Place and direction

Icelandic has a full range of adverbs for expressing where something is, as well as movement to or from a location.

Basics

The basic set of place and direction adverbs is as follows:

←•	↓	→•
héðan	hér(na)	hingað
þaðan	þar(na)	þangað
hvaðan?	hvar?	hvert?

The adverbs in the middle column all refer to a ⬇️ static location: there’s no movement involved. For example:

Hann hefur búið hér alla ævi sína.
Búðin stendur þar á horninu.
Hvar áttu heima?

You’ll notice that hér and þar also have the alternative forms hérna and þarna. These are used for emphasis, and mean something like “right here” and “right there”:

Glasið þitt er hérna.
Hún stendur þarna við gluggann.

Motion towards

The 3 adverbs hingað, þangað and hvert all refer to ➡️ motion towards the place in question:

Við fluttum hingað eftir að gosin byrjuðu.
Hefurðu einhvern tímann farið þangað?
Hvert ætlum við út að borða?

Motion away

The 3 adverbs héðan, þaðan and hvaðan all refer to ⬅️ motion away from the place in question:

Brynja færði stólinn héðan út á svalirnar.
Hann labbaði þaðan og svo í vinnuna.
Hvaðan er hún?

Home

To the basic set above, we can add the following 3 adverbs that describe 🏡 home:

←•	↓	→•
að heiman	heima	heim

The principle is the same as above: heima refers to a static location, heim refers to motion towards home, and að heiman refers to motion from home:

Er hann ekki heima?
Mig langar heim núna.
Ásdís flutti að heiman á ungum aldri.

Relative position

As well as the basic set above, Icelandic has another group of 4 adverbs that indicate relative position. These adverbs all distinguish between a static position and motion:

Movement	Lack of movement
inn	inni
út	úti
upp	uppi
niður	niðri

These adverbs can be combined with hundreds of different verbs of motion or position, to give more detail about how a movement takes place or where something is located:

Þau gengu inn í húsið.
Sjónvarpið er inni í stofunni.
Hann hellti rjóma út í kaffið.
Grillið stendur úti á pallinum.
Gamla konan labbaði upp götuna.
Frændi minn býr uppi.
Við hjóluðum niður í bæinn til að kaupa ís.
Frystirinn er niðri í kjallaranum.

It’s important not to confuse this set of adverbs with prepositions, as at first glance it can seem like there is some overlap. But remember: adverbs never govern case in Icelandic. In all of these sentences, the case is determined by the verb indicating movement, or a preposition like í or á.

Cardinal directions

Cardinal directions, or 🧭 points of the compass, are another set of the adverbs that indicate place or direction. Like the basic set of place and direction adverbs, they make a 3-way distinction between a static location, movement towards and movement away:

←•	↓	→•
að norðan	fyrir norðan	norður
að austan	fyrir austan	austur
að sunnan	fyrir sunnan	suður
að vestan	fyrir vestan	vestur

Let’s look at some examples:

Á morgun keyrum við norður.
Þau búa fyrir sunnan núna.
Vindurinn kom að vestan.

Idiomatic usage

Within Iceland, the cardinal adverbs have taken on specific meanings that don’t always map logically onto the compass points:

• að norðan, fyrir norðan, norður refer to North Iceland,
• að austan, fyrir austan, austur refer to East Iceland (roughly the area east of Skaftafell on the south coast),
• að sunnan, fyrir sunnan, suður generally refer to the Reykjavík area, but can also refer to South Iceland,
• að vestan, fyrir vestan, veður generally refer to the Westfjords, rather than West Iceland.