Textinn er skrifaður á íslensku.

Texti means text, while textinn means the text.

Icelandic usually puts the definite article on the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like English the. So:

• texti = text / a text
• textinn = the text

That -inn ending is the definite article.

Er is the present-tense form of vera, which means to be.

Here it means is:

• Textinn er skrifaður = The text is written

It is the 3rd person singular form, used because textinn is singular.

Because skrifaður has to agree with textinn.

Skrifaður is the past participle of skrifa (to write), and in Icelandic participles often change form to match the noun in gender, number, and case.

Here, textinn is:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

So the matching form is skrifaður.

Compare:

• textinn er skrifaður = masculine
• bókin er skrifuð = feminine
• bréfið er skrifað = neuter

English does not do this, but Icelandic does.

Yes — you can understand it as a passive, just like English is written.

So:

• Textinn er skrifaður á íslensku = The text is written in Icelandic

In practice, forms like this can also feel adjective-like, but for a learner it is perfectly right to read er skrifaður as is written.

Because Icelandic commonly uses á when saying that something is in a language.

So:

• á íslensku = in Icelandic
• á ensku = in English
• á dönsku = in Danish

This does not match English literally, since English uses in, but in Icelandic á is the normal choice in this expression.

Íslensku is the dative singular form of íslenska, meaning Icelandic as a language.

In the phrase á íslensku, the preposition á takes the dative here, so íslenska becomes íslensku.

So this is not a random ending — it is the grammatical form required by the phrase.

Because names of languages are normally not capitalized in Icelandic.

So Icelandic writes:

• íslenska
• enska
• þýska

not Íslenska, Enska, Þýska, unless the word starts the sentence.

This is different from English, where Icelandic and English are capitalized.

Yes. That is a very natural sentence.

• Textinn er á íslensku = The text is in Icelandic
• Textinn er skrifaður á íslensku = The text is written in Icelandic

The version with skrifaður is a bit more explicit. The shorter version is also common.

You move the verb to the front:

Er textinn skrifaður á íslensku?

That means Is the text written in Icelandic?

This kind of verb-subject inversion is a normal way to form yes/no questions in Icelandic.

A simple learner-friendly approximation is SKRI-fa-thur, with the stress on the first syllable.

A few useful points:

• Icelandic words are usually stressed on the first syllable.
• ð sounds like the th in this, not the th in thing.
• The final -ur is a very common Icelandic ending.

So skrifaður should not sound like skrifadur with a hard d.