name of the state of Tennessee is actually the name of the river. A Old Norse speaking viking would make use of folk-etymology (comp. Jórsalir for Jeruzalem, Rauðstofa for Rostov) to designate the river and the most appropriate folk-etymological adptation would be Tensá, which looks familiar to Tempsá (Thames). Surprisingly, the original Cherokee word Tamasi (a village name) looks like the latin Tamesis for the Thames. (Tensárfylki, state of Tennessee, Tensár- in compounds). Hence the name Tensár-Kobbi (Fix me a Tennessee Jack, on the double!)Jack and Coke (Jack Daniels and Coke): Kobbabrúnka
Jim Beam (Kentucky bourbon): Jemsbúrbóni (In some cases it is inconvenient that 'kobbi' is the only Icelandic equivalent of 'Jim' and 'Jack', the English pet-forms of James (Jakob). In this case we have to make the distiction lexically, because of the facts that Jim Beam (Kentucky) is the rival of Jack Daniels (Tennessee), we can't call them both 'Kobbi'. I propose JEMS (from James, declined like the unrelated but similarly sounding JENS). The spelling Búrbóni I got from the Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin and can be used in the meaning of 'Bourbon whiskey'.
Kamikaze cocktail: hrapherjamilska
Kensington Court Special: Kynsingatúnshallarmilska, Kynsingatýningur, kynsyngatýnsk hallarmilska (The name Kynsingur is the Icelandic equivalent of Kensing in the English place-name Kensington, which means "Estate associated with Cynesige". Anglo-Saxon names ending in -sigi get -si in their Nordicized contracted forms: e.g. Lefsi (from Leófsige (Ljúfsigi) (see Lefsi: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ONMensNames.shtml The contracted Icelandic equivalent of Cynesige Kynsigur becomes Kynsi. The name of the followers or family would be Kynsingar (which corresponds with the modern Kensing-) and a possible first element in an Icelandic equivalent of the English Kensington: Kynsingatún)
Kremlin Colonel: Knjasgarðsefstingi (The first rulers of the Kremlin were called 'knyaz' (knjas in Icelandic, see Íslensk orðabók, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knyaz
Margarita: Möggumilska, Magga, Margrétarmilska
Manhattan cocktail: Feringarmilska (On the small North Frisian island of Föhr (North Frisian Fering), the Manhattan cocktail is a standard drink at almost every cafe restaurant, and 'get together' of locals. The story goes, that many of the people of Föhr (Fering) emigrated to Manhattan during deep sea fishing trips, took a liking to the drink, and brought it back to Föhr with them. )
Mezcal: meðki (named after the 'worm' (maðka)) in the bottle and the traditional way of drinking mescal, with a side plate of fried larvae ground with chili peppers and salt and cut limes. One takes a pinch of the larvae mixture and places it on the tongue, then immediately begins to drink the shot, but slowly.)
Michelada: Míkaldi (The word "chela" is a popular way to call a beer in Mexico. It comes from the English word "chill". When you ask for a chela you are asking for a cold beer. "Mix" comes from the mix of sauces added to the beer. Therefore putting the two words together Mix-chela sounds like Michelada. Others argue that it stands for "Mi Chela Helada", meaning "My cold beer".)
Modernista: Nútímaþerna (Modern Maid Cocktail, the cocktail of the modern chamber-maid)
Moloko plus: ofurbeldismjólk (Ultraviolence (ofurbeldi) milk. The drink's name originates from the Nadsat word for milk, translated as "milk plus". The main characters in " A Clockwork Orange (Vélgengt glóandin)" prepare for "ultraviolence" by drinking it.)
Monkey gland: Magkormáksmilska (Sometimes known as the McCormick, which translates into Icelandic as Magkormákur (built after the example Magbjóður for MacBeth, see Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson)
Montgomery cocktail: Mundgumaríkingamilska, mundgumarískur marteiningur (The montgomery cocktail is a very strong variant of the classic martini. It is The surname Montgomery originates rom an English surname meaning "gumarich's mountain" in Norman French. The first element is adapted as Mund- as is found in Mundíafjöll (Alps), Gumarich is a compound of Gumi (man) and rik (rich, Icel. ríkur). The full family name is: Mungumaríkingar)
Moskow Mule: miðrússnesk hálfveig (a "mule" is a mixture of ginger ale an wodka)
My Fair Lady: Duflektlinga-Ellisif (Eliza Doolittle. The surname Doolittle doesn't actually mean 'lazy parson' but is derived from the Irish surname O' Dubhlachta. The first element dubh- , meaning 'dark', 'black', is identical to the prefix Duf- in icelandicized Irish names like Dufgall, Dufþakr and Dufgus. The etymology of the second element '-lachta' is of obscure origin but can luckily be adapted after an existing exemplary Icelandic toponym: ConnACHTA (Connaught) - KunnAKTIR and Sneachta (snow) - Snati (Herman Pálsson, Keltar á Íslandi). Thus, the correct Icelandicized form for the originator of the Doolittle family is Duflakti, the family name Duflektlingar. The reason I used -lingar instead of -ingar or -ungar to built the collective family name is to make the end result more phonetically similar to the anglicized Irish surname. The Icelandicized name for Eliza Doolittle is Duflektlinga-Ellisif. Instead of translating 'My Fair Lady', we can use her hyperarchaicly icelandicized full name to designate the drink. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady_Cocktail#My_Fair_Lady
Rex Harrison: Harrison = Hinriksyningar; Rex means 'King' and the only phonosemantic match for this one is the Irish-Icelandic Rígur (From Irish Rí, king): Hinriksyninga-Rígur (The reason why I use Hinriksyningar instead of Heinrekingar or Hinrikingar is because I want to keep some sound-similarity with the Engish surname, while avoiding 'son' in its underived form because of its use as a patronymic in Icelandic. For that reason, it is in my opinion more preferable in the case of foreign non-patronymic surnames ending in -son to use a constrution with -syningur to retain some phonetical similarity while avoiding confusion with 'son' as a 'patronymic'); The origins of the name Hepburn are suggested to be the same as that of Hebborne from the Old English words heah ("high") and byrgen ("burial mound"). Alternatively it could mean something along the lines of "high place beside the water", as the word burn is a still widely used in Northumbrian and Scots for stream. OK, the first element is certainly 'High, Icelandic Há-, the second element is not entirely certain and has to be adapted: Hábyrningar. The name Audrey is the medieval diminutive of the Anglo-Saxon Æthelþryð (Old Norse Aðalþrúður). The full name has to be used here because its impossible to construct a pet-form that is phoneticly similar to 'Audrey'.
Nicolaschka: Láskumilska (Lási + suffix -ka, as in Sifka)
Old Etonian: Ártýningur gamli (A gin cocktail which enjoyed great popularity in London, circa 1925. The cocktail takes its name from Eton College and from the college's alumni, who are often referred to as Old Etonians. The name Eaton means 'island town' (Icelandic Ártún or Átún, derivatives: ártýnskur, Ártýningur)
Orange tundra: glófreðmýri, gulrauð freðmýri
Panama cocktail: Eiðilandsmilska
Pimm's nr 1: Femjungur (The ancient Anglo-Saxon surname Pim came from the name Euphemia where it is a short form of that name. Icelandic Femja - Femjungar)
Pina colada: Ríkhafnarmilska (The official drink of Puerto Rico since 1978)
Pink Lady: rósalafði (pink colour is due to the added grenadine, compare rósavín
Pisco (Chilean-Peruvian cognac): fuglborgari (named after the city of Pisco, a word meaning 'bird' in Quechua)
Pisco sour: Súr Fuglborgari
Piscola (pisco and cola): brúnkaður fuglborgari
Porchcrawler: svalaskriðill
Prince of Wales: Valbretafursti
rhum: reyrveig
Rob Roy: Robbi Ruðri (Rob is the pet-form of Robert (Icelandic: Hróbjartur, pet-form Robbi; Roy is the anglicized form of ruadh (Icelandic Ruðri (see Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson).
Rose Kennedy: Kjanneiðinga-Rós (Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Ceannéidigh ‘descendant of Ceannéidigh’, a personal name derived from ceann ‘head’ + éidigh ‘ugly’ (éi pronounces as ei in Icelandic). It is adapted like Irish names in Old Icelandic. See Íslensk Orðsifjabók under 'kjanni') Sazerac: Sassrekingur (adaptation)
7 and 7 (Pimm's nr 1 mixed with 7 Up): sjöpptur femjungur (Sjöppa (sjö + upp + verbal -a, to mix with the soft drink "7 Up". The Anglos-Saxon surname Pimm derives from Greek Euphemia (Femja, Femjungur). See Pimm's nr.1
Shirley Temple: Templa-Skírló (The name Temple originates from the Knights templar. In this case the name is Tempill, family name Templa; The name Shirley originates from a place-name meaning 'bright clearing' (Icelandic: Skírló)
Skrewdriver: skrúfmilska
Tequila sunrise: dögunarmilska (The the cocktail is named for the way it looks after it has been poured into a glass. The denser ingredients (cassis or grenadine) settle, creating gradations in color that mimic a sunrise.)
Texas Highball: Kobbaveigarte (Jack Daniels (Kobbaveig) and iced tea)
Tom Collins cocktail: Kýlansmilska (The name Collin is identical to the Irish-Icelandic personal name Kýlan (little dog))
Tom and Jerry: Tumi og Geiri (The name is related neither to the popular MGM cartoon nor to the earlier Tom and Jerry by Van Beuren Studio, nor to famous bartender "Professor" Jerry Thomas, the author of one of the first bartender's guides, How to Mix Drinks (1862). Instead, it is a reference to Egan's book, Life in London, or The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom (1821), and the subsequent stage play Tom and Jerry, or Life in London (also 1821). The pet-form Jerry is either derived from Jeremy or Jerome or from Gerald (Geiraldur, pet-form Geiri))
Twentieth century: tuttugöldungur
U-boat: kafbátsmilska, þjóðherjakafbátur
Vesper: Vestmey (compare Vestmar (Nöfn Íslsndinga); named after the novel's lead female character, Vesper Lynd, a pun on "West Berlin". Vesper is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hesperos ( "evening", "evening star", "west")
Widow's Cork: jakobsynsk amrettingur (mix of Jameson whiskey and amaretto)
whiskey: hvatn (hvatur (lively) + vatn (water), fjörveig. see http://extremeicelandic.blogspot.com/2011/11/bjoveig-ea-hvatn-whiskey.html wodka: slafaveig, brennivatn (wodka is the diminutive of woda, which simply means 'water', so why not calling it brennivatn as a pun on brennivín)
Wolfram: Ylfinga-Hrólfsmilska, Ylfunga-Hrólfur (Created in 1990 to commemorate the election of John Wolff Director of Rudolf Wolff as Chairman of the London Metal Exchange. The family Wolff can be Icelandicized to Ylfingar, gen. Ylfinga and the German Rudolf exists in the contracted form Hrólfur: Rudolf Wolff = Ylfinga-Hrólfur)

Bombay Sapphire tonic

2011-11-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

skveppur, að skveppa: tonic, mix with tonic:
The only possible monosyllabic word for this kind of softdrink is an icelandification of the most popular brand which can be used a a generalizing term for all tonics: Schweppes (from the name of the originater Schweppe: skveppur, the verbal derivation 'skveppa' means 'to mix with tonic'.
sapphire: jarlsteinn: The corundum is the second hardest stone after the 'king of stones', the diamond, so it can be called 'jarlsteinn'. Because the red variety of the gem, the ruby, is already called 'roðasteinn' in Icelandic, 'jarlsteinn' can be used for the sapphire, which originally designated the blue variety but which is now used for all non-ruby corundum colour varieties.
Góðvík: Bombay (The name for Bombay used by the Fjölnismenn in the literary magazine Skírnir)
skveppt einiveig, einiskveppur: gin tonic

Saving Private Ryan

2011-11-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

The Icelandicized equivalent of the diminutive ending -án in Irish personal names was mostly -an (Feilan, Kjaran) or in a few examples as -án (Brjánn, Koðrán). Ryan is constructed from Irish Rí and the diminutive suffix án (compare the similarly constructed Bríán (meaning 'little hill', from brí (hill) + án (diminutive) which was icelandicized as Brjánn). In the case of Ryan, we have a completely similar construction: Irish Rí + án = Rjánn.

Icelandification of foreign surnames

2011-11-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

The best way of adapting foreign personal names along with surnames is prepositioning of the genitive plural of collective family names like 'skarphjaðningar': skarphjaðninga- followed by the personal name, the same construction as in Hrafna-Flóki, Hropta-Þór,...
examples:
François Mitterand: Mittrendinga-Franseis (the ending -ois corresponds with -eis in Icelandic words of French origin: courteois (kurteis), bourgeois (burgeis), hence François - Franseis
Nicolas Sarkozy: Sarkösunga-Nikulás (From the name Sárköz (pronounced in Icelandic: Sarkös), meaning 'mud strip'.)
Bill Clinton: Klinttýninga-Villi
Ronald Reagan: Rígninga-Rögnvaldur (The name Reagan is of Irish origin and means 'little king'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regan
Herman Pálsson mentions in his book 'Keltar á Íslandi' the Icelandicized Irish name Rígr (from Rí, meaning 'king'). The diminutive ending -án in Irish personal names was Icelandicized either as -an (Feilan, Kjaran) or in a few examples as -án (Brjánn, Koðrán). The surname Reagan has the same origin as Ryan (Irish Rí + án, compare Bríán (brí (hill) + án (diminutive), Icelandic Brjánn). The Icelandic construction of Ríán is Rjánn, the derived family name Rjánungar. But in spite of the fact that Ryan and Reagan share the same origin it is better to use different constructions for these names: Rjánn for Ryan (corresponds to Brjánn for Brian) and Rígan, family name: Rígninga (the already Icelandicized Rígr with addition of -an) for Reagan.
As for the first name: Ronald is the Scottish form of the Old Norse Rögnvaldr.)
Madelin Albright: Albirtinga-Maðlín (adapted the name like Kaðlín, the Icelandicized form of the Old Irish Catilin. The existing Icelandic Malín and Magdalena aren't sufficiently phonetically similar.)
Helmut Kohl: Kolunga-Helmóður
Vladimir Putin: Pútnunga-Valdimar
Silvio Berlusconi: Berlúskunga-Silfár
Richard Dawkins: Dáknunga-Ríkharður
Dimitri Medvedev: Mjaðvöðunga-Dímóður (Medvedev derives from Medved which means 'bear' and is related to Polish Niedzwiedz, actually Miedzwiedz, the first element in which is derived from miód (honey) and related with Icelandic mjöður (mead). For that reason I adapted the family name as Mjaðvöðungar. The ending -ev is just a Russian suffix in surnames comparable to -ungur in Icelandic)
Lyndon Johnsson: Jónssyninga-Limdún (From an English surname which was derived from a place name meaning "lime tree hill" in Old English. In the past, I translated '-don' as 'hæð' and sometimes it is equalized with 'tún', but since I found out that it is of the same origin as Irish-Icelandic 'dún' (see book 'Keltar á Íslandi') I use this one.)

Masterpieces of the Louvre

2011-11-25T05:49:00.000-08:00

Brosfreyjan (The smiling wife, because she was a married woman (hence the word Mona, which is actually corruption of Italian Monna (from Madonna, which means 'married woman', the equivalent of the Icelandic frú, but also húsfreyja)
Geirherðinga-Lísa (Her maiden name was Gherardini, a surname derived from a germanic name equivalent with German Gerhard (Icelandic Geirharður). The typically Old Icelandic collective family name becomes Geirherðingar and Lisa herself 'Geirherðinga-Lísa'.)
Fagurborgarfegurðin (the beauty from Florence, called Flórens in Icelandic but also Fagurborg http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%B3rens
Jókund: After the French name for the painting La Gioconde, after her husband's name (Francesco) del Giocondo (her maiden's name was Gherardini), a name derived from the Late Latin Iucunda which meant "pleasant, delightful, happy". The Icelandic euivalent of Gio- in Italian personal names is Jó- (Giovanni - Jóhann), the rest is logical adaptation.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioconda
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Joconde
The name Venus can be Icelandicized as Vindís, because the vinur (friend) is related to the Latin name Venus. The Íslensk orðsifjabók mentions for the entry vinur:

vinur k. 'kær félagi,...'; samanber fareyska vinur, nýnorska vin, nýsænska vän (fornsænska vin), danska ven (forndanska win), frumnorrænir rúnar winiR, fornenska wine, fornsaxneska og fornháþýska wini < germanska *weni, samanber fornírska fine 'frændsemi' og Veni- í gallískum mannanöfnum, lat. venus 'kærleikur',...

