#Icelandic culture

[artsyaech]

8, 13

i’m icelandic, in case you don’t know

“8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?”

yeah, i’ve gotten dutch, danish and finnish, all by some random people who ask me when i’m abroad

“13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?”

yes, we have a lot

1. we put our shoes in the windowsill to get presents from the yulelads (the 13 santa clauses)

2. we eat sheep’s heads. and ram testicles. (i don’t like the ladder, personally)

3. we name our children after volcanos (most common being “hekla” and “katla”)

4. saying that your child is an asshole is a compliment (“rassgat” literally meaning “butthole”, but being an endearing term)

5. sometimes, we say things while breathing in. we call this “að tala á innsoginu”

[ichverdurstehier]

Cultural differences between Iceland and Norway

[vamp-bites]

Happy Icelandic day of independence🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸 fuck you denmark♡

Fun iceland facts of the day:

The 17th of June is celebrated as our day of independence but we actually fully officially got independence on the 1st of december

We celebrate the 17th because its the birthday of the guy who was out in Denmark in 1944 and was like "hey guys, hear me out, what if you let iceland rule itself? We've kinda been asking for years and you're kinda under nazi occupation right now so they're doing their own stuff over there anyway cause you can't really intervene cause of the. The nazis."

I dont know why we celebrate his birthday. He didn't even fucking live here, he moved to Denmark when he was young and never came back, false idol that he is (Jón Sigurðsson)

Iceland was originally under Norway (thats where we came from, mostly) but then Denmark claimed us in the divorce (they invaded Norway in 1537 and turned it into a Danish puppet-state)

Iceland is bigger than Denmark in land mass but wayyy smaller in population and no one is happy about this

Why is our population so low? Why do we all live around the shores and not in the middle of the land? Well, you see, like 90% of this country is uninhabitable. It is just mountains and glaciers and ravines and black sands and fields of nothing out there. Only 2% of the country is forested, and most of it is imported

We do not have an army. And yet we have been in a war. The Cod Wars. A small Icelandic fishing boat rammed itself into the side of a huge British ship fishing in our waters. The brits got really offended because the giant hole we made in their ship knocked over a picture of the queen. America had to intervene so we wouldn't keep sending our tiny but fast fishing boats headfirst into British ships fit for war. In our defense, our pride and our fish were on the line

Pretty much all Icelanders are at least bilingual, tho they try to make us trilingual but very few of us actually retain any of the Danish they try to teach us at school, Icelandic preteens notoriously hate Danish (or maybe that was just me)

We make ourselves out to have descended from great vikings, its basically our whole brand besides puffins who aren't even our national bird we just love to show off our puffin population, but we actually weren't really vikings, we came mostly from farmers

Half of the country is located in the American continent, and the other half is in Europe, there's a mall out in the country that has a line down the middle of it because that's where the line between the continents splits and u can walk between America and Europe

We had the worlds first female president (Vigdís Finnbogadóttir🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸)

Despite our low crime rates, we have an unusually high crime fiction writer rate

I'll leave the fun facts about the phallus museum and the likes for next time, gleðilegan 17. júní góða fólk!

[folkfashion]

Icelandic woman, Iceland, Elísabet Hulda

[m1male2]

Aerial photographs of landscapes that Albert Dros captured in #Iceland and that show the colors and textures of this unique environment.

[er-cryptid]

Typhus in Saga-Era Iceland

Patreon

[nickysfacts]

The vikings were the gay raiding family men of Scandinavia!

🇩🇰⚔️🏳️‍🌈

[connorphilpphotography]

[ifindus]

you know, a thing that always bothers me is how the fandom treats norway (& Denmark) as the "annoying" ones when it comes to their relations between Iceland, but who's to say that Iceland isn't the annoying one? cause if you think about it, who's perspective are we always seeing and hearing things through whenever we see the nordic group? that's right, Iceland (and usually Finland). With that in mind, of course we're only gonna hear "one side" of the situation. Are we really gonna sit here and pretend that younger siblings aren't annoying as hell? it's like that show pinky and the brain, there is a theory that pinky (who is usually precived as the dumb one) is actually smart, while brain (who is the smart one) is actually dumb, but we're only seeing things through brains perspective who sees himself as super smart while pinky is just braindead. It's also CANON that Iceland is childish, his description in the manga says: "he tries to act mature, but he still has an immature side". WHY ARE PEOPLE IGNORING THIS??? like this boy probably steals norways coffe in the morning just to piss him off...

