This page covers the words Icelandic uses to talk about indefinite and negative quantities: nokkur "some / any", sumur "some (out of a set)", enginn "no / none / nobody", and the neuter negatives ekkert "nothing" and ekki "not". These are determiners — they sit in front of a noun and tell you how much or how many in vague or negative terms. The tricky part for English speakers is not the meanings themselves but the mismatches: English splits "some" and "any" into two words and chooses between them by sentence type, whereas Icelandic uses a single word, nokkur, for both. And enginn, the everyday word for "no / none", happens to be one of the most irregularly declined words in the language. (Where these words stand alone as pronouns — enginn "nobody", sumir "some people" — that pronominal use is on the Indefinite Pronouns page. Here we focus on them as quantifiers before a noun, plus their declension.)
nokkur — one word for both "some" and "any"
English has an invisible rule it never teaches openly: you say "some" in plain statements (I have some money) but switch to "any" in questions and negatives (Do you have any money? I don't have any money). Icelandic has no such switch. The single word nokkur covers both. Whether you are stating, asking, or denying, the quantifier is nokkur (in the appropriate gender, number and case).
Áttu nokkra peninga?
Do you have any money? (question → nokkra, accusative masculine plural — English 'any')
Ég á nokkra vini í Reykjavík.
I have some friends in Reykjavík. (statement → 'some', same word nokkur)
Er nokkur heima?
Is anyone home? (nokkur standing alone = 'anyone' in a question)
The lesson is to stop reaching for two different words. When you feel the English "any" coming on in a question or negative, the Icelandic is still nokkur — you only change the case and number to fit the noun, never the word itself.
Hefurðu nokkurn tíma komið til Íslands?
Have you ever been to Iceland? (nokkurn tíma = 'any time / ever' — masculine accusative nokkurn)
Það er ekki nokkur leið að klára þetta í dag.
There's no way at all to finish this today. (ekki + nokkur for emphatic 'not any')
nokkur declines like an adjective, with a stem in nokkr- in most oblique forms: masc. acc. nokkurn, fem. nokkra, plural nokkrir / nokkrar / nokkur, dative nokkrum, genitive nokkurra. The doubled r in the genitive nokkurra is a spelling trap worth flagging.
sumur — "some" out of a known set
Where nokkur means "some amount / any amount at all", sumur means "some of a particular, definite set, as opposed to the rest". It is partitive: it splits a known group into the some and the others. Crucially, sumur leans heavily plural — you meet it far more often as sumir / sumar / sum "some (of them)" than in the singular. The classic pattern is sumir … aðrir "some … others".
Sumir nemendur skiluðu verkefninu, aðrir ekki.
Some students handed in the assignment, others didn't. (sumir picks part of a known group)
Sum húsin í götunni eru mjög gömul.
Some of the houses on the street are very old. (neuter plural sum, of a definite set)
Sumt fólk þolir ekki kuldann.
Some people can't stand the cold. (neuter singular sumt with the collective fólk)
The contrast with nokkur is real and meaningful. Ég á nokkra vini is "I have some/a few friends" (an indefinite quantity out of nobody in particular). Sumir vinir mínir búa erlendis is "some of my friends live abroad" (a subset of a specific group — my friends — implying the rest don't). If there is no defined set to carve up, you want nokkur; if you are partitioning a known group, you want sumur.
enginn — "no / none", and its irregular declension
For negation as a quantity — "no money", "no time", "nobody" — Icelandic uses enginn. It is high-frequency and badly behaved: its paradigm is one of the genuinely irregular ones in the language, blending forms you would not predict and a suppletive genitive. Memorise it as a block.
| Masc. | Fem. | Neut. | Plural (m / f / n) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. | enginn | engin | ekkert | engir / engar / engin |
| Acc. | engan | enga | ekkert | enga / engar / engin |
| Dat. | engum | engri | engu | engum / engum / engum |
| Gen. | einskis | engrar | einskis | engra / engra / engra |
Several orthographic and morphological landmines live in this table. The masculine nominative enginn has a double n. The feminine nominative engin has a single n — enginn vs engin differ by exactly that doubling, and the difference is grammatically loaded. The neuter is the odd ekkert (with kk and a final t), not anything in eng-. And the genitive singular for masculine and neuter is the wholly suppletive einskis — it does not contain eng- at all and has to be learned outright.
Enginn maður getur lifað án vatns.
No man can live without water. (masculine nominative enginn)
Það var engin kona í herberginu.
There was no woman in the room. (feminine engin — single n)
Þetta er ekkert vandamál.
That's no problem at all. (neuter ekkert before a neuter noun)
Ég sá engan á planinu.
