These Clever Illustrations Describe The Icelandic Language One Word At A Time

Icelandic is a northern Germanic language descended from the Old West Norse dialect, so it is similar in some ways to Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

But Icelandic is considered the "old language" of the North, making it the most difficult Norse language to learn, so students may need a little help putting words together in their minds.

Mynd (picture) + Band (string) = Myndband (video)

A post shared by Every Single Word In Icelandic (@everysinglewordinicelandic) on Feb 20, 2017 at 11:39am PST

Artist Eunsan Huh has come up with a clean and simple way to help students learn Icelandic by visualizing the combination of words used to create compound words.

Her Instagram account Every Single Word In Icelandic is becoming an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning Icelandic, because her posts also include a spoken version of each word.

Gróður (vegetation) + Hús (house) = Gróðurhús (green house) In Iceland they use geothermal energy to heat greenhouses. This way they can grow many vegetables that don't like the cold, like tomatoes and cucumbers and even bananas!

A post shared by Every Single Word In Icelandic (@everysinglewordinicelandic) on Jun 8, 2016 at 9:30am PDT

Eunsan on why she started this project:

Every Single Word In Icelandic is a pictographic exploration of the Icelandic language. I find an interesting compound word, then deconstruct and illustrate it as icons. The goal is to express how Icelandic can be deadpan literal and unexpectedly poetic at the same time.

Remember the word for earth, jörð, from yesterday? If you add the word for berry to the end you get jarðarber, meaning strawberry

A post shared by Every Single Word In Icelandic (@everysinglewordinicelandic) on Apr 23, 2017 at 9:18am PDT

See more from Every Single Word In Icelandic at Laughing Squid