For that reason I think a compound of Vinur (which occurs as a first element in Icelandic personal names: Vinbjörg, Vinfús, see Nöfn Íslensdinga) and -dís, a suffix found mostly as a second element in femine personal names meaning 'godess'. It somewhat sounds similar to Vanadís (nick-name of the Scandinavian equivalent of Venus) but not to a disturbing extent.

The godess Aphrodite was known to be born from the 'foam of the sea': see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite The construction haf(f)ríður, composed of Haf- (sea, a first element in many feminine personal names and -fríður, or -ríður, a second element in feminine names, which means among other things 'beauty'. Hafríður is a descriptive neonym which is phonetically similar to the Greek name at the same time.
But as for the artwork itself, we can keep things much simpler: constructions like Vindís (Haf(f)ríður) frá Meley (Meley is my personal construction for the island of Melos, Mílos, see below) or "Ástargyðjan handleggjalausa" aren't necessary:
The only thing to be done here is to adapt the name Melos to Icelandic as was done for some other Greek islands: replace the ending -os by -ey and use it as a femine personal name to designate the statue itself . The result is Meley. Examples of EXISTING icelandicized names of Greek islands:
Lemney (Limnos), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_exonyms
Róðey for Rhodos http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3dos
Kíey for Khios (Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin, Grikkland, sjá kort)

In the same line of thought we could call Patmos Paðmey (decided to use the 'eth' here instead of the 't' because it sounds more like the Varangian toponym Paðreimur), Lesbos Lespey, Samos Samey and Melos Meley.

Nike of Samothrace: Þrakeysk sigurgyðja (Thrace is one of the 13 regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace. Samothrace is named after the Island Samos and Thrace, but the name Þrakey (Thrace = Þrakland) suffices bacause it is the only island named after Thrace. The name Niké (godess of victory) is replaced by 'Sigurdís'.)

neologisms 24/11/11

2011-11-24T06:37:00.000-08:00

Alaskan:
1) útvestrænn, (ultraoccidental)
2) andeldlensk (anti-firelandish)
3) Axlarfylkis- (shoulderstate-), Axlverskur
4) frá ystrænu fylkinu

Aleutian islands:
1) kyrrahafsdjásn, Djásneyjar, Elddjásn (The diadem of the pacific or simply 'diadem islands'. The word djásn suggest a region up north, since it is a head dress. The only islands applying to this description are the Aleutian islands.)
2) Axlareyjar (islands at the shoulders of the world, the Russian chukchi region and Alaska)

Aleutian (people): Axleyjingar, Ystræningar, Djásneyjingur

Bering sea:
1) Ystrænt haf ("ystrænn" can be a pun on "vestrænn" and "austrænn' and combines the western- and easternmost (útvestrænn and útaustrænn) areas in the world)
2) Axlarhaf
3) Miðnætturhaf (because the "date line" runs through the strait and if you extrapolate morgunlönd (Asia) and kvöldlönd (Europe, America), the Bering area is the land of 'midnight').

Bering strait:
1) Ystrænt sund (combines útvestrænn and útaustrænn)
2) Ísnjörvasund (The toponym Njörvasund (strait of Gibraltar) is used here in the figurative sense of "small strait between two continents" (only the strait of gibraltar and the Bering strait apply), so we can make the distinction by adding 'ís-', referring to the arctic ocean (Íshaf) and the drift ice in the strait)
3) Axlarsund (strait at the shoulders of the world)

Commander islands: Ystrússnesk eyjar (The outer (east or west) russian islands, the westernmost extension of the Aleutian Islands (islands at the shoulders of the world. They were named after Commander Vitus Bering, who died on one of the islands)

Calypso deep (Ionian sea): Klyfsudýpi

Guinea, Gulf of: Miðbaugsflói (the only gulf on the equator)

Hudson (in geographical names): Huddsynskur, Hyddings- (Huddsynskur flói (Hudson bay), Huddsynskt sund (Hudson strait), Hyddingsfljót (the surname Hudson derives from 'son of Huddi', which is a pet-form of either Hugh or Richard, instead of Huddasýnskur, the first element is kept monosyllabic (Hudd-) for reasons of sound-similarity. The construction Hyddingar is based on an Old Icelandic formation of family names by adding -ingar to the personal name of an ancestor. In the case of 'Hudde', it would be Hyddingar and the singular form Hyddingur is born by an individual belonging to that family.

Ochotsk, sea of: Ystgerskt innhaf (Ystgerskur: easternmost Russian, because yst- rhymes with aust-)

Ångström

2011-11-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

1) Örmýrjungur
(The Íslensk orðsifjabók mentions for the obsolete mýr: 'mergð, grúi'. vafaorð, e.t.v. s.o. og myr (s.þ.) en ý tilkomið vegna þess að lærðir menn tengdu það við lat. Mýrias, gr. Mýrias (ef. Mýriados) 'tíu þúsund' af 'mýrios' (ótölulegur). The ideal construction of a name for "one ten thousandth part is, in my opinion, is “mýr-” or “mýríu-” (10,000) combined with -jungur (100) as in the construction þriðjungur (a third).
The addition of the prefix ör- (yes, I know mikró- is used in Icelandic translation of metrical prefixes, but that's only a convention. One could as well use ör in this sense), örmýrjungur, which means the 'ten billionth part'. We can use this for ångström. There's no need to add -stika or -metri. Most scientists will link up the notion "ten billionth part" with an ångström.)

2) Angstreymingur
(The Swedish toponymical surname Angström icelandicizes as 'Angstraumur'. The Icelandic collective family name would be 'Angstreymingar', the singualr form of which denotes an individual belonging to that family or group of follower. Angstreymingur is the logical name of the unit.)

3) rófstika (róf- spectro- + stika (unit)).
The ångström is still the predominantly used unit in spectroscopy.

Units of radiation

2011-11-21T08:43:00.000-08:00

rem: geiska (GEISlaSKAmmtseining)

sievert: sívörðungur (The surname Sievert derives from the Germanic Sigward (Icelandic: Sigvörður). The collective name of family or followers of this individual would be Sigvörðungar, the singular of which could be used as the surname of an individual family member. I omitted the g in Sig- for two reasons: to make the word more sound-similar with Sievert and because there is a tendency of omitting the latter g of the first lement in a name when the second element begins with 'v-'. An example of this is the Old Icelandic stívarður (English stewart, from stigvörður, see orðsifjabók). The loss of the 'g' in 'sig' has happened in the family name Sievert as well. For that reason, I prefer the construction Sívörðungur instead of Sigvörðungur)

grey: greyingur (Named after Louis Harold Gray). The family name Gray is a toponymical surname and goes back to the place-name Gray in France. The logical adaptation of the family name is Grey + -ingur: Greyingur, which can be used as the name of the unit. )

becquerel: bekkrellingur. Named after Henri Becquerel. The surname Becquerel is mostly found in the French region called 'La Manche" and has the meaning of "little river, brook", the first element becq being of German origin (Icelandic bekkur). The second element is the diminutive suffixe -elle, which phonetically corresponds to -lingur in Icelandic. So the name would be bekklingur. If this sounds to radically an adaptation, the more phonetical and less etymological solution Bekkrellingur is a second option.
http://www.geneanet.org/genealogie/fr/becquerelle.html

curie: kýringur (The surname Curie is found in the French region of 'le doubs' en in 'Haute-Saône' and is a gallicized form of the French-Provençal toponym Curia, Curiaz, the etymology of which is uncertain. The name of the family is icelandicized by adding -ingur to the stem Kurj-.)

rutherford (1 million becquerel): hryðurfurða, myrjundbekkrellingur (= mega-bequerel, myría= 10.000 units with adiition of the suffix -und (as in þúsund, thousand, from þúshundrað) = million. As a suffix mýrjund- can be use to denote the metrical prefix mega-. )

röntgen: röndkin (see http://extremeicelandic.blogspot.com/2011/11/icelandic-equivalent-of-german-surname.html )

rad: eyrisgreyingur (= centigrey, the prefix eyris- (genitive of eyrir, the hundredth part of the Icelandic currency unit, the króna) is used here to designate the metrical prefix centi- (a hundredth part of a unit)

Icelandic equivalent of the German surname Röntgen

2011-11-16T04:18:00.000-08:00

The latter -gen in Röntgen is definitely a diminutive suffix:

g remains voiced after voiceless consonants in names: Fitger, röntgen. The g in the name Kügelgen is [g], though -GEN ORIGINALLY IS FOR -CHEN; CF. GOETHE's SPELLING: MÄDGEN (MÄDCHEN) (Jethro Bithell, German Pronounciation and phonology)

So the ending -gen in the surname röntgen or roentgen is the Goethian form of the diminutive suffix -chen, related to the Old English suffix -kin. For the Icelandic adaptation we will use -kin as in the following example mentioned in the Íslensk orðsifjabók.
Vilkin k. karlmannsnafn. Tökunafn ættað úr þýsku samanber fornháþýsku Willikin, miðháþýsku Willeke, eiginlegt smækkunar- eða gælumynd af nafninu Wilhelm.

The first element in Röntgen probably derives from the Old High German rant
(shield or 'boss of a shield'), mentioned in the the Icelandic etymological dictionary under the entry 'rönd'), which semantically answers to its Icelandic etymological cognate 'rönd', which still exists in personal names.

So I choose Rönd- as the first element in the Icelandic adaptation of the German name, as in Röndólfur (Randolph, mentioned in the Íslensk orðsifjabók under 'rönd'). Then we add the icelandicized Old German suffix '-kin' and we have our adaptation: RÖNDKIN. As for the gender of the word, we will use the earlier mentioned 'Vilkin' as an example, which is masculine so it requires the genitive -s in compounds: RÖNDKINSGEISLUN, RÖNDKINSSTJARNA

Magdufnallsfíklingar (Young MacDonalds addicts)

2011-11-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

The Iclandic equivalent of the name of the junk food concern is Magdufnalls. As in the example Magbjóður (Macbeth), mentioned in the book Keltar á Íslandi by Hermann Pálsson, surnames starting with mac- are icelandicized by adding the stem of the etymologically related Icelandic mögur (son): mag- to the nominative form of the second element. The masculine personal name Donald derives from the Gaelic name Domhnall (Icelandicized to Dufn(i)all in Old Icelandic writs), which means "ruler of the world", composed of the old Celtic dumno "world" and val "rule".

Magdufnallshús: MacDonalds restaurant
Magdufnallsfíkill, Magdufnalingur: junk food addict
Magdufnallsmeti: junk food

Geislavirk frumefni

2011-11-12T13:04:00.001-08:00

Einsteinium: HólmblýEinsteinium is the heavier brother of Holmium (named after Stockholm) in the Lanthanide series and displays properties similar to its lighter counterpart. The addition 'blý' is used to position an element after 'lead' and 'bismuth'. If Einsteinium desintegrates, the largest part of it will ultimately desintegrate into lead.)
Nobelium: Elfráðsblý

Californium: nifteindagull
The discoverers named the new element after California and the University of California. The element directly above element 98 in the periodic table, dysprosium, has a name that simply means "hard to get at" so the researchers decided to set aside the informal naming convention. They added that "the best we can do is to point out [that] ... searchers (for gold)a century ago found it difficult to get to California (the "gold rush state")."
Californium is a very strong neutron emitter. It is therefore used as a portable neutron source for the discovery of metals such as gold and silver. These are all reasons enough to use the word 'gold' to designate Californium in the figurative sense of 'valuable and costly substance' as in 'black gold' for 'oil' . Californium is the (extremely expensive http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/294/whats-the-most-expensive-thing-in-the-world ) 'neutron-emitting gold': nifteindagull, this word can only mean californium, even if heavier new ones are found in the future, Californium was the original 'king of the neutron transmitters'. Amazing! Californium is apparently translatable with medieval Icelandic word-building blocks! Eureka

Polonium (maríublý, púlín) First of all I want to say that I'm abhorred about the cowardly act that brought this man, himself being a crook or not, to his death-bed. No hominid who has evolved somewhat beyond the average ringtail-maki as for moral conscienceness would ever commit such a crime.
OK, that being said, now about the element itself. Polonium is situated just 2 places to the right of lead (BLÝ) on the periodic system. It is an unstable radioactive metal that desintegrates into lead. It was discovered by Marie Curie, who named it after her country Poland. The abbreviation of 'Poland' on car number plates is PL. The term maríublý is already robust enough a term. If the word has to be constructed in the same style as most other names, where the ending -ium is replaced by -ín (natrín, kalín, kalsín, why not calling polonium PÚLÍN, instead of 'pólon', after the oldest Icelandic form Púlínaland, mentioned in the Þiðreks saga af Bern: En er Vilkinus konungr hefir stýrt þessu ríki um stund, þá býr hann her sinn ok ríðr með ótal riddara ok annarra hermanna út í Púlínaland ok á þar margar orrostur ok stórar bæði.
Radium: Maríuglóð

Maríuglóð (radium) er mun geislavirkari en heljarblý (Plutonium)! Discovered by Marie Curie (maríu-), radium is so radioactive that it glows in the dark (-gló). It is even possible to call your daughter after Radium: Þórleif or Þórleifur, as radium isotopes are mostly so-called daughter products of the element Thorium, named after the God Thor (my suggestions for an Icelandic name for Thorium: þórefni or þórsblý).

Astatine: óst, völtungur

The name astatine comes from the Greek word astatos, meaning "unstable," to imply the created isotope's unstability towards radioactive decay. The icelandic word for unstable is óstöðugur, which sounds similar while being etymologically related to the Greek word. The neologism óst is an abbreviation of the adjective. It is a reductionist neologistic style comparable to the formation of ál for aluminium. In this respect, The Icelandic óst is proportionate to the English astatine in the same way as ál is proportionate to aluminium. Judging from its similarity to the nouns ást and ósk, the most appropriate gender for óst is probably the feminine one: óst, óst, óst, óstar.
Another possibilities to iceladicize this name is völtungur, derived from valtur, a synonym of óstöðugur, because it rhymes on söltungur (halogene, salt-former; astatine belongs to the halogen group of elements), derived from salt, because valtsöltungur was too long.
Actinium: þórál
Actinium is the 'aluminium next to thorium' (Aluminium is used here in the sense of 'trivalent chemical element', because it happens to be the primordial and most abundant trivalent metallic element in the universe and the first of its kind (boron is not a metal) on the periodic table. The first element 'þór-' refers to its closest actinide brother situated right next to it on the periodic table, the relatively superstable thorium.
actinides: þórálungar or dulmálmabræðir (brothers of the 'concealed metals', my term for the erroneous term 'rare earths' (dulmálmar). The rare earth elements only seem to be rare because they aren't concentrated as ores in particular locations earth and probably on other rocky planets. They are, instead, widely distributed throughout the earth's crust, which makes it difficult to obtain them, hence the original misconception about their terrestrial abundance, which is, actually, relatively high.
The closest brothers of the rare-earth elements, all of which, except for Scandium and Yttrium belong to the Lanthanide group (Leyndarmálmar) are the actinides, hence the term dulmálmabræður.
Proactinium: þórálsmóðir (proto- (for-) + þórál (actinium), because the longest-lived protactinium isotope desintegrates into an isotope of actinium).
Lawrencium: Lafransblý An artificially made chemical element, named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron. The surname Lawrence originates from 'Laurentius', the original Icelandic form of which is 'Lafrans' (as in Lafransmessa). All elements after lead can be named with compounds of which the second element is 'blý'. This is a kind of positioning technique: heljarblý (Plutonium, named after the female Nordic equivalent of the male roman underworld god Pluto), Maríublý (Polonium, the radioactive second element after lead that was discovered by Marie (Maríu-) Curie), Frakkblý (Francium, named after France). Stumbling on a possibility to denominate a superheavy transuranium actinide that scientists succeeded in creating only recently and merely in picogram amounts with words from the medieval Icelandic lexical stock is an exciting experience.

Promethium: Eldþjófsefni, gervidulmálmur, promeþeifsefni
Promethium (gervidulmámur) is the only articficially made 'rare earth element' (dulmálmur as I call them, because is it a more accurate dsignation of this goup of metals, that only seem to be rare because they aren't concentrated on particular locations where they can be easily mined. They are, instead, widely distributed throughout the earth's crust, which makes it difficult to obtain them, hence the misconception about their terrestrial abundance, which is, actually, relatively high.)
If you google 'fire thief', you will find almost always references to Prometheus, the Greek mythological figure, who stole the fire from the gods. The compound eldþjófur cannot mistakingly refer to anything else than Prometheus. That's why I went for Eldþjófsefni instead of Prómeþeifsefni wasn't hardcore enough for me.
Berkelium: Birkilóarefni, Birkilængur
This artificially made transuranium element was named after Berkeley, which means 'Birch-tree wood or clearing', from the Old English beorc and leah, the Icelandic equivalents of which are 'björk, birki- in compounds' and 'ló': 'Birkiló'. The name of the element becomes then: birkilóarefni or birkilængur (contraction of Birkilængur, as in the personal name Klængur, derived from 'kló-' (claw) with addition of -ingur).

