Respect People’s Pronouns!

The Grapevine’s guide to sounding Icelandic, one word at a time

In the 2023 Áramótaskaupið, national comedy icon Villi Neto says to the camera, “Hér er hán, um hán, frá háni, til háns — það skiptir ekkert máli.”

Okay, hang on a second — that might have been a lot of Icelandic to throw at you at once. I’ll explain what all that means in just a second, but I first have to say: if you don’t know what Áramótaskaupið is, then put down this article, get your computer out, and look it up. On YouTube, you’ll find all the Skaupið films from 2020 to 2024 available for your viewing pleasure, complete with English subtitles.

Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about the word hán, which is part of the quote above. Hán is Icelandic’s non-binary pronoun, which was properly introduced by Alda Villiljós in a 2013 blog post for Knúz. In the quote above, Villi Neto is leading the nation in an exercise of declining the pronoun hán, the same way he would if he were a school teacher. Then he goes “það skiptir ekkert máli,” saying it’s not a problem (because yeah, it’s not!).

In 2016, hán was introduced by Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson to the University of Iceland’s language curriculum, and is now also introduced by most language schools that offer Icelandic as a second language.

All I have to say is: decline hán (linguistically — hér er hán, um hán, frá háni, til háns), don’t decline to use hán.

The image featured above is taken from the cover of Grapevine’s 2021 Pride Issue, which was titled “Being Nonbinary, In Iceland And Everywhere.”

Learn more Icelandic words hér.