Neologisms 12/12/2008

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