Americium: níþungt álI originally called this element 'níþungt ál' because the most stable isotope of Americium (atomic weight 243) is exactly 9 times as heavy as ordinary aluminium nuclei (atomic weight 27 = 243/9). I dropped this term because an Icelandic friend of mine rejected it because of a confusion with NÍÐÞUNGUR, which means 'very heavy' (níð- is an intensifying prefix). On another occasion, I also asked an Icelandic chemist and he had no objection. Yes, he told me, it sounds like níðþungur, but that doesn't mean you can use níþungur in the meaning 'nine times as heavy'. What's more, Americium sounds somewhat like Aluminium. Aluminium is the primordial, most abundant trivalent element and I use the Icelandic name ál as a building block to designate other trivalent elements throughout the periodic system.
Curium: heljarblýsmóðir (the mother product of 'hejarblý' (Plutonium)
Fermium: Erblý (Er from Erbium + blý)Erbium is the lighter brother of Fermium, named after ytterby (Ytribær), a place in Sweden after which three elements are named: ytterbium, terbium and erbium. The first element is just 'Er-' as in the international abbreviation for Erbium, the second is 'blý' and refer to the position of Fermium in the regiion beyond blý and that the the most part of the majority of its isotopes would eventually desintegrate into lead.Mendelevium: Tílisblý (We can name this element after its lighter lanthanide brother which have similar properties: Thulium, named after Thule, named Tíli (Tílis-) in the 'Landnámabók'. The second element is 'blý' used as a positioning marker for all elements heavier than lead.)

Einvist (Rockall)

2011-11-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

In 1956 the British scientist James Fisher eferred to the island as "the most isolated small rock in the oceans of the world." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockall
I tried out different names like draugadrangur or Einsemdarsker, but I think I've now found a more elaborated one based on two aspects of the rock: Its remoteness and its relation to some the nearest Scottish Islands, the Hebrides. Rockall could be seen as the superlative of St Kilda, the outermost archipel of the Outer Hebrides. Rockall is proportionate to the Hebrides what X-rays are to the visible spectrum (St Kilda is in the ultraviolet region). Rockall is to Scotland what Kolbeinsey is to Iceland, but I can't useany part of the Icelandic name here.
No, the things is, Rockall lies very close to the same latitude as North Uist, Which was called Ívist by the Norseman (According to the English Wikipedia Article about North Uist, the earlier name was Innivist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Uist . It is possible to create a pun on the Old Norse name of the island: Einvist, which should emphasize the remoteness of this peculiar skerry. I wouldn't make constructions like Einvistardrangur in order not to ruin the word-play on Ívist.
North Uist. Latitude: 57° 40′n /
South Uist site information: Latitude: 57.333
Rockall Island is at latitude 57.61ºN

Well, actually, it isn't exactly situated on the very same latitude as Ívist, but somewhat halfway the Island of Lewis (Ljóðhús), but it still close enough to the island for the relevance of the pun.

kylfuferill, ausuferill (J-curve)

2011-11-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

If you type J-curve in the Google Image Search bar, you will see that the term also exists as the trade name of a "hockey stick". A j-curve looks like what Icelanders call 'kylfa'. As for me, it looks more like an 'ausa' (ladle).

Andland (Australia)

2011-11-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

The region around Australia, the island-continent, is often refered to as 'the land down under (hinum megin á hnettinu, hence the term hinumeginland) or the 'antipodal region' (andfælingssvæði). The term antipode derives from anti- "opposed" and pous "foot" of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points that are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth.
Why not using the simple construction 'Andland'. The word refers to the "antipodal regions", the regions 'down under' and it is only different from 'Indland' in having another initial vowel, which is appropriate since the west coast of Australia lies at the Indian Ocean and the East Indies (Indonesia lies just north of Australia, so the similarity between the names 'Indland' and 'Andland' is a convenient coincidence.
Australia means 'the southern land', but it is actually, the land at the other end, and andland applies to this description.

Derivations:

Andlendingur: Australian
andlenskur: Australian
frumandlendingur: Aboriginal (or 'andfætlingssvertingi')
frumandlensk tungumál: aboriginal languages

New toponyms for Europe, Atlantic, Eurasia and Australia

2011-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

The ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans makes mention of two genuine Icelandic names for Europe:
1) Kvöldlönd (based upon the German 'Abendland', which, in the Old World's view, before the Columbian period of discoveries, was antonymous to 'the lands of the rising sun, the morning lands' (Asia)) and
2) Norðurálfa (Northern continent). Derivations like 'kvöldlendingur' or 'kvöldlenskur' are possible, but there happens to be a better option.

The SnorraEdda mentions a second name for the European mainland: Enea, derived from the name Aeneas, the Troyan hero, who fled to Carthago and later to Italy, where he was thought to be an ancester of Romulus, founder of the city of Rome. Unfortunately, this name is troublesome to construct derivations with: Enneskur??, Ennverji, Enjungur. Not possible.

It's regrettable that I or anybody else have apparently never tried an adjectival derivation of 'aftann' with the suffixes -anskur or -neskur, often observed in toponymic derivations like rússneskur, lettneskur, tyrkneskur. Aftneskur or aftanskur (Dat. of aftann is 'aftni') is just a derivation of "aftann" while at the same time it LUCKILY sounds as being derived from a place-name, which is interesting. It miraculously leans itself to an appropriate Icelandic equivalent for 'European'. It is the ideal word to refer to Europeans, less akward as 'kvöldlenskur'. This is very interesting and opens up new possibilities.

Let's observe the following construction:

Aftanálfa (evening continent): Europe (Some argue that 'evening land' should be interpreted in a narrower sense, applying only to 'Western Europe'. This problem is solved by making use of 'álfa' instead of 'land'.)
aftneskur, aftanskur: European
Eftningur, aftneskur (aftanskur probably resembles 'afganskur' too much) maður, Aftani (maybe too much like Afgani): European (inhabitant)
Eftningahreyfingin: European movement (Evrópuhreyfingin)
Aftneska húsið í Strætisborg (í Stransborg, Steinvegarborg): Palais de l' Europe. (The original name of Strassbourg is the old texts is Stransborg, which was later replaced by Strætisborg (Old Latin name Stratisburgum, fortress at the (stone or Roman) road. Still, it is possible to form an even more genuine Icelandic name for the city: 'stræti' refers to a "Roman road", which were the first roads in Europe made of 'stone'. The original meaning of the word is explained in the Íslensk orðsifjabók as 'Steinlagður vegur'. Let's use 'steinvegur' as the pure equivalent of the latinism 'stræti'. The name for Strassbourg then becomes the ultra-pure Steinvegarborg)
aftneska þingið: European parliament
Aftneska bandalagið: European communion
Aftnesk-Indversk tungumál: Indo-European languages
Aftneska Efnahagsbandalagið: European Economic community
afti: Euro (currency unit, yes, the 'n', a part of the stem is lost, but so is the last syllable of the name Europa in 'Euro'., So why not using Afta- as the equivalent of constructions with Euro-)
aftneskur eyrir: Eurocent
aftneskur dalur: Eurodollar
að aftneska: to europeanize
aftneskun: europeanization
Aftasýn, Eftningasýn: Eurovision
Aftnesk söngvakeppni: Eurovision song contest

Aftanshafið: Atlantic Ocean (From Old German 'Abendmeer' (Evening sea, Google "abendmeer atlantische". I should have conceived this long before. Indeed, in the traditional, Old world view, the far east of asia is regarded as the "Land of Dawn", hence the Pacific could be described as the 'Sea of dawn' and the Atlantic ocean is the 'sea of the evening land', the atlantic ocean. Although there's no real term for the atlantic ocean in the Old Icelandic writs, the denotation 'aftanshaf' is so obvious (and more so because the German 'Abendmeer' existed in this meaning) that no reference to an old Icelandic word is needed.)
Aftanshafssambandið: NATO
Aftanshafsfylki: Atlantic states (USA)
Aftanshafshryggur (Jörmungandshryggur): Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Reginland: Eurasia (The prefix 'Regin-' denotes something 'huge' and is used here to designate a huge 'Meginland'. The Eurasian continent is the largest landmass on the planet.
Reginlenskur: Eurasian
Aftnesk-Austurlenskur: Eurasian

NB: But kvelskur (kveld-skur, 'd' is lost like in 'land - lenskur'), kvelskur maður is also possible

Bjóðveig eða hvatn (whiskey)

2011-11-10T06:03:00.001-08:00

1) hvatn
Whiskey means 'water of life' in Gaelic uisge beatha and is here expressed by a fusion between the adjective hvatur (quick, lively, brisk) and vatn (water).

2) bjóðvatn
The part -bjóður in Magbjóður means 'life' and derives This word from Scottish Gaelic beatha, which means 'life'. Coincidentially, it is the second element in the term uisge beatha, meaning 'water of life, a word that has been corrupted quite heavily in the course of time until it took shape as the modern whiskey. This means that the prefix bjóð- can be used to form the Gaelic-Icelandic hybrid neologism bjóðveig, which is more appropriate than fjörveig, because quite some other alcoholic beverages in the world are coincidentially designated as 'water of life', the Scandinavian aquavit being a prominent example. The prefix bjóð- is a hyponym ('dog' is a hyponym of 'animal')of fjör restricted to the Celtic regions. Hermann Pálsson mentions in his book 'Keltar á Íslandi' a second form: bjó-, occuring in the the masculine personal name Bjólan, which is a constructed of the elements beó (lively) and lán (full).

Njúka, kleyfsa or sveppa (to nuke)

2011-11-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

1) kleyfsa:
If there wasn't any possible way to make a short verb equivalent to English verb 'nuke', I would use 'að kleyfsa', the verbal form of the name Kleyfsi, the name of an 18th century Latin grammar-school handbook.
Kleyfsi k. (18. öld) nafn á latn. -ísl. orðabók frá 1738. Nucleus latinitatis. Líklega einskonar gæluorðsmyndun skólapilta af fyrri lið latneska titilsins, nucleus (from which the verb 'to nuke' is derived) = kjarni. (Íslensk orðsifjabók)
The funny thing about this, is that the phonetical ravages of the Latin word nucleus by 18th century grammar-schoolboys resulted into a word (kleyfsi), of which the unsuffixed part sounds identically with the stem of the adjective 'kleyfur', which links the word 'nucleus' with the concept of 'nuclear fission'. In the 18th century, no one had any clue about the structure of the atom let alone about the fact that isotopes of heavy elements could be split resulting into an incredible burst of energy. As for atomic theory, science hadn't evolved any single bit further than what the Greek philosopher Democritos hypothesized more than two thousand years earlier: an unfissile, uncleavable unit of matter, which he called 'atomos' (undividable, unfissile). Without them or anybody else ever being aware of this, 18th century Icelandic grammar-schoolboys gave a hint to a key phenomenon in nuclear physics, a 20th centruy science. What a weird coincidence!
Yes, kleyfsi and its verbal derivation kleyfsa are latisisms, but they are so dramatically cannibalized, thanks to phonoadaptative endeavours of 18th century Icelandic schoolboys that it can almost be regarded as being "genuine". So if there was a need for an equivalent of the English 'to nuke' (until now the long and troublesome 'gera kjarnorkuárás á' is used) I would prefer kleyfsi above the Anglophile construction 'að njúka'.

2) njúka (nýk, njúkum, nauk, nukum, ég er nokinn)
If it is going to be 'að njúka' I would decline it like strong verbs on -úka, because they all (except for 'strjúka') display some semantical relevance with regard to the idea of a "nuclear attack":
ljúka, lúka: the idea of 'ending something'
fjúka: also means 'to snow', scatter by the wind (could refer to the fall-out aftermath)
rjúka: smoke steam, blow away, all relevant in connection to the idea of nuclear attack.

3) sveppa
And last but not least, we have 'að sveppa' (to mushroom), refering to the form of a nuclear explosion, but this applies also to explosions in general, if they are powerful enough.)

Douglas McArthur

2011-11-09T08:52:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the wealth of old Icelandicized Irish personal names it is possible to construct hiberno-Icelandic forms Irish names born by contemporary people. The name "Douglas MacArthur", for instance, can be transformed into Dufglás MagArtús.
The first element 'Duf-' means 'dark' and occurs in 'Dufgus' and 'Dufgall' (Modern English Dougall), the second is adapted as -glás.
The pet-form of Douglas, Doug, would be 'Duggi'.
Constructions of surnames beginning with 'mac-' can be formed after the example 'Magbjóður', the Icelandic form of the name MacBeth, mentioned in the book "Keltar á Íslandi" by Hermann Pálsson. The first element 'mag-'could be regareded as being an adaptation of the Gaelic word but also as the stem of 'mögur' (an old word for 'son', which is indogermanicly related to the Scottish mac). The second element is a nominative form, where one would normally expect a genive (Magartúsar), but being literary traditionalists, we prefer to stick to the example 'Magbjóður', where the second element is in the nominative form,, so Magartús instead of Magartúsar it is.

Smyrjólfsbáfjáni (Anubis Baboon)

2011-11-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

Smyfjólfur is an Icelandic descriptive neonym to denote the Egytian jackal-god (refsbróðir or gullúlfur, hence the ending -ólfur) who was the embalming god: smyrj- + ólfur (sounds like Brynjólfur). Báfjáni is a spoonerism of fábjáni, an age-old Icelandic word, and resulted to my surprise in an eccentric but yet colourful, somewhat playful further icelandification of 'bavíani'. I was somewhat frustrted with 'bavían(i). The South African have their Bobbejaan, the English have their Baboon, which are colourful adaptations of the original Latin word Papio (Papi? rhymes on "api").
http://extremeicelandic.blogspot.com/2010/12/baboon-bafjani.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism

Various neologisms

2011-11-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

Fuglshausey: New Guinea (After the famous 'Bird's head peninsula' at the westernmost part of the island. The name was founded on the form of the island, which looked like a sitting bird, the head of which was called 'bird head's peninsula' http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogelkop
Austurfuglshausey: Papua New Guinea
Papuan: papverskur; Papverji, papversk tungumál

Melkur (Melks-): Moloch (The first element in Melkjör is identical to the Hebrew word for 'king', melek and the name Moloch. I choose 'Melkur instead of Melki, because the latter could be a pet-form of the Icelandic personal name Melkjör.)

terfi: taurine (amino-acid in energy drinks. the name of the substance was derived from Latin 'taurus' (bull, Icelandic 'tarfur')

The shoulders of the world

2011-11-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

Is it really far fetched to call Alaska the shoulder-state (Axlarríki, Axlrískur; there's no 'state' at the eastern (Russian) shoulder of the world), or to call the Bering strait Axlasund (the strait between Ýmir's shoulders) and the Indian race 'Axlsyndingar' (people who crossed the "shoulder-strait", refering to the part of the Mongolian race that crossed the strait and became the native inhabitants of the America's)?
No, not really. The Afro-Eurasian and American landmass get "narrower up north" if you move towards the outermost eastern and western extremes. When you make the comparison with a human body, in this case the body of the mythological giant Ýmir, from whose flesh the earth was created, it would take a complete anatomically illiterate to fail to see the comparison with 'shoulders'. I googled 'shoulder of the world' and I'm quite surprised that these geographical epithets for Alaska and easternmost Siberia are unexistent.
My idea of 'shoulders of the world is mainly based upon the notion of 'east' and 'west', which is according to some arbitrary. But it isn't. On the contrary. This notion is well-founded upon a almost universally established traditional view of the world that actually does make sense from both a geographical and a geological viewpoint. Most cultures living on the Afro-Eurasian landmass, the so-called 'Old World', considered Europe as being the 'evening land' (hence the German denotation 'Abendland'), or the western part of the world. Asians sometimes refer to their countries as 'Morning land', the East. The America's were considered to lie 'at the westernmost side of the world' instead of "more eastern than Asia". This makes sense from a geological viewpoint. On the original Pangaean Continent, the part what is now called America, was the western part of the ancient landmass and Asia was the eastern part. The formation of the Atlantic does by no means have to cast doubt on the fact that the America's can be considered to lie "West".
Another Argument is the establishment of the position of the Prime Meridian. In this respect, the landmasses have never in geological history been so well tectonicly arranged for an intelligent species to establish a prime meridian for their homeworld. The Easternmost part of the Eurasian Landmass is only narrowly separated from the Westernmost part of the American continent by the Bering strait. If you draw a line from the North to the South-pole through the middle of this narrow strait the line at the other end of the planet coincidentially runs through London, a fact which has possibly inspired some Anglophiles and British chauvenists in the past to think that God arranged the landmasses and the seas for the convenience of the British Navy. No, it is merely a coincidence that just now of all times, when intelligence on this planet begins to develop, the landmasses are lying so well tectonicly arranged (The Bering strait!) that even a moron might come up with the same suggestion for the position of a prime meridian.