I saw no one in the car park. (masculine accusative engan)
Þetta er virði einskis.
This is worth nothing. (genitive einskis — suppletive, not 'engs')
A point Icelandic shares with English and not with Spanish: because enginn / ekkert are already negative, you do not add a second ekki. "Nobody came" is enginn kom, full stop — never enginn kom ekki.
ekkert and ekki — the neuter negative and its adverb twin
Look again at that neuter cell: ekkert "nothing / no (neuter)". It is no accident that it rhymes with the negative adverb ekki "not". They share the same negative root, and they divide the work cleanly:
- ekkert is a determiner / pronoun: "no (thing)" before a neuter noun, or "nothing" standing alone.
- ekki is an adverb: it negates a verb or a whole clause — "not".
So "no money (neuter)" calls for ekkert, "I have nothing" calls for ekkert, but "I am not coming" calls for ekki. Think of ekkert as the noun-world member of the negative family and ekki as the verb-world member.
Ég hef ekkert að segja.
I have nothing to say. (ekkert as a pronoun, 'nothing')
Það er ekkert kaffi eftir.
There's no coffee left. (ekkert as a determiner before neuter kaffi)
Ég kem ekki í kvöld.
I'm not coming tonight. (ekki = the adverb 'not', negating the verb)
(The precise placement of ekki in the clause — where it sits relative to the verb and the object — is a syntax topic with its own page; here we are only distinguishing it from the determiner ekkert.)
English vs Icelandic — the map of "some / any / no"
| English | Context | Icelandic |
|---|---|---|
| some | plain statement, indefinite amount | nokkur |
| any | question / negative | nokkur (same word!) |
| some of the … | partitive, a known set | sumur (usually plural sumir) |
| no / none | negation of a noun | enginn / ekkert |
| not | negation of a verb | ekki (adverb) |
The headline for an English speaker: the two rows that look different to you — "some" and "any" — collapse into one Icelandic word, while the one word you think is simple — "no" — explodes into a fully irregular paradigm. Spend your effort accordingly: don't agonise over some vs any (it's all nokkur), but do drill the enginn table.
Common Mistakes
❌ Áttu eitthvað peninga?
Incorrect — for 'any money' in a question Icelandic uses nokkur(a), not eitthvað.
✅ Áttu nokkra peninga?
Do you have any money?
Trying to translate "any" with a separate word (often reaching for eitthvað "something") is the commonest transfer error. English's some/any split has no Icelandic equivalent: use nokkur for both, and just inflect it (nokkra here, accusative plural).
❌ Það var enginn kona þarna.
Incorrect — before a feminine noun use the feminine engin (single n), not masculine enginn.
✅ Það var engin kona þarna.
There was no woman there.
enginn (masc., double n) and engin (fem., single n) are a minimal pair. Match the gender of the noun — and watch the consonant doubling, because here it is the whole difference.
❌ Þetta er virði engs.
Incorrect — the genitive of enginn is the suppletive einskis, not a regular 'engs'.
✅ Þetta er virði einskis.
This is worth nothing.
The masculine/neuter genitive of enginn is einskis, an irregular form with no eng- in it. You cannot derive it by rule; learn it as a fixed shape.
❌ Enginn kom ekki í veisluna.
Incorrect — double negation; enginn already means 'nobody'.
✅ Enginn kom í veisluna.
Nobody came to the party.
Unlike Spanish, Icelandic does not stack negatives. enginn and ekkert are inherently negative, so adding ekki creates a double negative the language doesn't use.
❌ Ég hef nokkur að segja.
Incorrect — 'I have nothing to say' is a negation of a thing → ekkert, not nokkur.
✅ Ég hef ekkert að segja.
I have nothing to say.
"Nothing" is the neuter negative ekkert, from the enginn family — not nokkur ("some/any"). Don't let the indefinite and the negative blur together.
Key Takeaways
- nokkur covers both English "some" and "any" — the some/any switch doesn't exist in Icelandic. Change only the case and number (nokkra, nokkurn, nokkrum, nokkurra), never the word.
- sumur is partitive — "some of a known set", strongly plural (sumir … aðrir "some … others"). Use it only when there is a defined group to split.
- enginn "no / none" is irregular: masc. enginn (double n) vs fem. engin (single n), neuter ekkert, acc. engan, dat. engum/engu, and the suppletive genitive einskis.
- The neuter ekkert (determiner/pronoun "nothing") and the adverb ekki ("not") share one negative root: ekkert negates nouns, ekki negates verbs.
- Like English and unlike Spanish, Icelandic uses one negator: enginn kom, never enginn kom ekki.
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
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