Ég á systur og bróður.

I have a sister and a brother.

Breakdown of Ég á systur og bróður.

• ég: I
• eiga: to have
• og: and
• systirin: the sister

Questions & Answers about Ég á systur og bróður.

Why is the verb á used here instead of hafa?

In Icelandic, possession of things and family members is normally expressed with the verb eiga (first‐person singular á), not hafa. So you say ég á bíl (I have a car) or ég á systur (I have a sister). hafa exists but is mainly used in abstract or idiomatic contexts (for example hafa tíma = to have time), not for saying “I have a sister.”

What case are systur and bróður, and why do they take that case?

The verb eiga governs the dative case in Icelandic. That means its objects must be in dative. systur is the dative singular of systir (sister) and bróður is the dative singular of bróðir (brother). So ég á systur og bróður literally is “I have sister-DAT and brother-DAT.”

Why are they spelled systur and bróður instead of systir and bróðir?

These are just the regular dative-singular forms:

• systir → systur (a feminine -ir noun replaces -ir with -ur in the dative)
• bróðir → bróður (an irregular masculine -ir stem whose genitive and dative both are -uðr)