Alaska: Axlarríki
Indian race: Axlsyndingur (axlsundungur), rauða kynið
Bering strait: Axlasund
Aleutian islands: Axlaeyjar, Axleyskur (Aleutian), Axleyingar (aleutian people)
Bering sea: Axlahaf

Nýmannsdælir (Neanderthal man)

2011-11-06T16:51:00.001-08:00

A name for the neanderthal man, completely built from Icelandic lexemes turns out to be feasible. The valley this particular hominide is named after was in its turn named after a certain "Neander", the pseudonym of Joachim Neumann, the Greek calque of his family name to be specific: a German hymn writer: (Greek 'nea' (new) + andros (man). If it is reasonable to create a loan-translation of a family name into Greek, what would be wrong in producing an Icelandic equivalent: "Nýmanns-", which means that the valley could reasonably be translated as "Nýmannsdalur" and the name of the there found hominide species would then be "nýmannsdælir", equivalent to German 'Neanderthaler'. The extended form 'nýmannsdalsmaður' a waste of syllables. "Nýmannsdælir" is much shorter!

Miklhellisbúi (Cro-Magnon)

2011-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

The first element 'Cro' in 'Cro Magnon' is presumably a dialectal form of creux, meaning "cavity" or "hollow". Forms like "crau", "cro" or "crouè" are found in French dialects, and each of them probably derives, through the hypothetical Vulgar Latin *crosus, from a Celtic root. The second element "Magnon" is almost definitely the augmentative of the Old French adjective "magne", derived from the Latin magnus, meaning "large" or "great" and ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European root *megh- (related to English much and Icelandic 'mikill'). Thus, the probable original meaning is ""large cave". The Icelandic name for the Cro-Magnon man is "Miklhellisbúi".

Icelandic equivalents of the names of the US states

2011-10-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

Alabama: Miðsuðurríki (nick-named 'the heart of Dixie'. Dixie means 'the Southern States (Suðurríkin))
Alaska: Axlarfylki (The state at the (western) shoulder of the world), Andeldland (The opposite of 'Eldland' (Tierra del Fuego) at the heel of the South American continent if you follow the coastal mountain ranges up north), Vesturtili (westernmost land)
Arizona: Gljúffylki (The state where the Grand Canyon is situated)
Arkansas: Erkinsá (folk-etymologically constructed with the latter sounding "-aw" in the English word phonetically matched with "á" (river), because the state is named after the River Arkansas: Erkinsárríki)
California: Kalfyrna
Colorado: Gljúfelfur (Named after the Colorado river, which eroded the Grand Canyon: Gljúfá or Gljúfelfur)
Connecticut: Kunnaktakot
Exonymic folk etymology is the phenomenon of native speakers adapting foreign place-names to their language by making use of familiarly sounding lexical building blocks from their own language without taking into account any etymological connection whatsoever . Examples of Old Icelandic exonyms constructed in this way are 'Jórsalir' for 'Jeruzalem' or 'Rauðstofa' for 'Rostov'. The name of the US tate of Connecticut is of obscure Indian origin and has nothing to do with 'connecting' or 'cutting'.
One can create an Icelandic equivalent by asking myself the question: "what would be the closest phonetical match of the State's name, a medieval Icelander would come up with by a folk-etymological contruction with only the contemporary vocabulary at his disposal. Personally, I think the most appropriate outcome of such an endeavour would be a compound of the Icelandicized name of the Irish 'Connaught', the feminine plural name 'Kunnaktir', 'Kunnakta- in compounds' and most likely 'kot' (cottage), which occurs as the last element in Danish place-names like Koldkåd (cold cottage) and English place-names like Alvecote, Alverdiscott, ect... The result, Kunnaktakot, is quite eccentric indeed, but yet, yeah, why the hell not?
Georgia: Gyrgisfylki (The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. The name 'Gyrgir, Gyrgis-' is the Old Icelandic equivalent of 'George')
Guam: Hvamey
Florida: Flúrskagi (adapted after 'flúr' in the old sense of 'flower'. The nick-name of the state is 'Flower State'. Thanks Örn!)
Hawai: Dyngjueyjar (shield-volcano islands (Dyngjueyjar), because the largest and most prominent shield volcano chain in the world are the Hawaiian Islands)
Idaho: Iðahá (adapted with native Icelandic toponymic building blocks: Iða- from 'Iðavöllur' (a location referenced twice in Völuspá, as a meeting place of the gods) and -há (as in 'þinghá' (region, district)
Illinois: Illineis (The ending -ois in Old French names were Icelandicized 'eis' (courtois-kurteis/ bourgeois - burgeis)
Indiana: Djánafylki (simply named after the Indians, Djáni is a contraction of Indíáni, like 'Kani' from 'Ameríkani')
Iowa: Jóverjafylki (Named after the Iowa indians. The name of the tribe can be adapted as "Jóverji")
Louisiana: Loðvíksfylki (named after Louis XIV)
Kansas: Kansá (Kansas is named after the Kansas river, which is in its turn named after the Kansa indians: Kansi/ Kansar, Kansá, Kansárríki)
Kentucky: Kanthagar (Kentucky's modern name (variously spelled Cane-tuck-ee, Cantucky, Kain-tuck-ee, and Kentuckee before its modern spelling was accepted, comes from an Iroquois word meaning "meadow lands". The only Icelandic toponymic lexeme that sounds similar to the first element in the Indian name is 'Kant-', which only occurs in the place-name 'Kantaraborg', the Old Icelandic exonym for Canterbury. The correct form of this name is 'Kantverjaborg' (Anglo-Saxon Cantwaraburg, ca 900) and means 'city of the Kentians'. The Icelandic name for Kent should therefore be 'Kant' instead of 'Kent'. The second element 'hagar' refers to the meaning of 'pasture' of the Iroquois word(Írkveisingar, remember, the French suffix 'ois' icelandicizes as '-eis' (burgeis, kurteis). Derivations of the name: Kanthaga- (Kentuckian), Kanthögungar (Kentuckian people).
Maine: Mein (A river-name mentioned in the Þulur, used here to adapt the State's name. The name Maine is identical with that of the French province, Maine, which is derived from a river-name. Etymologists link up French river-names Maine, Mayenne with the German River Main, Polish river-name Mień, Latvian maina (marsh), which are all thought to originate in the indogermanic root *moin, designating a watery place. There's a fair chance that the just-mentioned Old Norse 'Mein' might well be related. See Íslensk orðsifjabók, Mein, Duden Geographische Namen in Deutschland, Main and http://crehangec.free.fr/rivdn.htm and http://www.docudeurne.eu/mediapool/68/681008/data/Deurnese_literatuur/Kleine_Serie_nr_2_Hel-Man.pdf (In Dutch, but you can check out the different forms)
Maryland: Maríuland
Massachusets: Miklabláhæðafylki (Massachussets was the Indian name of 'the great blue hill', because the existing name of the state is a long and complex one, I wanted the Icelandic equivalent to look similarly impressively long: Great Blue Hill State: Miklabláhæðarríki) See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blue_Hill An inhabitant of Massachusetts is a Mikilbláhæðingur, the adjective is Mikilbláhæ(ð)ska.
Michigan: Mikilvetningafylki (After the State's epiteth 'Great Lake State'. Michigan's shores touch four of the five Great Lakes, and Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes. You are never more than 6 miles from an inland lake or more than 85 miles from a Great Lake in Michigan. The Icelandic name for the Great Lakes is 'Vötnin miklu'. The name of the state is built from the derived inhabitant's name 'Mikilvetningar': Mikilvetningaríki. Indeed, there is a place called 'Miklavatn' in Iceland to, but there are also two "Colorado" rivers in the US and some place-names occur even more frequent then that. This shouldn't be a problem.)
Minnesota: Minnisytingafylki (The creation of an inhabitant's name from Minnesota: "Minnisytingar" yield the most Icleandic name for the state. On this blog http://narrowshore.blogspot.com/2011/06/rikjamennirnir.html the word 'Minnsytingar' is proposed, but I prefer 'Minni-' because 'Minn-' as a first element isn't found very much in Icelandic vocabulary and the latter -i in 'Minni-' makes the word more phonetically similar with the disyllabic first element 'Minne-'.)
Mississippi: Miðvesturá
Missouri: Miklaþverá (The missouri is the largest tributary (þverá) in America and the second largest in the world, after the Irtysh (tributary of the Ob river). The word is already long and I wouldn't add 'ríki'. Place names or names of regions can have 'river' as the latter element in their names)
Montana: Klettafylki (The western third part of Montana contains a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains, a geographical fact which is reflected in the name of the state, derived from the Spanish 'montaña' (mountain), so normally we should make a compound with "fjall" here. But I think 'Klettafylki' is a better option, because it retains a phonetical similarity with 'Klettafjöll', thanks to the consonants 'f' and 'l' in both 'fjall' and 'fylki'). Another argument why we can omit the word 'fjall' here is the fact that the Rocky Mountains are colloquially referred to as 'The Rockies'. Nebraska: Aura(fljóts)fylki ('Breaded Stream State'. The State's name is the Otoe word for the "Platte River", Ñí Brásgehe (Shallow river). The Platte over most of its length is a muddy, broad, shallow, meandering stream with a swampy bottom and many islands - a notable example of a large "braided stream" (auravatn, aurafljót, Ensk-Íslensk orðabók með alfræðilegu ívafi). The sediment of the arid Great Plains is augmented by the presence of the nearby Sandhills region north of the river. See Wikipedia 'Braided stream' (Auravatn) under the paragraph 'Locations': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braided_stream ).)
Nevada: Snæfjallafylki (The name Nevada is derived from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, which means "snow-capped mountain range" in Spanish. The exonym 'Snæfjöll' is mentioned in the 'Íslensk orðabók'.)
New Hampshire: Nýja-Hamtúnsskýri (Hampshire derives from Hampton, for which the Icelandic exonym 'Hamtún' exists.)
New Jersey: Nýja-Jersey
New Mexico: Nýja-Gylfaland (The term 'Gulf stream' refers to the 'Gulf of Mexico', where it starts. The Old Icelandic name is 'Gylfastraumur'. The first element 'Gylfa-' can only refer to the Mexican gulf, and not to other gulfs, like the Persian gulf. Thus the construction 'Gylfaland' is equivalent with 'Mexico'. See 'ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans'.
If this is unaccepable there's another option: Nýja-Miðflóaland (From both a geographical and geological view-point, the Mexican Gulf could easily be rebaptised 'Miðflói'. Geographically, the Mexican gulf is situated in the middle between North and South America, which makes Miðflói an appropriate choice. In geological sense, the gulf can be regarded as the western equivalent of the Mediterranean sea. Both were part of the Ancient Thetys sea, which sepataed the the two Pangean landmasses Gondwana and Laurasia. These two choices make Miðflói an appropriate choice. Derivations: Nýmiðflængur (New mexican inhabitant), Nýmiðflæskur (Flói + -ingur = Flæingur, Flængur. an eccentric construction? No, the same contraction is seen in the masculine personal name Klængur, Klæingur, derived from 'kló' (claw) (Íslensk orðsifjabók). This contraction reduces the word-lenght, which is necessary in this case with three lexemes in our exonymical derivation.
New York: Nýja-Jórvík
North Carolina: Norðurkarlynjarfylki (the suffix '-yn' is the true Icelandic equivalent of the foreign suffix -ína. Instead of Karólína, I personally prefer the more genuine Icelandic suffix "-yn" as the equivalent of the foreign ending 'ina' in feminine personal names, as in 'Hlóðyn', 'Sigyn', 'Fjörgyn',...)
North Dakota: Norðdákytingarfylki (The most Icelandic solution is to construct an inhabitant's name ending in -ingur and to create a genitive plural compound with -ríki: Dá + kytingur, from the second element, declined like 'kot -kytingur. The word 'Dakota' is the Sioux word for 'friend' or 'ally', so translating it with a word ending in '-ingur' isn't unappropriate in this case. I was inspired by a list of an 'unknown icelander's blog: http://narrowshore.blogspot.com/2011/06/rikjamennirnir.html
Ohio: Óhægiá (Named after the River Ohio, which requires the word "á" (river) as the latter element. The only way to adapt the rest with complete Icelandic lexical building blocks is Óhægi) Oklahoma: ????
Oregon: Orkn (According to the English wikipedia article, the most plausible etymology is:
Another account, endorsed as the "most plausible explanation" in the book Oregon Geographic Names, was advanced by George R. Stewart in a 1944 article in American Speech. According to Stewart, the name came from an engraver's error in a French map published in the early 18th century, on which the Ouisiconsink (Wisconsin) River was spelled "Ouaricon-sint", broken on two lines with the -sint below, so there appeared to be a river flowing to the west named "Ouaricon".
The closest Icelandic match is the river-name "Orká" or "Orkn" (Íslensk Orðsifjabók, see under Orkadal(u)r)), which is of uncertain origin and unrelated to Orkn in Orkneyjar, which denotes a kind of seal.)
Pennsylvania: Pennskógarríki (the first element in the state's name is the surname Penn, the second element refers to the forestral nature of the state.)
Rhode Island: Rauðey (Means 'Red Island')
South Carolina: Suðurkarlynjarfylki (see North Carolina)
South Dakota: Suðurdákytingafylki (See North Dakota)
Tennessee: Tensá (Named after the river Tennessee, which is folk-etymologically adapted after the familiarly sounding Temsá (Thames)).
Texas: Einstjörnufylki (After the nick-name 'lone-star state'. When Texas was part of Mexico it was part of the state Coahuila y Tejas. The flag of this state had two stars on it, so when Texas gained it's independence in 1836 they retained the same flag design, minus one star. This represents Texas' split from Mexico and it also gave Texas the nickname "The Lone Star State.") Texan: Einstirnskur, Texan (inhabitant) Einstirningur
Utah: Saltfylki, Júta (State of the Great Salt Lake; Salt Lake City is the state's capital. It is named after the Indian tribe Ute (Jútar, hence Jútaríki))
Vermont: Grænfjallafylki (French word for 'Green mountains', Monts Verts)
Virginia: Meykóngsfylki (named after the "Virgin Queen" Elisabeth I (In Icelandic this specific term was translated as 'Meykóngur': "Elizabet mey-kóngr á Englandi." (Oddsland II, 319, 19th cent.)) or simply Meyjarfylki (The name "Virginia" refers to the British queen Elizabeth, perhaps noting her status as the "Virgin Queen". Derivations: Meyrískur, Meyrískur maður)
Washington: Vessingatún (Named After George Washington (Gyrgir Vessingatún). For the etymology of the toponymic surname Washington and the formation of the Icelandic equivalent see "Icelandic equivalents of the English place-names" at http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/
Washington DC (District of Columbia): Vessingatúnshérað, Alríkishérað Vessingatún
West Virginia: Vestur-Meyjarfylki (see Virginia)
Wisconsin: Vískynsing (The etymology of this name is disputed and the only way to adapt this name is making use of 'folk-etymological' construction with Icelandic toponymic building blocks. The phoneticly closest Icelandic word-match for the first syllable "Wis-" is "Vís". The problem with the second element can be solved by creating an inhabitant's term comparable to Reyjavík - Reykvíkingur: Vískynsingur -Vískynsinga-. The name Kynsingur is the Icelandic equivalent of 'Kensing' in the English place-name Kensington, which means "Estate associated with Cynesige. Anglo-Saxon names ending in -sigi get -si in their Nordicized contracted forms: e.g. Lefsi (from Leófsige (Ljúfsigi) (see Lefsi: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ONMensNames.shtml The contracted Icelandic equivalent of Cynesige (Kynsigi) becomes 'Kynsi'. The name of the followers or family would be 'Kynsingar' (which corresponds with the modern Kensing-) and a possible first element in an Icelandic equivalent of the English Kensington: Kynsingatún
The resulting form Vískynsingar is almost identical to the form I found on this blog article: Viscynsingur http://narrowshore.blogspot.com/2011/06/rikjamennirnir.html
Wyoming: Hvæmingur (Hví (Why or Wy-) + óming becomes -æming, contracted to Hvæmingur)

Icelandicized geographical names based upon the name 'Columbus'

2011-10-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

The origin of the second element in the Icelandicized Scottish personal name 'Melkólmur' (English 'Malcolm') is identical to the surname Columbus and is based on the christian idea of using the 'dove' as a symbol of peace. The second element Kólmur can be used as an adapted form of 'Columbus' and toponyms based upon this personal name. The name occurs in the Orkneyinga saga and means 'Servant of the female Saint Columba (Kólma))'. The book 'Keltar á Íslandi' by Hermann Pálsson mentions: Upprunalegri mynd nafnssins, MELKÓLMUR, er hins vegar notuð um ýmsa Skotakonunga í Orkneyinga sögu (27, 43, 82, 84, 98 o.s.frv.) og Fagurskinni (309-10). Orkneyingasaga getur einnig um Melkólm jarl á Merhæfi (289).

