See also Weak inflection

Weak inflection

In grammar, the term weak is used in opposition to the term strong to designate a conjugation or declension when a language has two parallel systems...

In the Icelandic language

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

 noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

s are considered weak, if they fulfill the following conditions:

Masculines:

The nominative singular ends in -i, the other singular cases end in -a or -ja.

The noun is derived from the present participle of a verb, in which case the plural ends in -ur (but the singular follows the -i-a rule).

An example of the latter is nemandi (student), plural nemendur. The words bóndi (farmer) and fjandi (enemy or the devil or a demon) belong to this class with some irregularities. The plural of bóndi is bændur. Fjandi has two plurals, depending on the meaning. If it means an enemy, the plural is fjendur (note the retention of je). If it means a demon, the plural is fjandar.

Exceptions do exist, for instance Grikki (Greek), plural Grikkir. The same applies to Tyrki (Turk) plural Tyrkir. Both, incidentally, end in -ja in the oblique cases (Grikkja is the accusative, dative and genitive for one Greek).

Feminines:

The nominative singular ends in -a, the other singular cases end in -u.

The singular ends in -i in all cases. (If there is a plural, it may end in either -ir or -ar.)

Neuters:

They end in -a in the singular in all cases. The plural ends in -u (but the genitive plural in -na) without further alterations with the exception of hjarta (heart) which becomes hjörtu in the plural through u-breaking

Breaking (linguistics)

In historical linguistics, vowel breaking is the change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong. The change into a diphthong is also known as diphthongization...

. The genitive plural, however is hjartna showing a-breaking instead of u-breaking. Some borrowings may exhibit similar behaviour, e.g, singular drama, plural drömu. Most of these are words for organs.

An almost exhaustive list follows:

auga (eye)

bjúga (a type of sausage)

eista (testicle)

eyra (ear)

hjarta (heart)

hnoða (a woollen ball, most often encountered in fairy-tales)

lunga (lung)

milta (spleen)

nýra (kidney)

Then there are a small number of borrowings like firma, drama, þema etc. none of which require translation.