# Help with Icelandic slang **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305 "2007-07-03T01:55:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/1 "2007-07-03T01:55:11Z")
Hello. I am interested in and am doing reeasrch on Icelandic youth, street and college slang for a project I’m working on. I’d like to know: What are Icelandic slang terms that mean: tough guy tough female tomboy thug punk gangster delinquent girl delinquent boy strong guy strong female Please let me know and please list as many Icelandic slangs for each term as possible. Thank you. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2007, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/2 "2007-07-07T21:17:46Z")
Hello. Are ther any members here who speak Icelandic? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/3 "2007-07-07T21:22:07Z")
**UselessGit** is Icelandic, but I haven’t seen him around for awhile. I took a linguistics course, before the dawn of vertebrate life, and we used Old Norse, which is much like Icelandic, as our subject language. FWIW Old Norse for “strong man” is _stori mathr_. _Mathr_ follows a strange declination; nominative singular uses that form, but the other cases and numbers use forms that are based on _mann_, making them more like the word in other Germanic languages. ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/4 "2007-07-07T21:36:48Z")
There are a few. Sadly, I have lost most of the Icelandic I ever spoke. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/5 "2007-07-07T22:06:40Z")
**Nashiitashii** is icelandic. I’ll try to get her along at some point tonight to get your answers. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/6 "2007-07-08T00:47:11Z")
This is not Strinka, this is a friend of his answering because Strinka has asked me about this topic: I am not Icelandic, so I can’t promise complete accuracy, but I cannot think of slang that really means these or are equivalent to. In fact, I think you’re really barking up the wrong tree if you’re actually trying to find translations of American slang for a project involving Iceland. Try just finding common expressions amongst Icelandic youth rather than “slang.” If you’re not a native speaker or fairly fluent, slang is almost impossible to make sense of let alone realize that it’s not just the regular language in ANY language. However, expressions used mainly among a particular age group are much easier to find. For those you can just surf through various [Icelandic blogs](http://www.blog.central.is/). However, now for the even more disappointing part of my response: the youth of Iceland use relatively the same language as the adults. Icelandic is famous for this, makes it a linguistic wonder because it hasn’t changed much at all over the past 1,000 years, which is caused by similar speech patterns in both adult and youth. Grant it, that might slowly be changing due to the advent of the internet, but results are still slow to come in on that. ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/7 "2007-07-15T02:33:42Z")
[QUOTE=Acid Lamp] **Nashiitashii** is icelandic. I’ll try to get her along at some point tonight to get your answers. [/QUOTE] Hi-did you get a chance to get in touch with Nashiitashii? ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/8 "2007-07-18T06:01:08Z")
[QUOTE=Strinka] This is not Strinka, this is a friend of his answering because Strinka has asked me about this topic: I am not Icelandic, so I can’t promise complete accuracy, but I cannot think of slang that really means these or are equivalent to. In fact, I think you’re really barking up the wrong tree if you’re actually trying to find translations of American slang for a project involving Iceland. Try just finding common expressions amongst Icelandic youth rather than “slang.” If you’re not a native speaker or fairly fluent, slang is almost impossible to make sense of let alone realize that it’s not just the regular language in ANY language. However, expressions used mainly among a particular age group are much easier to find. For those you can just surf through various [Icelandic blogs](http://www.blog.central.is/). However, now for the even more disappointing part of my response: the youth of Iceland use relatively the same language as the adults. Icelandic is famous for this, makes it a linguistic wonder because it hasn’t changed much at all over the past 1,000 years, which is caused by similar speech patterns in both adult and youth. Grant it, that might slowly be changing due to the advent of the internet, but results are still slow to come in on that. [/QUOTE] Do you or Stinka know of any Icelandic blogs in English? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/9 "2007-07-18T07:07:11Z")
[QUOTE=Catman2007] Hello. I am interested in and am doing reeasrch on Icelandic youth, street and college slang for a project I’m working on. I’d like to know: What are Icelandic slang terms that mean: tough guy tough female tomboy thug punk gangster delinquent girl delinquent boy strong guy strong female Please let me know and please list as many Icelandic slangs for each term as possible. Thank you. 😃 [/QUOTE] So, are you lookin’ to piss off a bunch of guys from Iceland? Those guys plundered western Europe before they went there, you know. And no one went after them, either! Think twice about calling them punk in Icelandic. ## Tris “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” ~ Sun-tzu ~ ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/10 "2007-07-21T22:05:48Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] So, are you lookin’ to piss off a bunch of guys from Iceland? Those guys plundered western Europe before they went there, you know. And no one went after them, either! Think twice about calling them punk in Icelandic. ## Tris “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” ~ Sun-tzu ~ [/QUOTE] No, I’m using the terms for a comic book. The only term for “punk” I know is “ponk”, with an umlaut over the o. ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/11 "2007-07-21T22:07:16Z")
Can you please help me out? ---
**Author:** ![Catman2007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Catman2007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catman2007)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-icelandic-slang/410305/12 "2007-07-22T20:41:49Z")
I asked what are Icelandic slangs for the following terms, and was given the following: tough guy - harður maður tough female - Hörð kona tomboy- Strákastelpa punk- Pönk gangster- “gangster”, bófi, glæpon guy prone to fighting- Ofbeldisfullur maður Female prone to fighting- ofbeldisfull kona delinquent girl- ólöghlýðin stelpa, sek delinquent boy- ólöghlýðinn Strákur, sekur strong guy- Sterkur maður, massatröll, vöðvabúnt, strong female- Sterk kona, massatröll, vöðvabúnt, tough girl - Hörð stelpa strong girl - Harður strákur brat - Spillt barn I was also told that töffar/töffari, harður karl, nagli and harður nagli are slang for “tough guy”. Are there any other terms I can use? Are there any other terms I can use for tough girl and strong girl? Are there shorter ways to say, “ólöghlýðin stelpa” and “ólöghlýðinn Strákur”, “Ofbeldisfullur maður” and “ofbeldisfull kona”? Please let me know. 😃