With 'Kólmur, Kólms-' as a toponymic element it is now possible to construct Icelandic versions of place-names derived from the surname Columbus:

Kólmsland (Columbia in South America, kólmlenskur, Kólmlendingur)
Kólmshérað Vessingatúns (Washington (D.C. District of Columbia, for Washington google 'Icelandic equivalents of the English-place-names' (pdf-file))
Breskt Kólmsland (British Columbia)
Kólmshöfn (Colombo, Sri Lanka, the original Singalese name Kolon thota, meaning "port on the river Kelani was mixed up with the name Columbus)
Kólmsborg (Columbus, Ohio), St. Kitts (Kólmsey)
Kólmshöfn (Coloń, Panama)

Other terms based upon the name Columbus or its derivatives:

Columbite (A niobium ore named after South American Columbia): Kólmgrýti

The correct Icelandic form of the surname Columbus would strictly be Kólmungur, but translated surnames in Icelandic literature like Hróbjartur Píll (Robert Peel), Niðskeifur (Nidschib), Jón Hrísill (all occuring in Skírnir) have no -ungur or -ingur prefix, so this means that no further derivation of Kólmur, even though we're dealing with a surname here, seems to be necessary: Kólmur.

Chili - Reimland

2011-10-31T04:35:00.000-07:00

I googled "Chili" and "shoe-lace" and found out that the shape of the country is mostly associated with a "shoe-lace". We can safely state that the epiteth of Chili is "Shoe-lace country" (Reimland).

http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/topic5751.html (The shoelace became the star of South-America)

http://www.upcichile.org/letters/spring_07.pdf (mentions "Shoe-lace country")

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/world/chile-winemakers-going-upmarket/story-e6frezk9-1226134502834 (They found this unusually long, shoelace-shaped country had an ideal climate for winemaking.)

http://www.archive.org/stream/latinamericaageo005159mbp/latinamericaageo005159mbp_djvu.txt (Chile, the "shoe-lace" of South America, is 3000 miles in length approximately)

http://www.styleathome.com/food-and-entertaining/wine-and-spirits/wine-and-spirits-chilean-wines/a/793 (...to better understand Chile, imagine a shoelace with a knot tied in the middle)

Derivations of "Reimland":

Reimlendingur (Chilean, inhabitant of Chile)
Reimlenskur (Chilean, adj.)
Reimlandsfjöll: Andes Mountains (most part of the Andes mountains lies in Chile)
Reimlandseyðimörk: Atacama desert
Reimlenskt salt (Chile salpetre)
Reimlandsgammur: Andean condor (sometimes called Chilean condor)
Reimlandsvefja (Vanellus chilensis): Chilean lapwing
Reimlandsflæmingi: Chilean flamingo
reimlenskur refagrefill: Chilean fox terrier
Reimlenska bjúgnefja (Recurvirostra andina): Andean avocet

Icelandic name of Stonehenge

2011-10-30T12:53:00.000-07:00

Stonehenge means ‘Stone gallows’, from OE stán (Icel. steinn) + hengen (Icel. hangi, plur. hangar in the meaning of gallows). See: http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/Icelandic_equivalents_of_the_English_place-names_(uncorrected_version).doc

Mongolian Empire

2011-10-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

The only word-combination that works for the Mongolian people is 'Mikilhirðingi'. Under Genghis Khan and Later also Timur, they founded the largest empire in mankind's history. Because they are considered to be the greatest and most powerful nomadic tribe, the most transparent designation of these people is 'Mikilhirðingjar'.
compounds:
Mikilhirðingjamál (Mongolian language)
Mikilhirðingjaland (Modern Mongolia)
Mikilhirðingja- (Mongolian)
Mikilhirðingjakynstofn (Mongolian race)

Names of countries

2011-10-30T03:08:00.000-07:00

Sikilindland (Sri Lanka): I use 'Sikil-' from Sikiley (Sicily) as a toponymic prefix to denote an island at the end of a protruding landmass seperated by a narrow strait. There are not many landmasses that apply to this description, only Sicily, Sri Lanka and Sumatra. The island of Sicily was named after the Sicels, an Italic tribe. This name has no special meaning that could refer to the shape or geographical nature of the island which implies that it can perfectly be used in neoexonyms for similar islands.

Feneyla (Venezeuela, meaning 'little Vencice'. Venezia + diminutive suffix -uela, which is sound-similar to the Icelandic diminutive suffix -la. The country's name can be adapted to Icelandic by adding the sound-similar diminutive suffix -la (as in pípla) to the stem of Feneyjar, Feney-: Feneyla, Feneylumaður, Feneylu-.

Fótland (Patagonia): Google 'Foot of the world'. The name Patagonia is said to be the name of a mythical tribe of giants that inhabited Patagonia. The first element of the name Pata- could be derived from 'foot' (big-footed people), but this etymology is disputed. Still the location of the country has given rise to the epiteth 'foot or heel of the world.

Cape Horn: Ilhvarf. Cape Horn is the Southernmost point of the inhabited world, which can be expressed as 'heel of the world' (Icelandic “il”). The word 'hvarf' is used in the sense of 'höfði' (cape) but in the narrower sense of 'outermost point of land'. The name Hvarf was used to designate Cape Wrath, the most northwesterly point of Scotland and Cape Farewell, the southernmost point of Greenland. http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvarf_(Gr%C3%A6nland)

Uruguay: Víðósarland

Zimbabwe: Múrbláland (named after the ancient stone enclosure named "Great Zimbabwe". One of its most prominent features were its walls, some of which were over five metres high and which were constructed without mortar.)
Múrbláland liggur á milli Sambelfar og Hlympápa (Zimbabwe is situated between the Zambezi river and the Limpopo)

Jafeyska (Java, the programming language)

2011-10-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

.The programming language Java was named fater Java coffee, said to be consumed in large quantities by the language's creators. The Íslenska orðsifjabók mentions 'jafi, javi' and 'jafa, java' in the meaning of 'loosely-woven fabric'. The word originates from Danish 'java', which is identical to the name of the Indonesian island, where the fabric originated from. This example shows that we could use the consonant 'f' instead of 'v' in the Icelandic adaptation of the island's name, which would give the name a less international and as a consequence a more distinct Icelandic appearance. Because we're dealing with an island it is also possible to attach -ey (island) to the adapted stem'jaf-', as is done in 'Sikiley' or 'Lemney' (Greek island of Lemnos, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_exonyms . Another thing that motivated me to integrate the word 'island' was the Sanskrit version: "yāvaka dvīpa" (dvīpa = island). The hyperpurist adaptation of the island's name thus becomes Jafey, derivations from which can easily be derived: jafeyskur, jafeyingur, jafneyska. Of course, it's still a loan-word, but sufficiently uninternationalized and at the same time still enough recognizable that any hyperpurist could live with it.
Instead of some less hyperpuristic Icelanders, who want to use the loan-word 'dúx', I, myself, prefer the Old Icelandic 'Tyggi' (Tyggja, Tyggja, Tyggja), an old Icelandic name for 'leader' or 'king' and related to the English 'Duke' and the Latin Dux. And I would also use 'tyggi' in the meaning of 'the person with the highest marks in a grade or school'.

"Frönsk lilja" (Fleur-de-lis) is not Icelandic enough

2011-09-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

If these aren't uninternational Icelandic neologisms, I am a T-rex-size Guadalcanalian mole-wombat!

2011-09-18T04:51:00.000-07:00

And that counts for something, for even a YETISHIST, the most fanatical and delusional kind of cryptozoologists, would ridiculize me here on the spot where I would have the guts to mention this species!

Japan

2011-09-09T19:07:00.001-07:00

Þrískilkeilan (the triple-junction coner), the stratovolcano (eldkeila) on a "triple junction" (Icelandic "þrískil" (orðabanki íslenskrar málstöðvar), a place where three tectonic plates meet, this description uniquely applies to Mount Fuji in Japan)

Icelandic name for Saudi Arabia

2011-09-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

Icelandic names of the geological eras

2011-09-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

Cambrian
1) fornlífsbernska (fornlífs- (paleozoic) + bernska (infancy))
2) frumvelska tímabilið, valbretlandsbernskan (The British geologist Adam Sedgwick, who established the period, named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed.) Cambrian explosion: fornlífsmikluhvellur (Paleozoic big bang),
2) frumvelska sprengingin

Ordovician
1) Fornlífsæska
2) Orðvíska tímabilið (This era was called after the Celtic tribe of the Ordovices (Orðvíkingur - Orðvískur)

Silurian
eygotneska tímabilið (The Silurian system was first identified by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe that lived in South Wales, the Silures. An older name for the epoque was "gotlandian", after the Swedish island of Gotland.)

Devonian
Dufneska tímabilið (The name "Devon" derives from the kingdom of Dumnonia (Dumn- adapts as Dufn- in Icelandic), which was home to the tribe of Celtic people who inhabited this area of the southwestern peninsula of Britain at the time of the Roman invasion in AD 43, Dumnonii—possibly meaning "Deep Valley Dwellers" or "Worshippers of the god Dumnonos". )

Carboniferous
Koltímabilið

Permian
Fornlífshaust (last epoque of the paleozoic)

Triassic
Þrenndartímabilið (The Triassic was named in 1834 by Friedrich Von Alberti from the three distinct layers (Latin trias meaning triad, Icelandic þrenning, þrennd)

Jurassic
Eðlumiðaldir (the middle ages of the reptiles. The mesosoicum is sometimes nick-named “age of reptiles” and the Jurassic is the middle epoque of that era, where the largest animals that ever lived came into being.

Cretacious
Rithallstímabilið (Rithallur (writing stone = chalk, Krít is a loan-word)

Paleocene
Nýlífsbernskan (Kaenozoic infancy)

Eocene
Nýlifsæskan (Kaenozoic youth)

Oligocene
Fánýlífsöld?

Miocene

Pliocene

Malcolm X

2011-09-07T07:48:00.001-07:00

The masculine personal name Malcolm is of Scottisch origin and derives from Máel Coluim which means "disciple of Saint Columba". The true Scottish-Icelandic version Melkólmur (not Melkólfur, which is a corruption) was used to designate several Scottisch kings in The Orkneyinga saga (27, 43, 82, 98, ect.) Source: Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson.

Lawrence of Arabia

2011-09-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Jóhanna frá Örk, mærin frá Hleðringum

2011-08-27T13:52:00.001-07:00

1) Lorraine
The original name of Lothar's kingdom was regnum quondam Lotharii or Lotharii regnum ("kingdom [once] Lothair's") and its inhabitants Lotharii (from Lotharius), Lotharienses (from Lothariensis), or Lotharingi (which gives the modern German Lothringen, which is the name of the province). The latter term, formed with the Germanic suffix -ing, indicating ancestral or familial relationships, gave rise to the Latin term Lotharingia in the tenth century.
The name Lothar is mentioned as Lóthar in Icelandic dictionaries, but should be HLÖÐAR(R). It has NOT the same origin as Icelandic Hlöðver and the German-Icelandic variant Lúðvík. I really have to emphasize this because I had discussions about this in the past with some Icelanders and they kept on insisting ad nauseam that 'Hlöðver' and 'Lothar' were the same or so phoneticly close that they can be equalized. They can NOT. If we are to built a correct Icelandic name for the region we must start from a correct Icelandic equivalent of the German personal name. Hlöðver and its cognate Lúðvík are derived from ChlodoWICH (Old High German Hludwíg, Hluotwíg (meaning 'famous warrior', Old Scandinavian rune inscriptions: *hlauðuuigar (see Íslensk orðsifjabók), while the original form of 'Lothar', on the other hand, is 'chlodoCHAR', the ending of which means 'army', corresponding with the '-ar' (in this case the ending in Icelandic masculine personal names. So the Icelandic version should HLÖÐAR(R) (ending from -herji) not Hlöðver (from vígar). There's a very slight difference between these three forms, but this difference should be made. The name of the region is simply the plural form of the '-ing' derivation: Hleðringar (German: Lothringen) from Hlöðar(r) (Lothar)
So the Icelandic version of Joan of Arc's epiteth "Maid of Lorraine" translates as "Mærin frá Hleðringum".

2) Orleans:
The emperor Aurelian renaming the old city Aurelianum, which evolved into Orléans. The Icelandic version of the Latin personal name Aurelianus is 'Árelján' (Icelandic Árel- in Árelíus + -ján in Kristján (compare: -ianus/-ján, AurelIANUS/ ChristIANUS)). The name of the city becomes Áreljánsborg (New Orleans = Nýja-Áreljánsborg)
The Icelandiv version of Joan of Arc's epiteth of 'Maid of Orleans' becomes 'Mærin frá Áreljánsborg'

3) Guðbrynmey
The eccentric, strictly Icelandic construction Guðbrynmey is an epiteth built like a personal name. If someone in Icelandic wants to name his daughter exclusively after 'Joan of Arc', merely calling her 'Jóhanna' wouldn't suffice. This is where constructions like Guðbrynmey could come into play. The following constructions are possible:

1) Guðbrynmey with or without a second personal name (Guðmey in itself could also apply to the holy virigin, Saint Bernadette from Lourdes and probably many other female saints, while Brynmey, without the Guð- prefix as a reference marker of the christian faith could refer to "Pallas (means 'virgin') Athena", the armoured warrior godess in Greek mythology.)
2) The combinations Jóhanna Guðmey, Jóhanna Brynmey or Helga Brynmey are also possible in case people find "Guðbrynmey" too long.

Maríumálmur, magnablý, móðir geislalofts (Radium)

2011-08-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

1) Maríumálmur: Mary's metal, what other chemical element could answer to this description more appropriately than Radium. The blue substance which she is often depicted with is the compound 'radium chloride' (Icelandic: saltsúr maríumálmur)
2) Magnablý: Radium-isotopes are mostly daughters of isotopes of Thorium, the first element in the actinide series, which was named after the Nordic god Thor. The name can easily be icelandicized as 'þórsblý'. We than can built further on this name and terminologically isolate the element radium in Icelandic. The son of Thor was called Magni, so Radium becomes Magnablý. The second part of the compound 'blý' (lead) is used here as a positioner of metals heavier than lead, most of which desintegrate through alpha-emission ultimately into 'lead'.: e.g. Heljarblý (Plutonium), Maríublý (Polonium), Kanablý (Americium), Ægisblý (Neptunium), Elfráðsblý (Noberlium), Lafransblý (Lawrensium), Mundilleifsblý (Mendelevium), Áablý (Uranium)
3) Móðir geislalofts, móðir blýþungs lofts (kenning-like description of radium, of which 'radon' is a daughter product. That's the reason why 'radon' was formed from the name 'radium'.

Revised hyperpuristic Icelandic list of astronomical terms.

2011-08-27T10:24:00.001-07:00

I'm still working on this list to get the vocabulary even more genuine Icelandic, no loan-words, even personal names are Icelandicized, as it should be.

http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/sterren.odt

Enjoy the extremity. Exploring the outer limit of linguistic purity is a great experience. If only most Icelanders realized that the purification of their language to the limit doesn't uglify it! On the contrary.

kafsi, piparkerti, Surtsblóð (Chili pepper)

2011-08-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

kafsi: from the Latin name of the species Capsicum and the substance capsaicine.
hafnarakafsi: habanero chili
Þrenningareysk sporðdrekapipar Böðka T's: Trinidad Scorpian Butch T chili (the current world's hottest chili pepper)
piparkerti: the form of the hot peppers is mostly candle-like (think of 'grýlukerti'), unlike their heatless relatives, the bell-peppers, which were named after their bell-shape. The word 'kerti' applies to the 'hotness' of the fruit and the shape.
Surtsblóð, eldpipardropar: Tabasco sauce.