As an older sibling myself I can relate 😅 Younger siblings are never at fault yk? 😛 Also, as a teenager I'm sure Iceland can be quite a pain to deal with at times.

The relationship between Norway and Iceland is not really something I focus on though, because I feel like Hetalia overplays it a lot? In reality there is minimal relation between Norway and Iceland - the people of the two countries don't really have much to do with each other and historically we have not dealt with each other since the 1300s either. Norway is for sure closer to Sweden, and Iceland is much closer to Denmark than Norway. It's a shame that those relations aren't focused on as much.

[elaho]

The Moms of Stardew Valley Cultural Flower Dance Outfits :) Caroline - Spain (Murcia region) Robin - Netherlands (Urk village, Flevoland region) Pam - Ireland Jodi - Iceland

More cultural flower dance outfits are in the works! I’m hoping to launch each flower dance mod based on family, and possibly one big one for players who want to used all of them (but we’ll see). 

[hatari-translations]

Are there certain stereotypes associated with certain names in Iceland? Like do some instantly bring to mind someone who’s upper class or you just get the vibe that they think they’re better than everyone else etc.? Like for me, and most other people in my area of the UK, someone called something like Bartholomew or Hamish or something automatically make me think of someone that went to private school and studies at Oxford or something

There are some vague vibes about names, sure - mostly, I think, about one of these things:

Unique names, ones your parents would've had to personally submit to the naming committee, suggest they wanted to be a bit quirky or unique, which suggests your parents were a certain sort of person.

There's a general vibe of name that's 'trendy' at a given time, when half of all parents seem to be naming their kid something with a similar sort of feel, which might suggest they're people who want to fit in and stay with it, which also suggests a certain sort of person.

Having a family name has a bit of a stuffy upper-middle-class sort of vibe, because back in the day well-to-do families that wanted to seem more sophisticated would take up family names while the general masses had patronyms, and now that you can't just make up a family name anymore, it's still those families that have them.

Having a middle name (the special Icelandic middle name concept, not a second given name) also has some indescribable pretentious vibe, even though anyone can make up one - probably part bleedover from family names proper (middle names are often family names, or resemble family names, so they feel sort of like the same kind of deal) and part the bit where they lead to longer names which I think by itself feels a little pretentious, part just the fact the vast majority of people don't have them so deciding you do want to give your child one, or take one up as an adult, takes a certain sort of person.

Plus the general sense of associating some names with old people because they were common when today's old people were being born, which I think happens everywhere.

[tovaicas]

anyways my friends activated my conlang brain and I've made smth insane as usual

red is influences, blue is Elezen-family languages, green is like a mix bc I see the Alliance cities as having a trade language (that critically is limited to them).

I see Duskwight as a separate language from Black Shroud Elezen (but sharing a lot - easy enough to learn for those speakers). Coerthan and all its derivatives are a whole different language under the Elezen umbrella and isn't mutually intelligible with BSE. Because they split so early, they probably don't share much more than root words and etymologies; within the same family so not difficult to learn for other speakers of Elezen languages, but very distinctly different.

(also I'm not listing them but the branches extend to include other diaspora Elezen languages)

[folkfashion]

Icelandic woman, Iceland, by Annriki

[halffizzbin]

If cold is bad for my body then why does it feel good

[m1male2]

Iceland

Stunning view of the Studlagil basalt canyon

[fvedyetor]

fvedya . can you PLEASE elaborate on the icelandic penis mueseum that you casually mentioned in the tags . im literlaly begging

YES I CAN

(um i talked quite a bit and i think some people may want to opt out of hearing about this soooo its under the cut)

ok so theres this museum in iceland called the 'the icelandic phallological museum' that features penises. HUNDREDS of specimens' species' penises its so crazy. including whales!! whale penises are wild, a lot of people mistake them for monsters in the ocean (tbf, in grainy photos, they do look like the lochness monster. but no, they're just cocks.)

the museum also has a bistro called the phallus cafe and bistro where you can get penis waffles. and theres a gift shop with penis themed wares.

the penis museum is looking for human donors last i heard. its been a while since i checked in on the museum so take it with a grain of salt, but they have a human penis on display but its really small and sad due to poor conditions and a bad detachment process so they are supposedly looking for a bigger and healthier one!

anyways its like my dream to go there (and omg if i could work there- thatd be so cool!!)

anyways heres the website theres not many photos and its not really explicit or anything (they got to be professional on the internet ykyk) but the waffles look soooooooo yummyyyyyy omg