Icelandic capitalisation is reassuringly close to English: you capitalise the first word of a sentence and proper names (people, places, countries), and that is almost the whole story. Crucially, Icelandic does not capitalise common nouns the way German does — so don't over-correct in that direction. The traps for an English speaker run the other way: several categories that English capitalises — days, months, languages, nationalities — are written in lowercase in Icelandic, and even the word for "I" (ég) stays small. This page lays out what to capitalise, what to keep lowercase, and exactly where English habits will trip you.
What you DO capitalise
Only two categories routinely take a capital letter.
1. The first word of a sentence. Just like English.
2. Proper names — the names of specific people, places, countries, rivers, mountains, companies, and so on.
Jón býr í Reykjavík.
Jón lives in Reykjavík. (personal name + place name capitalised)
Ísland er fallegt land.
Iceland is a beautiful country. (country name Ísland capitalised; land is a common noun, lowercase)
Hún heitir Guðrún og er frá Akureyri.
She's called Guðrún and is from Akureyri. (name + town)
Note in the second example that land ("country / land") is a common noun and stays lowercase, even though it sits right next to the capitalised country name Ísland. This is the German habit to suppress: ordinary nouns are not capitalised in Icelandic.
Titles capitalise only the first word
In titles of books, films, articles, and headings, Icelandic capitalises the first word only (plus any proper names inside the title). It does not capitalise every major word the way English title-case does. So an English speaker used to "The Old Man and the Sea" must write the Icelandic equivalent with a single initial capital.
Sjálfstætt fólk er skáldsaga eftir Halldór Laxness.
Independent People is a novel by Halldór Laxness. (only the first word of the title is capitalised; the author's name is a proper noun)
Ég las greinina „Loftslagsbreytingar á Íslandi“.
I read the article 'Climate change in Iceland'. (first word + the proper noun Íslandi capitalised; loftslagsbreytingar would only be capital here because it opens the title)
What you do NOT capitalise — the English traps
This is the heart of the page. Four big categories that English capitalises are lowercase in Icelandic.
Days of the week and months — lowercase
The names of days (mánudagur, þriðjudagur, miðvikudagur …) and months (janúar, febrúar, mars …) are ordinary common nouns in Icelandic, so they are written small. English capitalises "Monday" and "January"; Icelandic does not.
Við hittumst á mánudaginn.
We're meeting on Monday. (mánudaginn lowercase — NOT Mánudaginn)
Ég á afmæli í janúar.
My birthday is in January. (janúar lowercase)
Hann kemur næsta föstudag.
He's coming next Friday. (föstudag lowercase)
Languages — lowercase
The names of languages are lowercase. This is the one that feels most wrong to English eyes, because in English "Icelandic," "English," and "German" are always capitalised. In Icelandic they are common nouns: íslenska (Icelandic), enska (English), þýska (German), danska (Danish).
Ég tala íslensku.
I speak Icelandic. (íslensku lowercase — contrast English 'I speak Icelandic' with a capital)
Hún lærir þýsku og frönsku.
She's learning German and French. (both languages lowercase)
Talar þú ensku?
Do you speak English? (ensku lowercase)
Nationalities — lowercase, noun AND adjective
This is the deepest trap, the one competitors skip. Both the adjective of nationality (íslenskur "Icelandic," enskur "English," evrópskur "European") and the noun for a member of a nation (Íslendingur …) need care. The adjectives are lowercase: hann er íslenskur ("he is Icelandic"). The nouns for nationals, however — Íslendingur (an Icelander), Daninn (the Dane) — are treated as proper-name-like and ARE capitalised, because they derive from country names. So you get a split that English doesn't have:
| English | Icelandic | Case |
|---|---|---|
| the Icelandic language | íslenska | lowercase (language) |
| Icelandic (adjective): "he is Icelandic" | íslenskur | lowercase (adjective) |
| an Icelander (a person) | Íslendingur | CAPITAL (national noun) |
| European (adjective) | evrópskur | lowercase (adjective) |
| Iceland (the country) | Ísland | CAPITAL (place name) |
Hann er íslenskur en konan hans er dönsk.
He's Icelandic but his wife is Danish. (adjectives íslenskur, dönsk lowercase)
Hún er Íslendingur og talar íslensku.
She's an Icelander and speaks Icelandic. (Íslendingur — the national noun — is capitalised; íslensku — the language — is lowercase)
Þetta er evrópskur staðall.