Mundmafranskirsuber (Montmorency cherry)

2011-08-19T04:18:00.000-07:00

The Montmorency cherry, a well-known variety of the sour cherry was named after the commune of Montmorency in the northern suburbs of Paris. It was the fief of the distinguished Montmorency family (Mundmafrensingar, from Mundmafrans). The name Montmorency derives from "Mons Maurentiacus" (993), which literally means "Mount Maurentiacus". Maurentiacus,in its turn, means "estate of Maurentius", which, except for the initial consonant, sound identical to "Laurentius", which was icelandicized as Lafrans (Lafransmessa). For that reason I propose the form 'Mafrans' for Maurentius. The prefix Mont- in Romance toponyms can be icelandicized as Mund-, like e.g. Mundíafjöll, Mons Jovis, mountains of Jupiter, the Alps), so I propose the constructions: Mafrans for 'Maurentius',analoguous to Lafrans for Laurentius, Mundmafrans for the name of the commune Montmorency, Mundmafrensingar or Mundmafransætt for the Montmorency family and Mundmafranskirsuber for the Montmorency cherry.

Dominique (Dofnakur)

2011-08-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

There is an Icelandic equivalent of the Latin name Dominicus, the Old Irish-Icelandic Dofnakur (see 'Keltar á Ísland, Hermann Pálsson). The name for the Domican Republic should be 'Dofneska lýðveldið' and the capital San Domingo 'Dofnaksborg'.

Perrérsvatn

2011-07-22T14:09:00.001-07:00

Jóðaflóðskynslóð (babyboom generation)

2011-07-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

A member of the so-called baby boom generation is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom between 1946 and 1964. A few weeks ago I happened to spot the wonderful Icelandic equivalent jóðaflóðskynslóð, occurring as the initial word of a Morgunblaðið article about classical music written by Ríkarður Ö. Pálsson.

Kefeifur - Kefeifungar (Cepheus - Cepheids)

2011-07-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

The constellation of Cepheus has been alternatively called king of Ethiopia, which translates as Blálandskonungur in Icelandic (see ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans). A serious problem arises when I needed to translate the term Cepheid (currently used icelandic term is Sefíti), denoting a member of a class of very luminous variable stars, originating from Delta Cephei in the constellation Cepheus, the first star of this type identified. The only way to avoid long, impracticle neologistic chimaeras is to create a very unenglish and distinctively Icelandic sounding adaptation of the Greek name. For a hyperpurist like me, adaptations are abominations, except when there's really, really no other choice and when the result sounds almost completely different from its cognates in the majority of the world's languages. The 'Ensk-íslensk orðabók með alfræðilegu ívafi' mentions two different spellings for 'Cepheus': When the mythological king is concerned, the spelling is 'Kefevs', but when referring to the constellation it becomes 'Sefeus'. Six years ago, when I compiled a list of not thoroughly icelandicized astronomical terms with their hypericelandic equivalents I didn't realize that this Greek name can actually be easily and sufficiently deformed to make it sound distinctively Icelandic:

1) The initial s in Sefeus (the currently used weakly icelandicized form) can be changed into 'k' because the first character of original Greek name is actually 'kappa' (Cepheus is actually the bastardized latinized form) and some languages this first character is still used: e.g. in German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepheus_(Äthiopien) and Norwegian bokmål : http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefeus

2) The ending -eus in Greek names is mostly adapted as -eifur in Icelandic: Orfeifur (Orpheus), Seifur (Zeus), Perseifur (Perseus),The hypericelandic version of the Greek name is Kefeifur and this facilitates the creation of a term for the Cepheid variables: Kefeifsbreytistjörnur, Kefeifungar (sounds pretty uninternational in my ears, I hope in yours too!)

Compounds containing the term Cepheid:

Garnet star (Granatstjarna, red star in the constellation Cepheus): Kefeifskarbúnkull (karbúnkull (see ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans) is an old Icelandic germanism denoting garnets but also rubies)
Classical Cepheids (also known as Population I Cepheids, Type I Cepheids, or Delta Cephei variables): Fremdarkefeifungar
Type II Cepheids (or W Virginis Cepheids from the Constellation Virgo): Meyjarkefeifungar
Dwarf Cepheids: Kefeiflingar

2011-07-03T05:37:00.001-07:00

Samantha (personal name): Sámunda (from Sámur (Sam))
Chalons (city in France): Salúnsborg (see Íslensk orðsifjabók under 'salún')

Extremely anti-international Icelandic hyperpurisms

2011-07-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Nylon did not derive from the popular, but misconceived, myth that it was a joining of the names of New York (NY) and London (LON), but as a result of many committee meetings within DuPont. Many commercial names were discussed, among them Artex, Dusilk, Novasilk , NoRun and Terikon. NoRun was initially chosen, but the fibre DID run, so more work was required. From NoRun came Niron to Nyron. Then, after much deliberation, Nylon was decided upon, only 2 weeks before the product's official public launch. So what would be the best possible Icelandic word for nylon?
The etymology can't help us any further. But one thing is certain: Nylon was the first purely synthetic fiber of the Modern (Nýtískur) age . It was a paradigm shift in textile industry. For that reason, I call it nýgarn. The adjective 'nýr' is not only used to designate something brand new but also for radical changes in history. Think of the "New Deal" introduced by President Roosevelt or 'New wave music" in the early eighties, which is already old-fashioned. Nýgarn is also based on the word 'novasilk' (new silk), one of the earlier proposed names . This word was discarded because the company wanted its new synthetic fibre to conquer the market on account of all its high qualities and not just as a substitute for silk. For that reason I think 'nýgarn' (new yarn, the new fibre) is the best possible word for nylon in Icelandic. It is a short, simple, robust and flexible word.
The Latin name of cacao is "Theobroma cacao". Theobroma means 'food of the gods'. I integrated 'guð' into 'góðgæti' (delicacy).

This is an example of a bestially uninternational Icelandic neologism. Name me a non-icelandic earthling who can derive the name of this beverage from this word. I wished all Icelandic neologisms were so extraterrestrially uninternational like this one!The first element Ormur occurs as a prefix in Icelandic personal names, mostly feminine (Ormfríður, Ormheiður, Ormhildur). Ormhödd is a compound of 'Ormur' (snake) and Hödd (a feminine name meaning 'hair'), the snake-haired, MedusaThe photosphere is the thick layer around the sun's core and corresponds with the earth's mantle (jarðmöttull)An artificially made chemical element, named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron. The surname Lawrence originates from 'Laurentius', the original Icelandic form of which is 'Lafrans' (as in Lafransmessa). All elements after lead can be named with compounds of which the second element is 'blý'. This is a kind of positioning technique: heljarblý (Plutonium, named after the female Nordic equivalent of the male roman underworld god Pluto), Maríublý (Polonium, the radioactive second element after lead that was discovered by Marie (Maríu-) Curie), Frakkblý (Francium, named after France). Stumbling on a possibility to denominate a superheavy transuranium actinide that scientists succeeded in creating only recently and merely in picogram amounts with words from the medieval Icelandic lexical stock is an exciting experience.One day in 1996 I was wondering about what meaning could be attached to 'afn' (derived from 'efni', matter). This derivation didn't exist yet and I thought might be useful as the Icelandic equivalent for the English term 'quark'. Later I thought it might suit as a suffix in names of chemical elements. After a long time of pondering I came to the conclusion that it would be the most suitable designation of an atom. The problem with the existing 'frumeind' is that it forms three syllables in compounds, where the more robust 'atóm' remains unchanged. Atóm will always be prefered in compounds. Only a short monosyllabic word like 'afn' can replace it.
The word scores on all fronts:
1) It is monosylabic and doesn't get any longer in compounds as is the case of 'frumeind'. A more robust word is unthinkable.
2) It sounds a bit like the stem of 'ögn' (AGN), which makes it sound like a particle name.
3) It is sound-similar to 'atom' when pronounced in English while it is a purely native construction. (compare: radar -ratsjá).
4) It is derived from 'efni' (matter). An atom is the smallest particle in chemical sense (chemistry = EFNAfræði, literally 'matter-craft').
compounds:
atomic age: afnöld
atomic bomb: afnsprengja
atomic clock: afnstundsjá
atomic force microscope: afnkraftsjá atomic mass: afnmagn
atomic physics: afneðlisfræði, afnfræði
atomic theory: afnkenning atomic weight: afnþungi nucleus: afnkjarnA compound of the adjective 'nyrstur' (northernmost) and 'staður' (place) can't be found any language on this planet as a denotation of the north-pole. Virtually everywhere in the world, the compound 'north-pole is ues'. Nyrstistaður would be an extraterrestrially anti-international hyperpurism.I use 'viður' instead of 'tré', not because 'tré' isn't purely Icelandic but because I want something that sounds completely different from the English term. The first element ‘Skarjóts-‘ is an extremely icelandicized from of Iskariot. The initial – I is cut off like in the Arabic pet-form Brahim (from Ibrahim)

.The Old Icelandic name Aldeigja or Aldeigjuborg was used for the city Staraja Ladoga and the lake is sometimes refered to as Aldeigjuvatn (Íslenska Alfræðiorðabókin, see Ladogavatn). The suffix ‘-nóri’ is used in ‘hringanóri’ (ringed seal) and is, according to the Íslensk Orðsifjabók, probably derived from ‘nóra’, ‘nóri’ (particle, something small, puny), rather than from ‘nór’ (small sea-strait), which has the same origin. The ringed seal is the smallest and most common seal in the Arctic and is of the same size as its relative the Ladoga seal, so a compound with ‘-nóri’ would be appropriate to denote this subspecies too: Aldeigjunóri. This word sounds more uninternational than Ladoga seal.The compound 'lungfish' is already used in far to many languages. In Icelandic, it is possible to denote this species with a single word by combining 'froskur' and 'fiskur', thereby expessing the evolutionary place of the lungfish as an intermediate between fish (Icel. fiskur) and amphibians (Icel. froskdýr): FOSKUR. The inspiration for this word came from the term 'flish', coined by the makers of the British-Austrian documentary 'The future is wild' (2003), which explored a possible future of life on Earth. 'Flish' is composed of 'flying' and 'fish' and designates a species that evolved from flying fish to eventually replace the birds, which had gone extinct in Pangaea II, 200 million years from now.

Madonna

2011-06-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Kort Kobbeimur (Kurt Cobain)

2011-06-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

1) Kurt - Kort (not Konni):
The Icelandic form of the German pet-name Kurt is Kort. Normally the Icelandic pet-form of Konáð is konni, but in iceladicizing foreign personal names one should less hyperpuristic than when dealing with other kinds of words. For that reason I choose Kort (see Íslensk Orðabók, önnur útgáfa, aukin og endurbætt, Mál og Menning, Reykjavík 1992.
Excerpt from the Íslensk Orðabók, 1992

2) Cobain -Kobbeimur
This family name is a toponymical one derived from Cobham, a village in Kent. The Oxford dictionary of English place-names mentions: Cobbeham 1197. 'Enclosureor homestead of a man called *Cobba (phonologically adapted to Kobbi in Icelandic). Old English pers. name + hamm (no Icelandic equivalent) or hám (Icel. heimur). see http://www.houseofnames.com/cobain-family-crest

Exerpt from the Oxford dictionary of English etymology

The resulting Icelandic adaptation of the place name would be Kobbaheimur, but could also be contracted to Kobbeimur, with loss of the initial 'h-' in heimur, as is seen in many Old Norse place-names: Asseimur, Lisseimur, Surðeimur (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók) and modern Danish place-names like Bygum (Byggeimur), Darrum (Darreimur), see http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/Icelandic_equivalents_of_the_Danish_place-names_(uncorrected_version).doc

JFK

2011-01-03T05:08:00.001-08:00

John (Jón in Icelandic)
Fitzgerald (name of Norman origin: fis de Gérald. The Icelandic construction is an adaptation of the French 'fils' (Fis-), like 'Mag-' (son) in the Irish Icelandic name Magbjóður (MacBeth) and 'Geirvaldur' (Gerald)
Kennedy (name has different etymologies, the first element could be ceann (head), which was icelandicized in the Old Literature as Kjann-. The second element is uncertain and adapted as -aður.

A case of neoicelandification of an Irish personal name: Dunufan (Donovan)

2011-01-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

The name Donovan is composed of the Irish elements donn- (brown, dun- in Icelandicized Irish personal names like Dungal, Dungað(u)r (See Íslensk orðsifjabók)) and Dubán (Icelandic Dufan (see Íslensk orðsifjabók), composed of Dub- (black-haired) + -án (diminutive suffix)), the full Icelandic neoconstruction would be Dundufan, but in order to make the word more sound-similar the first d- in the second element –dufan is omitted: Dunufan
Many modern Irish persoanl names that didn't exist in the Old Icelandic literature can be synthesized this way.The Icelandicized version of the name of the 80ies popstar Jason Donovan, Grooovy, ha

Icelandic names for different shapes and colours of Northern lights

2010-12-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

It is common belief that people living in the Arctic region have quite a few names for snow and other phenomena that are characteristic of a cold climate, but I wonder about the possible existence of words and expressions denoting different shapes of northern lights. Many names, not rarely poetic ones, exist for a great variety of fire-works (Roman candle, Catherine wheel,ect.) Could there be a hyperborean language up there in the far north that has similar names for one of nature's most spectacular phenomenon? I would be glad to find out, but for the moment I will try out a few myself.

Names of Rivers

2010-12-17T06:45:00.001-08:00

The Brahmaputra, the highest of the major rivers in the world (English Wikipedia, Brahmaputra). Apart from 'Þakelfur (Roof-river), another possible name of the river is "Gnáfljót" (dominating (height) river)
The largest river of South Africa (Ilbláland, from 'il' (heel) and 'Bláland' (Ethiopia, but also the continent of Africa in General))
The Congo river is the deepest river in the world. The name of the country could be Djúpárland.
The river po is 'Padus' in Latin and exists in the form 'Pfad' in German. The Icelandic abbot "Nikulás frá Munkaþverá" just used the Latin "Padus" in his itinerary.

The kuskokwim basin is well-known for its rich gold deposits, hence the name 'gold river', the term 'Andeldland' means alaska and is composed of 'and-' (opposite) and 'Eldland' (the Icelandic name of Tierra del Fuego). If you follow the mountain back-bone of the America's from Tierra del Fuego up north, you end up in Alaska.
The only river in the world that so nicely parallels a 45° latitude, the middle region of a hemisphere.
The river-name Órun was mentioned in the Þulur and has an uncertain origin. It can be used as an adaptation of 'Orinoco'.Icelandic adaptation of the Old Greek name Jaxartes. The river was named after Alexander McKenzie. The name means ‘son of coinneach’. This Scottish masculine personal name is better known in its anglicized form Kenneth and occurs in Old Icelandic literature as Kinað(u)r (Íslensk orðsifjabók). An example of an Icelandicized construction of Scottish family names beginning with ‘mac-‘ is Magbjóður (MacBeth, see Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson). The initial ‘mac’ in the icelandicized name is the stem of ‘mögur’, which means ‘son’ an is related with the Gaelic word. On the analogy of Magbjóður it is possible to perfectly adapt the family name McKenzie: Magkinaður (Magkinaðs- in compounds). So the Icelandic version of the river-name is Magkinaðsfljót.)Yukon means 'great river' in Gwich'in. This idea is expressed by making the word sound like Jötunn (giant), while derived from 'jaki', icicle (of which 'jökull' (glacier) is a derivation) which refers to the subpolar climate and the frozen river in the winter.

The name Axlá (shoulder-river) refers to the Yukons being sitated at one of the "shoulders of the world), the western shoulder in this case. Because the Yukon is the largest river of Alaska and there's no river of significant lenght at the Siberian eastern shoulder, The expression 'shoulder-river' applies the most to the Yukon river.

The delta of the mississippi is right on the 90° meridian and the course of the river doesn't deviate mush from this meridian. Just google 'chief river of the Midwest and you'll see that 'Miðvesturelfur' is a very transparent designation of the Mississippi river..

zero point

2010-12-16T11:33:00.001-08:00

vetki (nothing) is the true Icelandic word for 'zero'. It is declined as follows: vetki, vetki, vettugi, vettergis. The derivation 'zeroth' could be 'vettugasti'.

