Indefinite Pronouns: maður, einhver, enginn, allir | Icelandic Grammar

Indefinite pronouns are the words for unspecified people and things — "someone, something, no one, nothing, everyone, some people". Icelandic has a full set, and most of them decline like adjectives or like the demonstrative sá, so they are not the frozen little words English speakers expect. But the most important member of the set is something English has no real equivalent for: the generic maður, literally "(a) man", used to mean "one / you / people in general". Mastering generic maður is the key to sounding natural in Icelandic, because it does the job that English so often hands to the passive or to a vague "you". This page surveys the indefinite pronouns and their generic uses; their fuller paradigms (and the special case of annar "another") live on dedicated pages.

Generic maður — "one / you / people"

Start with the most useful one. Maður is the ordinary noun "man", but Icelandic uses it constantly in a generic, impersonal sense: "one does", "you do", "people do" — a statement about anybody, nobody in particular. It is masculine and takes a third-person singular verb, and it declines like any -ur masculine noun: nom. maður, acc./dat. mann, gen. manns.

Maður veit aldrei hvað gerist á morgun.

You never know what'll happen tomorrow. (maður = generic 'you/one')

Maður á að borða grænmeti á hverjum degi.

One should eat vegetables every day. (generic statement, maður as subject)

Þetta venst þegar maður gerir það á hverjum degi.

You get used to it when you do it every day. (maður, 3rd-person sg. verb gerir)

The crucial point for English speakers is stylistic: where English reaches for a passive ("It is said that…", "This is done by…") or a vague "you", idiomatic Icelandic very often prefers generic maður. So "You can see the northern lights from here" is naturally Maður sér norðurljósin héðan, and "One never knows" is Maður veit aldrei — not a passive construction. Reaching for maður first, before building a passive, is one of the fastest ways to sound less like a textbook.

Héðan sér maður alla borgina.

From here you can see the whole city. (maður, where English might use a passive or 'you')

Maður segir ekki svona hluti við ókunnuga.

One doesn't say things like that to strangers. (generic prohibition)

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When you catch yourself building an English passive ("it is done", "things are said"), pause and ask whether Icelandic would just say maður + an active verb. Nine times out of ten in conversation, it would: maður gerir þetta svona "this is done like this / you do it like this".

When the generic person is the object or possessor, maður declines: Það er gott fyrir mann að hreyfa sig "It's good for one to get some exercise" (acc. mann), Líf manns breytist "One's life changes" (gen. manns). Don't leave it stuck in the nominative.

einhver "someone" and eitthvað "something"

For a specific but unidentified person or thing, use einhver "someone / somebody" and eitthvað "something". These are built transparently from ein- ("one") plus the interrogatives hver "who" and hvað "what" — and in careful style both parts decline: nominative einhver, accusative einhvern, dative einhverjum, genitive einhvers. Einhver also works as a determiner before a noun ("some… or other"), but here we care about its standalone pronominal use.

Einhver hringdi á meðan þú varst úti.

Someone called while you were out. (einhver as subject)

Ég sá einhvern fyrir utan húsið.

I saw someone outside the house. (accusative einhvern)

Það er eitthvað að símanum mínum.

There's something wrong with my phone. (eitthvað = 'something'; að e-u = 'wrong with')

Note the spelling: eitthvað has the doubled tt of eitt (neuter of einn) glued to hvað. The neuter eitthvað is for things; the common-gender einhver is for people (and, loosely, for "some… one" of any noun). In fast speech these often reduce, but in writing keep the full forms.

Viltu eitthvað að borða?

Do you want something to eat? (eitthvað + að + infinitive)

enginn "no one" and ekkert "nothing"

For total negation Icelandic uses enginn "no one / nobody" (and as a determiner "no…") and its neuter ekkert "nothing". Enginn declines like an adjective with some irregular cells (acc. engan, dat. engum, gen. einskis); the neuter is ekkert. The vital point: because enginn / ekkert are already negative, you do not add a second negation. Icelandic here behaves like standard English, not like Spanish: "nobody came" is enginn kom, with no extra ekki.

Enginn kom í veisluna.

Nobody came to the party. (enginn alone is negative — no extra ekki)

Ég sá engan á ganginum.

