Interrogative Pronouns: hver, hvað, hvor

To ask "who?", "what?" and "which?" Icelandic uses three pronouns, and the choice between them is sharper than in English. Hver asks "who?" about people and "which one?" when selecting from many; hvað asks "what?"; and hvor asks "which?" when the choice is between exactly two. The feature that catches English speakers is that these question words inflect for case — Icelandic still has a full set of forms where English has only the lone survivor "whom." So "who did you talk to?" is not built with a fixed "who" but with the dative hverjum, because the preposition demands it.

The three pronouns at a glance

There is also the indeclinable word hvaða, used directly before a noun to mean "which/what (book, house…)" — hvaða bók? "which book?" It never changes shape and is treated as a determiner; the related-pages link covers it. On this page the focus is the three true pronouns above.

hver: full declension

Hver is the workhorse, and it declines for gender, number and case like an adjective. Here is the singular, which is what you will use most when asking "who?":

And the plural ("who?" / "which ones?" about a group):

When you ask "who?" about an unknown person, the masculine forms (hver / hvern / hverjum / hvers) are the default — Icelandic uses masculine as the generic. The neuter has the special standalone form hvað ("what"), which is why hvað is often listed as a separate pronoun; treat it as the neuter "what" partner of hver and learn it in its own right below.

The third example is the one English cannot mirror: "who did you give it to?" forces the dative hverjum, because gefa assigns the recipient a dative. There is no "to" floating in the sentence; the case does that job. English speakers, used to a single invariant "who," routinely leave the question word in its nominative shape here — and that is the core error to unlearn.

Case is assigned to the question word

The governing principle is identical to the one that runs the whole case system: the verb or preposition assigns the case, and the interrogative obeys, no matter that it sits at the front of the clause. Even though hvern opens the sentence, it is the object of sjá, so it is accusative. The fronting (moving the question word to the start) does not protect it from inflection.

Compare the first two: við takes the accusative, so "with/to whom" after it is hvern; með takes the dative, so it is hverjum. The English "who" stays the same in both; the Icelandic interrogative flips to match its preposition. Notice too that Icelandic, like English, can leave the preposition at the front (við hvern) — you do not strand it the way you might in casual English ("who did you talk to?").

hvað: "what"

Hvað asks about the identity of a thing or a situation. In its everyday use as "what?" standing alone, it behaves as a fixed form — you will rarely inflect it in beginner speech. Its dative hverju and genitive hvers surface mainly in set phrases and after governing prepositions.

In hvað er þetta? the question word is the predicate of "to be" and stays hvað. In the third, more formal example, the preposition á pulls out the neuter dative hverju — the same word that hvað hides behind in its oblique cases.

hvor: "which of two"

Hvor is reserved for a choice between exactly two options — two people, two roads, two cakes. It declines like hver but on a hvor- stem: hvor / hvorn / hvorum / hvors (masc.), hvor / hvora / hvorri / hvorrar (fem.), hvort / hvort / hvoru / hvors (neut.). When the field is two, hver is wrong and hvor is required.

Keep the contrast vivid: among three or more restaurants you ask hvern / hvaða veitingastað; between just two you ask hvorn. Choosing hver for a two-way choice is the most common slip, since English uses "which" for both.

Common Mistakes

Leaving the interrogative in its nominative form after a preposition is the signature English-transfer error. The preposition's case reaches the question word even at the front of the clause.

A choice between two takes hvor, not hver. English "which" hides this distinction, so it must be applied deliberately.

When the question word is the object of the verb, it goes accusative (or whatever case the verb assigns), exactly like a noun would.

The neuter has two shapes: hvað when it stands alone ("what?"), hvert when it modifies a noun ("which?"). Mixing them up sends the wrong signal about whether a noun is coming.

The determiner hvaða never inflects and takes a plain noun. Trying to decline it, or pairing it with a definite/declined noun, breaks the construction.

Key Takeaways

• hver = who / which of many (declines fully: hver/hvern/hverjum/hvers in the masculine singular).
• hvað = what (mostly fixed standalone; oblique cases hverju, hvers appear after governing words).
• hvor = which of exactly two (hvor/hvorn/hvorum/hvors…).
• The interrogative inflects for the case its verb or preposition assigns — við hvern (acc.), með hverjum (dat.) — even when fronted.
• The indeclinable hvaða
  • bare noun handles "which [noun]"; don't confuse the neuter hvað (alone) with hvert (with a noun).