Purely Icelandic geographical names

2010-12-13T03:29:00.001-08:00

The term "Horn of Africa" designates the region containing the following countries: Erithrea (Rauðströnd), Djibouti (Sundbláland), Ethiopia (Bláland) and Somalia (Hornströnd). Somalia really lies at the horn, while it has the longest coast-line, more so than the other three countries and has the longest coast-line. Add to this the fact that many names of African countries contained the toponymic element 'coast', like 'Gold coast' (Ghana), Peppercoast (Liberia, Fríbláland, Fríströnd), and of course 'Ivory coast')
Somalia: Hornströnd
Somalian: hornstrandar-, Hornstrandarmaður
Somalian language: Hornstrenska, Hornstrandarmál

The Íslenska orðsifjabók mentions 'jafi, javi' and 'jafa, java' in the meaning of 'loosely-woven fabric'. The word originates from Danish 'java', which is identical to the name of the Indonesian island, where the fabric originated from. This example shows that we could use the consonant 'f' instead of 'v' in the Icelandic adaptation of the island's name, which would give the name a less international and as a consequence a more distinct Icelandic appearance. Because we're dealing with an island it is also possible to make the name end on -ey, which is by no means an overadaptation as the Sanskrit name for the Iceland was "yāvaka dvīpa" (dvīpa = island). The hyperpurist adaptation of the island's name becomes Jafey (jafeyskur, jafeyingur). It's still a loan-word, but so sufficiently cannibalized that any hyperpurist could live with it.
The epithet of Switzerland is 'roof of Europe', Gnáfylkin, Gnáfylkjamaður, Gnáfylkja-The driest country in the world. Libia has the least amount of oases of all desert-countries.
Indá (Indus river, the word is mentioned in the ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans). Pakistan is 'the land of the Indus river'. Bolivia is the greatest producer of tin in the world.The terms Georgia and Georgians appeared in Western Europe in numerous early medieval annals. The French chronicler Jacques de Vitry and the English traveler Sir John Mandeville wrote that Georgians are called Georgian because they especially revere Saint George. Notably, in January 2004 the country adopted the five-cross flag, featuring the Saint George's Cross; it has been argued that the flag was used in Georgia from the 5th century throughout the Middle Ages. (source: wikipedia). The Old Icelandic form of the masculine personal name George is 'Gyrgir' (Gyrgis- in compounds). The only Old Icelandic name that designates a West Slavic people is Vindur (Wends), who lived between the Elbe and the Oder, the area which is also called Pommerania. The name Vindur can be used as a marker to locate other West-Slavic people. An alternative name for Slovakia can be coined by utilizing a cross-section technique: The combination of the Old Icelandic name for the Carpathian mountains (Harfaðafjöll, Harfaða-), because the Slowaks are the only West-Slavic people living in the Carpathians and 'Vindland': the land of the Carpathian West-Slavs. Derivations are: Harfaðavindverskur (Carpathian Wendish, Slovak). Old Icelandic name of Armenia. The adjective is 'ermskur', hence the name of the language is 'ermska'.

The first element 'brís-' occurs in the 19th century brúnbrís (brazil-wood) and is a corruption of the Norwegian loan-word 'brissel' or Old Danish bresilie (brazil-wood), which are derived from Latin brasilium. (Brísaland - Bríslenskur - Bríslendingur)
The first element Sáðungar, Sáðunga- in compounds, is composed of an icelandification of the royal family name Saudi: Sáði and the ending -ungur, which is found in Old Icelandic names designating families.
The 'dwarf-state at the rhine, this can only be LiechtensteinnThe island was named after Saint Dominic, which has the Irish-Icelandic equivalent Dofnakur (see: Keltar á Íslandi, Hermann Pálsson), The adjective derived from Dofnakr is Dofneskur: Dofneska lýðveldið. The Icelandic name of the Capital Santo domingo is Dofnaksborg.

Straðvörungur, Stradda (Stradivarius violin)

2010-12-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Okapi Randarassi

2010-12-11T06:11:00.001-08:00

Baboon Báfjáni

2010-12-11T04:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve been trying to create a neologism for this animal that refers to its dog-like muzzle. All possible compounds were too long. The only reasonable solution is a “spooneristic metathesis” in the word fábjáni: BÁFJÁNI, which sounds more Icelandic ‘bavían(i)’. The use of a spoonerism is appropriate in this case because baboons and apes in general are mostly associated with idiots and fools. The Íslenska Orðsifjabók mentions as an additional meaning of ‘bavían(i)’: (lastyrði um mann) flón, undanvillingur. So the playfulness of this kind of 'aðlögun' which is at the same time a spoonerism is appropriate. Moreover, one can use -fjáni in compounds for different baboon species, like -mandra (from salamandra) and -varpa (from moldvarpa). Fjáni sounds much like bjáni or kjáni so the association with foolish 'monkey-tricks' is retained.

A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (Metathesis). It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency. While spoonerisms are commonly heard as slips of the tongue resulting from unintentionally getting one's words in a tangle, they can also be used intentionally as a play on words. In some cultures, spoonerisms are used as a rhyme form used in poetry, such as German Schüttelreime. Spoonerisms are commonly used intentionally in humor, especially drunk humor. Examples of spoonerisms: Runny Babbit: a Billy Sook (Bunny Rabbit: A silly book), Lirty Dies and Scicious Vandals (Dirty Lies and Vicious Scandals), a spoonerism and name of the show of the from the Capitol Steps, a political satire group. (See wikipedia: spoonerism)Metathesis (from Greek μετά-θε-σις, from μετα-τί-θη-μι "I put in a different order": Latin trānspositiō) is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables of a word, or even whole words. But most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more adjacent sounds: foliage → foliage, cavalry → calvary . Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a regular part of their grammar (e.g. the Fur language). The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English language, as well. (See wikipedia metathesis).

Megadeath Miklundlát

2010-12-11T04:07:00.000-08:00

The prefix mega- (miljónfaldur, frá ‘megas’ (skyldur íslensku ‘mikill’) + -und (eins og í ‘þúsund’). Miklund can be used in Icelandic both for the numeral 'million' and the metric prefix mega-.

Ljósfet (nanósekúnda, dvergskund)

2010-12-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

Ljósfet er sá tími sem ljósgeisli þarf til að fara 1 fet (30.48 sentímetra), sem jafngildur næstum nákvæmlega 1 nanósekúndu (dvergskund). Ljósið fer 983.571.028 fet á sekúndu, 1 fet á 0.0000000010167 sekúndur, næstum nákvæmlega ÞURSundasti (miljarðasti) úr sekúndu eða ein nanósekúnda.

Jafnvel ljósfet er eilíft fyrir sumar öreindir (flunkunýtískulegt orðatiltæki sem tjá afstæði tímans)

Fjörveig Göngu-Nonna (Johnny Walker whiskey)

2010-12-09T03:57:00.000-08:00

Akkmeð dauði hryðjuverkamaðurinn

2010-12-09T01:44:00.000-08:00

The ending mad in the Arabic masculine personal name Achmad phonetically corresponds with mad in Muhammad. The Icelandic adaptation is -með like in Múhameð (Múhameðstrú). The first element Ach- is adapted as Akk- (compare with the adaptation of Greek names Akkiles (Achilles), Akkverskur (Achaean).

Sjóldrið (The Black Pearl)

2010-11-30T06:06:00.000-08:00

Icelandic sjó integrated into the word sjáldur (pupil of the eye)

nerna (harpy, harpy eagle)

2010-08-08T11:42:00.001-07:00

The name 'harpy eagle' refers to the harpies of Ancient Greek mythology. These were wind spirits that took the dead to Hades, and were said to have a body like an eagle and the face of a human. The shortest Icelandic word is NERNA (NORN (witch, hag, evil female spirit) + ERNA (female eagle). This word can be used for the mythological figures as well as for the 'harpy eagle'.

Angström (angstraumur, pinkuskeið, dyrgilröstungur, afnstika)

2010-08-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

1) pinkuskeið (pico-hectometre)
(pinku- (pico, both the italian and icelandic prefix mean 'small') + skeið ((The Icelandic word for 'hectometre', proposed at the beginning of the 20th century and derived from 'skeiðrúm', which was the icelandic translation of stadium, a classical unit of lenght corresponding with 125 metres. See 'ritmálssafn orðabókar háskólans' under 'hektómetri').
2) dyrgilröstngur (pico hectometre)
Another possibility for to replace 'hektómetri' is 'röstungur', a diminutive of 'röst', which was used for 'kilometer'. The icelandic 'dyrgill' is mentioned in the Íslensk orðsifjabók as a diminutive of 'dwarf' and could serve as an Icelandic equivalent of pico-, which is one magnitude of lenght smaller than 'nano', which means 'dwarf' (Icel. dvergur).
3) angstraumur
Icelandification of name of the Swedish scientist, which means 'meadow stream'.
4) rófstika
Refers to its use in spectroscopy.

Óalþjóðleg íslenk nýyrði

2010-07-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

apostle: toglöðungur (from toglöð, the Old Icelandic word denoting a group of twelve men)

archducal: yfirtyggja-(tyggi is the Old Icelandic word for 'hertogi')

armagnac: armangveig

Artesian: Arteisar- (The French ending -ois was icelandicized as -eis in Old Icelandic literature: e.g. bourgeois (burgeis), hence Artois: Arteis)

artesian well: Arteisarlind, bullauga

Assyria: Essringaland (Essringar = Assyrians, derived from 'Assur')

atom: ögnungur (diminutive of ögn and a one-word equivalent of 'agnarögn')

atto- (prefix denoting 1/quintillionth part): ördyrgil- (ör = micro + dyrgil- (pico, diminutive of dvergur (nano-) see 'íslensk orðsifjabók), micropico = atto)

baboon: báfjáni (spoonerism of fábjáni (idiot, clown))

banjo: bumbulúta

barbie doll: böbbubrúða (Barbie is an English pet-form of 'Barbara'. In Icelandic the pet-form would be 'babba' (compare: German Babs). The full name of Barbie is Barbie Millicent Roberts (Babba Amalsviða Hróbjarts)

bikini: pinkuskýla

boron: bur (from 'burís')

bra: bralli (slangurorðabók, nice abbreviation of 'brjósthaldari')

carboranes: kolburungur (A carborane is a cluster composed of boron ('bur' from 'burís') and carbon (kolefni) atoms.)

cello/ to play the cello, cellist: hniðla/ að hniðla/ hniðlir: (hné +fiðla)

chewing gum: jórturleður (slangurorðabók)

cover (song): kráka (slangurorðabók)

credit card: gjaldspjald (spjalda (verb): pay with a creditcard)

cylinder: kefli (another possible synonym of 'sívalningur' next to 'hólkur' (see Íslensk orðsifjabók)

Damian: Tamján (personal name, From the Greek name Damianos which was derived from Greek damao "to tame", hence the use of Tam- (from temja) as the first element in the Icelandic neologism)

Deirdre (Personal name of Irish origin): Dýrðra

dinosaur: treðla (tröll + eðla)

drag queen: kjólasveinn (slangurorðabók)

duchess: tyggjaynja (from 'tyggi' (hertogi))

dwarf-mammoth: pútaloffi (second member 'loffi' is a 'gælumynd' of 'loðfíll')

emo (style of music): tilfó (slangurorðabók)

femto- (prefix denoting 1/quadrillionth part): ördverg- (ör = micro + dverg = nano: micronano = femto, see atto-, pico)

gasoline: ökvi (from vökvi and aka, good replacement for the loan-word 'bensín')

giga- (prefix denoting a billion units): þursund- (þurs, þursi + þúsund).

hair roller: kiðlir (from the verb 'kiðla' (skrýfa eða krulla hár), see Íslensk orðsifjabók)

handbreak: mundhemill (handbremsa is too understandable for non-icelanders.)

Harlem: Harleimur

Harlequin: Tíglótta fíflið: (after the characteristic diamond patterns of Harlequin's costume)

harmonium: heimilisómvél (orgel = ómvel)

Hartfordshire: Hjartfurðuskíri (Hartfort comes from Old English Heorot +ford, "Ford frequented by harts or stags". The Icelandic equivalent is Hjartfurða. 'Shire' can be translated as sýsla or skíri.)

Harvard University:Hervarðarmenntahöll (The University was named after John Harvard, a clergymen. The name is cognate with Hereward, O.E. hereweard, lit. "army guard." The Icelandic version is Hervarðar. For university 'menntahöll' is used to avoid the compound 'háskóli', which is already used in many languages.)

hellgrammite: hornefjungur (the larva of the Dobson fly (Icel. hornefja))

helicon: gormlúður

Héloise (personal name): Heilvíða (probably from the Germanic name Helewidis, composed of the elements heil "hale, healthy" and wid "wide".)

Henriette (personal name): Hinrétta (Hin- of 'Hinrik' + phonetical adaptation + feminine ending -a)

hinny: hálfhestur (MÚLASNI)

Indus river: Fimmfljótungur ((The Indus receives its most notable tributaries from the Punjab (= Land of Five Rivers, translated in Icelandic as Fimmfljótaland, see 3) to the east, including the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers.)

jelly roll: vöðluranda með aldinmauki, maukvöðla: (avoid compounds with the danicism 'sulta')

Ken: Kinni (from Kenneth, Icelandic form Kinaður (see Íslensk orðsifjabók). The pet-form of Kinaður and equivalent of English 'Ken' is then 'Kinni'.)

Kermit (frog from Sesame Street): Kjarmiður: (From the Irish surname Mac Dhiarmaid, which means "son of DIARMAID". The Icelandi adaptation is K (last character in 'Mac') + jarmiður (Dh is mute)

lepton (1/100 of a drachm): létteyrir (léttur (lepto-) + eyrir (1/100 part); eyhafskur eyrir (Greek cent)

letter bomb: hvellsending

leu (rumenian currency unit): blökumannaljón (blökumannaland = Valakía, could be used for Modern Rumenia)

lev (Bulgarian currency unit): þrakslafneskt ljón (Thracoslavic = Bulgarian) lion

mandarine: mikilembættismaður

mega- (prefix denoting a million units): miklund- (mikill (Greek megas) + -und (in þúsund). The word can be used for 'million' and the prefix 'mega-')

Minoan: Míneskur:(derived from Minos (here adapted to Mínur Mín, Míni, Míns)

mitre: oddbogahattur

monk: lifri (see 'nun')

monobasic: einbeiskjulegur

monohydroxy: einvetnildis-

Montgomaryshire: Mundgumareksskíri (Montgomery means "GUMARICH's mountain" in Norman French. A notable bearer of this surname was Bernard Montgomery ‘Bjarnharður Mundgumrekingur (Mundgumarekur (surname) – Mundgumrekingur, af Mundgumareksætt (family name)), The name originates from the Germanic elements guma meaning "man" and ric meaning "power, rule".)

moralist: síðafræðari, siðatoglöðungur (avoid compounds with 'prédikari' and 'postuli'. You can use 'toglöðungur' for the latter. It is derived from ON toglöð, which designated a group of twelve men.

morion: brynhattur

morocco (kind of leather): vestserkneskt/ sundmárískt/ njörvaserkneskt leður/ serkneskt sauðleður (SAFFÍAN): . The icelandic word saffían is derived from Safi, the name of the Moroccan city where the leather is made. Vestserkneskur (from Vesturserkland) is a translation of the full Arabic name al-Mamlaka al-Maġribiyya, which translates to "The Western Kingdom". Al-Maġrib (meaning "The West") is commonly used. Morocco is the most western part of Serkland (the muslim countries). Another possibility is njörvamárískur/sundmóverskur (Strait-Moorish, from Sundmóverskur/Sundmárískur/Njörvaserkneskur (after 'Njôrvasund' (strait of Gibraltar)

nectarine: sléttferskja (smooth peach)

neon: nýloft (turned out that the most simple translation yields the best option after all)

nightclub: njólukolfur (næturklúbbur is too understandable for Europeans and Americans. Njóla is a poetic word for 'night' and kolfur (no umlaut) is an old Icelandic word for a gathering that failed to be revived as an equivalent of the anglicism klúbbur. But, as for me, klúbbur doesn't exist, 'kolfur' is the true Icelandic word)

Nilotic-Saharian languages: Nykurelfar- og Sandheimstungumál

nostalgia: þáþrá (from slangurorðabók, very short and flexible)

nun: lifra (Old Icelandic synonym for 'systir'. these words could be revived and used instead of the foreignism 'nunna' because they are related to Old Icelandic 'lífi' and 'munklífi'.

Pennsylvania: Pennsskógarríki: (Named after Admiral Penn. Sylvania means 'wood land')

Pennsylvanian: Pennskógrískur

picosecond: pinkuskund, dyrgilskund (pinku- = pico-, a phonosemantic match or 'dyrgil-', the diminutive of dvergur (nano-) mentioned in the íslensk orðsifjabók') + skund (shortest possible adaptation of 'second', declined like 'stund' and derived from 'skunda')

plaster: benbót (shortest possible word)

polonium: maríublý (The element in the neighbourhood of 'lead' (blý) that was discovered by Marie (Maríu-) Curie)

positron: jánd: (don't be shy to REDUCE word-lenght)

Preraphaelite Brotherhood: forrafjálskt bræðralag (The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what they considered to be the mechanistic approach first adopted by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael (Rafjáll) and Michelangelo (Mikjálengill). They believed that the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art.)

