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Icelanders are among the most voracious readers and book publishers according to a recent article on RÚV, reporting on research done by Professor Ágúst Einarsson. In addition, more Icelanders work in an arts-related job, even compared with all other Nordic or EU countries. More attend the theater, visit museums and see movies. You get the idea, they are into culture 🙂 Here are some excerpts from the article as well as some vocabulary:
Lesum mest og gefum út flestar bækur
We Read The Most And Publish The Most Books
“Íslendingar virðast sækjast meira eftir menningu en aðrar Norðurlandaþjóðir og hér starfa hlutfallslega miklu fleiri við menningarmál en í öðrum löndum Evrópu.”
“Icelanders apparently seek out culture more than other Nordic citizens, and per capita more people work in culture related jobs than in other European countries.”
Yes, gefa út does look like give out, but it means publish 🙂 Not too long ago I learned that give out is gefa upp. Learning which prepositions to use has to be one of the hardest things in this language.
gefa út publish sækjast eftir + dative desire, strive for virðast seem, appear to be hlutfalls·legur adj proportional menning f (-ar,-ar) civilization, culture
“Helmingur Íslendinga les meira en 8 bækur á ári og aðeins Svíar og Finnar lesa meira. 93% Íslendinga lesa meira en eina bók ári og er það hlutfall hvergi hærra.”
“Half of Icelanders read more than 8 books per year, and only the Swedes and Finns read more. 93% of Icelanders read more than one book per year, and that proportion is nowhere higher.”
“Hér á landi hafa 3,2% vinnandi fólks lífsviðurværi sitt af menningu og er það hæsta hlutfall af 20 Evrópuríkjum sem borin eru saman í rannsókninni, nærri helmingi hærra hlutfall en meðaltal Evrópusambandsríkjanna.”
“In Iceland 3.2% of people make a living in a culture-related job, and that is the highest proportion out of 20 countries that were compared in the research, almost half as many more than the average for European Union countries.”
lífs·viðurværi n (-s) livelihood bera saman compare nærri almost meðal·tal n (-s) average, mean
“Aldrei hafa jafn margar bækur verið gefnar út hér á landi og í fyrra. Bókaútgáfa á hverja þúsund íbúa á Norðurlöndunum er mest hér á landi. Hér eru gefnar út nærri þrefalt fleiri bækur en í Svíþjóð og í Noregi. Um helmingi fleiri en í Danmörku og í Finnlandi.”
“Never have so many books been published in Iceland as were last year. The number of books published per thousand inhabitants among the Nordic countries is highest in Iceland. Almost three times more books are published here than in Sweden and Norway. About half more than in Denmark and Finnland.”
You’ve probably noticed the phrase hér á landi – it’s used quite a bit to mean here in Iceland. In many phrases that use land, the fact that it is referring to Iceland is often just understood (koma til landsins).
helming/ur m (-s,-ar) half þre/faldur adj (f -föld) threefold, triple
My own collection of Icelandic books is slowly growing, and just waiting for my abilities to catch up. Eventually I’m going to have a lot of reading to do 🙂