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How Do You Quote In Icelandic?

· 2 min read
Tbrennan
Tbrennan
Project Founder

Sæl öll!

This post answers the question: "How do I quote in Icelandic?".

Direct quotations​

When directly quoting something, you enclose what was said in quotation marks. The beginning of the quotation uses low quotation marks, and the end of the quote uses high quotation marks. In Icelandic, the quotation marks face away from the quoted material instead of towards the material like in English.

If a dialogue tag comes before the quote, a colon will separate the end of the tag and the opening quotation mark. If a dialogue tag comes after the quoted material, a comma is placed after the last word in place of a period.

For direct quotes, dialogue tags that can use dative indirect objects must instead use við (acc).

  1. „Ég er klárastur.“
  2. Jón sagði: „Ég er klárastur.“
  3. Jón sagði við mig: „Ég er klárastur.“
  4. „Ég er klárastur,“ sagði Jón.
  5. „Ég er klárastur,“ sagði Jón við mig.
  6. „Ertu sammála?“ spurði hann.
  7. „Ertu sammála?“ spurði hann mig.
  8. Jón spurði mig: „Ertu sammála?“
  9. Jón spurði mig: „Ertu sammála?“

Indirect quotations​

When indirectly quoting something, quotation marks are not used. Instead, the word að separates the dialogue tag from the quoted material, and the first verb in the quotation must be in the subjunctive and match the tense of the dialogue tag.

Dialogue tags overwhelmingly come before the quoted material in indirect quotations.

The use of dative indirect objects is permitted, but "Við (acc)" is also possible as an alternative.

  1. Jón sagði að hann væri klárastur.
  2. Jón sagði mér að hann væri klárastur.
  3. Jón sagði við mig að hann væri klárastur.
  4. Jón spurði hvort ég væri sammála.
  5. Jón spurði mig hvort ég væri sammála.