Priamos (King of Troy): Frjámur: A lovely brutal icelandification of the Greek personal name.
Pyrenees: Hrólendsfjöll (Roland's mountains)

radium: maríukelki (maríu- (Marie Curie) + kelki (calcium, derived from 'kalk', like 'ildi' (oxygen) from 'eldur' (fire) and 'vetni' (hydrogen) from 'vatn' (water))

samba: bríslandsspor (the dance of Brazil. Icelandic 'brís-' in 'brúnbrís' has the same meaning and origin as 'Brazil'. The name of the country in Icelandic could be Brísland)

sapodilla: tyggileðurtré (tyggiGÚMMÍtré)

saran (plastic): festihimna (Saran is also called 'cling film' a thin plastic film made of saran (trade name Saran Wrap) that sticks to itself; used for wrapping food. We use 'himna' instead of 'filma', sorry for the loss of the aliteration)

satrap: persajarl

satrapy: persneskt jarlsdæmi

Saudi-Arabia: Sáðunga-Serkland, Sáðunga-Rábítaland, Sáðungaland

sauterne: sóterni

sitar: gnæfingjalúta (gnæfingi = giraffe + lúta (lute), Icelandic: langhálslúta)

smectite: kljángur (from klé in kléberg, which is synonymous with tálgusteinn. The term smectite originates from the Greek smectos, which means 'soap' and 'soapstone' (tálgusteinn, þveljusteinn, kléberg ) belong to the smectite group. I decided to add -ungur to kle- (kljá(u) ngur).

Smithsonian: Smisneskur

snake dance (slönguDANS): ormspor

sniper: skotdraugur

sun glasses: röðulskyggjur (see slangurorðabók) Nicely uninternational.

Tamil tigers: tamlverskir þórskettir/ rákagramar/randagandar (tiger translates as 'rákagramur' (striped tyrant king (compare tyrannosaurus rex (grameðla)) or 'randagandur')

tangerine: jólaglói (jól + glóaldin (glóa); the tangerine is also known as the 'christmas orange')
tango: tengja (-u, -ur)

tear-gas: táraþoka

thyroid gland: skeynill (skaun(n) + -ill in kirtill), skaunepill (more un-mainland-scandinavian than 'skjaldkirtill', which is not special)

thyroid hormone: skeyni (from 'skaun(n)'

trendsetter: straumbreytir (source: Morgunblaði, coined by Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir)

Tristan da Cunha (island): Trostansey (Trostan is the original Icelandic form of the personal name Tristan)

yard: þrífet (A yard equals three feet)

yogi: einspekingur (from 'einspeki' (yoga))

Zanzibar: Neguley (island of cloves)

zero: eyvit (eyvitu, eyvitu, eyvitar) another possible term for the number zero next to 'ekkert' and 'vetki' (see orðsifjabók 'eyvið')

zither: strengjaborð

Zoroastrism: meðatrú (The religion was originally Medic, not Persian)

A few very names of animals

2010-07-27T02:47:00.000-07:00

Lungfish (foskur)
The compound 'lungfish' is already used in far to many languages. In Icelandic, it is possible to denote this species with a single word by combining 'froskur' and 'fiskur', thereby expessing the evolutionary place of the lungfish as an intermediate between fish (Icel. fiskur) and amphibians (Icel. froskdýr): FOSKUR. The inspiration for this word came from the term 'flish', coined by the makers of the British-Austrian documentary 'The future is wild' (2003), which explored a possible future of life on Earth. 'Flish' is composed of 'flying' and 'fish' and designates a species that evolved from flying fish to eventually replace the birds, which had gone extinct in Pangaea II, 200 million years from now.

Ladoga seal (Aldeigjunóri)
The Old Icelandic name Aldeigja or Aldeigjuborg was used for the city Staraja Ladoga and the lake is sometimes refered to as Aldeigjuvatn (Íslenska Alfræðiorðabókin, see Ladogavatn). The suffix ‘-nóri’ is used in ‘hringanóri’ (ringed seal) and is, according to the Íslensk Orðsifjabók, probably derived from ‘nóra’, ‘nóri’ (particle, something small, puny), rather than from ‘nór’ (small sea-strait), which has the same origin. The ringed seal is the smallest and most common seal in the Arctic and is of the same size as its relative the Ladoga seal, so a compound with ‘-nóri’ would be appropriate to denote this subspecies too: Aldeigjunóri. This word sounds more uninternational than Ladoga seal.

Apostle bird (toglaðarfugl, toglöðungur)
The Apostlebird was named after the Biblical apostles, the twelve followers of Jesus Christ, because the species travel in family groups of between 6 and 20. The Icelandic ‘postulafugl’ is too similar to the English name and moreover contains the Latinism ‘postuli’. The neologism I propose is derived from ‘toglöð’, an Old Icelandic word denoting a group of twelve persons: toglaðarfugl or simply toglöðungur, which could serve as a word for ‘apostle’ as well. Toglöðin (the twelve apostles), toglöðungur (apostle).

Jaguar (blettagramur, höggvari)
The jaguar is largest species of the ‘king’ of the spotted cats. The word ‘blettagramur’ applies only to the jaguar, because he’s the biggest, and not to the smaller leopards. I prefer the word ‘gramur’ instead of ‘king’ because it additionally expresses the fierceness of the animal. Icelandic neologists used this word to denote the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the feared predator-king of the cretaceous.
The word höggvari, which sounds somewhat similar to the international word, is derived from the verb ‘höggva’ where ‘höggva’ means ‘to bite’ in the case of snakes (höggormur), but also boars: “ef svín höggr mann” (Gulaþingslög, 19o). This means that there’s no reason why the word couldn’t apply to the jaguar too, whose main characteristic is the use of a prey-killing method unseen amongst other feline species: it pierces its canine teeth with one single blow directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey.
In the same way we can use 'gramur' to denote other big cats: 'rákagramur' (tiger, or randagandur) and 'sprettgramur' (the sprinting tyrant, the cheetah, 'snarköttur' is also possible (compare snareðla (velociraptor))

Africa

2008-09-03T04:56:00.000-07:00

Second - skund

2008-07-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

1) skund
The shortest possible Icelandic name for second is 'skund'. The words scores on many fronts.
1) It is short
2) It sounds like the international word and Icelandic 'stund' and is declined like the latter word.
3) It refers to the verb "skunda" (hurry). Indeed, a "second" is the time-frame often refered to when someone is in a hurry.

2) Other possibilities:
tifskeið or tifstund (tick-period), stundarkorn (hour-particle, moment)

Neon - ljóft

2008-07-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

Neon (ljóft, ljós + loft), the gas which is a component of 'air' (loft), used in lighting (ljós). If the neologism ljörvi (laser) is acceptable as an acronym of ljós (light) and 'örvi (derived from the verb örva, stimulate), the so should be ljóft. It aso sound a bit like the adjective ljúfur (in the meaning of geðfelldur (agreeable, pleasing). Neon-light is indeed an pleasant sight.
The noble gases are commonly used in lighting because of their lack of chemical reactivity. Neon was the first in its group to be used for this purpose and its name with respect to lighting has been extended to other noble gases. Argon- or krypton-filled light-tubes are called 'neonlights' as well. It's slightly comparable to the chemical term 'salt', which originally denoted sodium chloride before its meaning was extended to 'any ionic compound, made from a metal cation and a non-metal anion'. In the same way we can extend the meaning of 'ljóft' to that of 'noble gas'.

SHOGUN - SAMURAI

2008-07-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

The term 'arfamarskálkur' is also possible, but 'marskálkur' is a germanism.

Atlantic ocean - frónhaf

2008-07-02T09:46:00.001-07:00

Why can't we name the Atlantic ocean after Iceland? This has nothing to do with far-going hubris. Icelanders are the only native people who inhabit the largest part of new land formed on the MID-Atlantic Ridge. Yes, they are the only ones among the native Atlantic people (Guanches, Faroese, Icelanders, that's all I guess) who live right in the middle. How much more Atlantic can one get? The term 'Frónhaf' is shorter than Atlantshaf and it's transparent too! After all, there is only one sea known to encompass iceland, isn't it! YEEES, BINGO!

examples:
Atlatintic states: Frónhafsríkin
Mid-Atlantic Ridge: Frónhafshryggur, Jörmungandshryggur
NATO: Frónhafsbandalagið

CATERPILLAR

2008-07-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

OXYGEN

2008-07-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

Gap in the ozone-layer - leifthvolfsgat

2008-07-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

LEIFT is LEIFTUR integrated in the word 'loft' (air) or a contraction of 'leifturloft' (lightening air)

The reason why I choose hvolf instead of lag is because I wanted to make the Icelandic equivalent sound completely unlike the English term and the latter word, although purely Icelandic, sounds too much like the English layer, its etymological cognate. By the way, the term ozonosphere is sometimes used instead of ozone layer and the current translation of sphere is hvolf (exosphere - úthvolf)

þrildi (ozone, þrí- (three) + ildi (oxygen)), að þrilda (ozonize), þrildir (ozonizator)

Tibet - Þakland

2008-07-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Frelsum Þakland! Free Tibet! (Free Roofland)

Fresh-water lake - þjarfavatn

2008-07-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Proxima Centauri - Mannfáksstjarna nær

2008-07-01T15:41:00.001-07:00

graphene - netkol

2008-07-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Hjólkur (torus - dougnut - inner tube)

2008-06-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

The orðaskrá íslenskra stærðfræðifélagsins mentions hjólhringur or hjólflötungur for torus. Maybe an uncompounded word is possible here: hjólkur (-s, -ar), "cylindrical wheel', composed of hjól (wheel) and hólkur, which is mentioned in the Orðaskrá um eðlisfræði as a synonym of sívalningur (cilinder).
This short and robust neologism could also be used as the Icelandic equivalent of the English doughnut. If not then we must content oursellves with compounds like hjólkaka or hjólbaka, because kleina in kleinuhringur (existing Icelandic translation of doughnut) is a danicism.
And last but not least it could be synonymous with slanga (í hjólbarði), the Icelandic equivalent of the English automobile term inner tube.

Painters

2008-06-25T05:22:00.001-07:00

Names of Popstars (Part 1)

2008-06-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Elvis Presley - Alvís Presló

1) Elvis - Alvís: Meaning is unknown. It is possibly a form of ALVIS (Icel. Alvís) or ELWIN or it might be derived from the surname Elwes. The name is adapted with most sound-similar Old Icelandic name: Alvís
2) Presley - Presló: The same name as priestley, derived from a place-name meaning 'woodland clearing of the priest'. The Icelandic equivalent of this name is 'Prestló'. In order to distinguish between the family names Priestley and Presley, we will also cut the 't' in 'Prestló', resulting in 'Presló'.

Keith Richards - Kíði Ríkharðs

1) Keith - Kíði: The name Keith derives from a Scottish surname which was originally derived from a place name possibly meaning "wood" in British. This was the surname of a long line of Scottish earls. The name is adpated to the Icelandic spelling with addition of -i.
2) Richards - Ríkharðs (Ríkherðingur)

Kurt Cobain - Kort Kobbeimur

2) Cobain -Kobbeimur
This family name is a toponymical one derived from Cobham, a village in Kent. The Oxford dictionary of English place-names mentions: Cobbeham 1197. 'Enclosureor homestead of a man called *Cobba (phonologically adapted to Kobbi in Icelandic). Old English pers. name + hamm (no Icelandic equivalent) or hám (Icel. heimur).The resulting Icelandic adaptation of the place name would be Kobbaheimur, but could also be contracted to Kobbeimur, with loss of the initial 'h-' in heimur, as is seen in many Old Norse place-names: Asseimur, Lisseimur, Surðeimur (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók) and modern Danish place-names like Bygum (Byggeimur), Darrum (Darreimur), see http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/Icelandic_equivalents_of_the_Danish_place-names_(uncorrected_version).doc

Random names (Part 1)

2008-06-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Ingrid betancourt - Ingríður Betánkurt

Maurice Chevalier - Mórits Kaplari

1) Maurice: Mórits in Icelandic. The name literally means 'moorish' and should be 'Márískur' or 'Mári' as the pet-form. The even more pure High Icelandic form would be 'Móverskur'.
2) Chevalier - Kaplari: The family name 'chevalier' means 'knight' and is phoneticly adapted by adding '-ari' to the loan-word 'kapall' (horse), see Íslensk orðsifjabók.

Nicolaus Copernicus - Nikulás Koparsmiður

Nicolaus: Icelandic version is Nikulás

Copernicus: Latinized version of Polish family name Kopernik, which means 'copper-worker'. The purely Icelandic equivalent is 'eirsmiður', but for reasons of sound-similarity we will use the loan-word 'kopar': Koparsmiður

Michel Foucault - Mikjáll Fólkveldingur

1) The Icelandic equivalent of French Michel is Mikjáll (Raphael should be Rafjál)
2) Foucault - Fólkveldingur: The family name foucault derives from a Germanic personal name the first memmber of which was 'folk' (Icel. fólk) and vald (Icel. -valdur). The Icelandic equivalent of the family name is constructed by adding -ingur to Fólkvaldur: Fólkveldingur.

William Shakespeare - Vilhjálmur Skakspjör

1) The Icelandic equiavlent of William is Vilhjálmur.
2) The family name Shakespeare is a compound of the words 'shake' and 'spear' and adapted with the Icelandic cognates these two words.

Yves Saint-Laurent - Ívi Sankti Lafrans

1) Yves - Ívi:
The French personal name Yves, derived from Germanic iv meaning "yew" is the equivalent of Icelandic Ívi, a name of a sea-king, which is probably (according to the Íslensk Orðsifjabók) derived from ýr (yew). Some would like to use Ívar, but the etymology of this name is disputed.
2) Saint-Laurent -Sankti Lafrans

Lech Wałęsa - Læsir Valensa

1) Lech - Læsir
No personal name is so typically Polish than Lech. It was the name of the Legendary founder of the Polish nation and the name of one of the most widely known Poles in the world today: Lech Wałęsa. The name is related to Ljachy, Lenkya, Lengyel, respecively the Old Russian, Baltic and Hungarian name for the Polish people. In Hungarian, Lengyel still means 'Pole' and Lengyelország 'Poland'. The Orðsifjabók mentions 'Læsir' as the name of a Polish tribe living near the Vistula and as a masculine personal name related to the name of this tribe. This means that an equivalent of this typically Polish name existed in Old Icelandic!! This resulted in the following High Icelandic neologisms:
Læsir (masc. pers. name): Lech
Læsir: Poles (Analogue to Hungarian Lengyel)
Læsaland: Poland (analogue to Hungarian Lengyelország)
Læsneskur: PolishLæsneska: Polish language
2) Wałęsa - Valensa:
This polish family name is pronounced 'vawensa' and Icelandicized Valensa.

Bertrand Russell - Bjarthrafn Hrísill

1) Bertrand -Bjarthrafn:
Bertrand is derived from Bertram and means "bright raven", derived from the Germanic element beraht "bright" combined with hramn "raven". The corresponding Icelandic construction is Bjarthrafn.
2) Russell - Hrísill:
The Fjölnismen icelandicized John Russell as Jón Hrísill in their magazine Skírnir, so we will use this as the Icelandic equivalent of this personal name (Jack Russell terrier - Hrísilsgrefill)

Aristoteles - Aðaltili

1) Aristo -Aðal
The prefix Aristo in Greek personal names derived from αριστος (aristos) "best". The equivalent in Icelandic personal names is Aðal- "noble, foremost, premier".
2) -teles - -tili
The Icelandic suffix -tili (derived from til (to, toward), which occurs in aldurtili and ótili is etymologically related to Greek telos and German ziel and have a similar meaning (goal, destiny). Since there is no equivalent in Icelandic personal names, tili has to be introduced as a phono-semantical match for Icelandicized Greek personal names ending in -teles.

Publius Cornelius Scipio - Fólki Hyrnill Skífingur

1) Publius - Fólki
The Latin personal name Publius means 'public' in Latin and is related to the Icelandic fólk. The obvious Icelandic equivalent is Fólki (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók, under fólk and Fólki).
2) Cornelius - Hyrnill
This Roman family name possibly derives from the Latin element cornu "horn". Since the only similar word in Latin means 'horn', it is appropriate to adapt the name with Icelandic horn.
3) Scipio - Skífungur
Related to Icelandic skífa (see íslensk orðsifjabók) so I used the stem of this word for the adaptation: skíf- + ungur (singular form of -ungar, which, along with -ingar, was used to denote families and follwers of someone in Old Icelandic, e.g. Völsungar, hjaðningar).