I saw no one in the hallway. (accusative engan)

Það er ekkert að gera í kvöld.

There's nothing to do tonight. (ekkert = neuter 'nothing')

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One negator only. Say enginn kom "nobody came", never enginn kom ekki. Icelandic is not a double-negative language: enginn and ekkert already carry the "no".

allir "everyone" and sumir "some people"

For the universal "everyone / all" use the plural allir (m.), allar (f.), öll (n.); for the partitive "some (people)" use the plural sumir / sumar / sum. Both are plural pronouns when they stand alone, and both decline. Note the u-umlaut in the neuter öll (from all- → öll) and watch the doubled ll.

Allir vita að þetta er ómögulegt.

Everyone knows this is impossible. (allir = 'everyone', plural verb vita)

Sumir kunna vel við veturinn, aðrir ekki.

Some people like the winter, others don't. (sumir … aðrir = 'some … others')

Þetta kemur öllum við.

This concerns everyone. (dative öllum after koma … við)

A subtle gender point: "everyone" as a generic group of mixed people is öll (neuter plural) in modern inclusive usage, while allir (masculine plural) is the traditional default and still extremely common. Both are correct; the neuter öll is increasingly used to be explicitly gender-inclusive.

A quick map of the set

Meaning	People	Things (neut.)
generic "one / you"	maður	—
"some-"	einhver	eitthvað
"no-"	enginn	ekkert
"every- / all"	allir / öll	allt
"some (of a group)"	sumir	sumt
"another / other"	annar	annað

The neuter "everything" is allt (doubled llt) and the neuter "some / some of it" is sumt. Annar "another / the other" is on the list for completeness — it points at "one more" or "the other one" — but its full, rather irregular paradigm has its own page.

Ég vil fá annan kaffibolla, takk.

I'd like another cup of coffee, please. (annar = 'another', here accusative annan)

Allt er klárt fyrir veisluna.

Everything is ready for the party. (allt = neuter 'everything')

Common Mistakes

❌ Fólk veit aldrei hvað gerist.

Acceptable but un-idiomatic for a generic statement — Icelandic prefers maður here.

✅ Maður veit aldrei hvað gerist.

You never know what'll happen. (generic maður is the natural choice)

Reaching for fólk "people" or building a passive for every English generic "you / one / people" is the commonest stylistic transfer error. Default to generic maður.

❌ Ég sá einhver fyrir utan.

Incorrect — as the object, einhver must take the accusative einhvern.

✅ Ég sá einhvern fyrir utan.

I saw someone outside.

Einhver declines. Don't freeze it in the nominative the way English keeps "someone" unchanged.

❌ Enginn kom ekki í veisluna.

Incorrect — double negation; enginn already means 'nobody'.

✅ Enginn kom í veisluna.

Nobody came to the party.

Enginn and ekkert are inherently negative. Adding ekki creates a double negative Icelandic doesn't use.

❌ Það er gott fyrir maður að hreyfa sig.

Incorrect — after the preposition fyrir, maður takes the accusative mann.

✅ Það er gott fyrir mann að hreyfa sig.

It's good for one to get some exercise.

Generic maður still obeys case. After fyrir (acc.) it becomes mann; in the genitive it is manns.

❌ Allir veit að þetta er satt.

Incorrect — allir is plural and needs a plural verb.

✅ Allir vita að þetta er satt.

Everyone knows this is true.

Although English "everyone" takes a singular verb, Icelandic allir is grammatically plural — allir vita, not allir veit.

Key Takeaways

Generic maður "one / you / people" is the default Icelandic strategy for impersonal statements and very often replaces an English passive; it declines (maður / mann / manns) and takes a singular verb.
einhver "someone" and eitthvað "something" decline (acc. einhvern; neut. eitthvað) — don't keep them invariant.
enginn "no one" and ekkert "nothing" are already negative; never add a second ekki.
allir / öll "everyone" is plural and takes a plural verb; sumir "some people", allt "everything", sumt "some", annað "another (thing)" round out the set.
Watch the orthography: doubled letters in eitthvað, allt, öll, enginn, the u-umlaut in öll, and the irregular negative genitive einskis.

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