This is a European standard. (evrópskur — adjective — lowercase)
So in one short sentence you can have a capital national noun and a lowercase language and a lowercase adjective all at once. The guiding logic: it is capital only if it is genuinely a name (the country Ísland, the people-noun Íslendingur derived from it); everything describing nationality or naming a language is an ordinary lowercase word.
Holidays, institutions, and derived place-adjectives
A few more categories that English speakers second-guess. Major holidays and festivals are written lowercase as common nouns: jól (Christmas), páskar (Easter), hvítasunna (Whitsun), þorláksmessa. So gleðileg jól ("merry Christmas") has a small jól even though English capitalises "Christmas."
Gleðileg jól og farsælt komandi ár!
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! (jól lowercase — it's a common noun)
Við förum til ömmu um páskana.
We're going to Grandma's over Easter. (páskana lowercase)
The names of institutions and organisations, by contrast, are proper names, so the first word is capitalised: Háskóli Íslands ("the University of Iceland"), Alþingi (the parliament). But a generic reference to "a university" (háskóli) is a lowercase common noun.
Hún lærir við Háskóla Íslands.
She studies at the University of Iceland. (institution name — capital; Íslands is the proper noun in it)
Það er gamall háskóli.
It's an old university. (generic common noun — lowercase)
Finally, adjectives derived from place names stay lowercase, mirroring the nationality rule: reykvískur ("of Reykjavík / from Reykjavík"), norðlenskur ("northern, from the north"). The place Reykjavík is capital; the adjective reykvískur is not.
Hann er reykvískur, fæddur í miðbænum.
He's a Reykjavík native, born downtown. (adjective reykvískur lowercase, though Reykjavík is capital)
ég ("I") is NOT capitalised
English is almost unique in capitalising the first-person pronoun "I" everywhere. Icelandic does not: ég ("I") is written with a small letter unless it happens to start a sentence. This is a tiny rule but a constant one — every English speaker writes a stray capital Ég mid-sentence at first.
Já, ég kem á morgun.
Yes, I'm coming tomorrow. (ég lowercase mid-sentence)
Það veit ég ekki.
That I don't know. (ég lowercase)
Ég veit það ekki.
I don't know that. (here Ég IS capital — but only because it opens the sentence)
The honorific þér / Þér
One optional flourish: the polite second-person pronoun þér ("you," formal/plural-of-respect) is sometimes capitalised as Þér in very formal or old-fashioned writing — letters, official correspondence — as a mark of deference, the way German capitalises Sie. This is (formal / archaic) and increasingly rare; modern Icelandic mostly addresses everyone with the informal þú. You will see Þér in older texts and the most formal letters, but you would not capitalise it in everyday writing.
Megum vér bjóða Yður sæti?
May we offer you a seat? (very formal/archaic Yður capitalised as deference — you will rarely produce this, but may read it)
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég tala Íslensku.
Incorrect — language names are lowercase in Icelandic.
✅ Ég tala íslensku.
I speak Icelandic.
English capitalises "Icelandic," but the Icelandic language word íslenska is an ordinary lowercase noun.
❌ Við hittumst á Mánudaginn í Janúar.
Incorrect — days and months are lowercase.
✅ Við hittumst á mánudaginn í janúar.
We're meeting on Monday in January.
Mánudagur and janúar are common nouns; only English capitalises them.
❌ Hann er Íslenskur.
Incorrect — the nationality adjective is lowercase.
✅ Hann er íslenskur.
He's Icelandic.
The adjective íslenskur is lowercase; only the people-noun Íslendingur and the country Ísland take a capital.
❌ Á morgun kem Ég.
Incorrect — ég is not capitalised mid-sentence.
✅ Á morgun kem ég.
Tomorrow I'm coming.
Unlike English "I," Icelandic ég is lowercase unless it starts the sentence.
Key Takeaways
- Capitalise only sentence starts and proper names (Jón, Reykjavík, Ísland). Common nouns stay lowercase — Icelandic is not German.
- Lowercase: days (mánudagur), months (janúar), languages (íslenska, enska, þýska), and nationality adjectives (íslenskur, evrópskur).
- Capital: country names (Ísland) and the people-nouns derived from them (Íslendingur, Dani) — but not the matching adjective or language.
- ég ("I") is lowercase mid-sentence — drop the English habit of capitalising it everywhere.
- Titles capitalise only the first word (plus internal proper names), not every major word.
- The honorific Þér / Yður may be capitalised in very formal or archaic writing, but modern usage prefers informal þú.
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