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Hér eru tvö skjöl, annað er frumritið en hitt er afritið.

Hér eru tvö skjöl, annað er frumritið en hitt er afritið.
Here are two documents, one is the original but the other is the copy.
From Lesson 176:One and the other (einn... annar)·Icelandic

Questions & Answers about Hér eru tvö skjöl, annað er frumritið en hitt er afritið.

Why does the sentence use annað ... hitt for "one ... the other" instead of eitt ... annað?
In Icelandic, when you are talking about exactly two specific things, you use the combination annar ... hinn (here in the neuter forms annað ... hitt). You use einn ... annar when picking "one" and "another" out of a larger group of three or more.
Why are the pronouns annað and hitt in the neuter form here?
They refer back to the noun skjöl (documents). Since the singular noun skjal is neuter, the pronouns standing in for it must also be in the neuter singular form to match.
Why do frumritið and afritið end in -ið?
The suffix -ið is the attached definite article for neuter words, meaning "the". Frumrit means "original" and afrit means "copy", so adding -ið makes them "the original" and "the copy".
How do we know skjöl is plural if it doesn't have a typical plural ending?
The word tvö (two) is the obvious clue, but the noun itself has changed from its singular form skjal. The vowel shifts from "a" to "ö" due to the U-shift rule, which is how many neuter nouns form their plural.

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