The Icelandic word einangrun consists of two stems. The first part of the word is ein, which means “1”, while the second part is angrun, which means “sadness” or “sorrow”, and is related to words like “angurvaerd” (“melancholy”) and “angur” (“sorrow”). In other words, einangrun literally means the sadness or sorrow of being alone. Corresponding words in other languages are constructed differently. Many languages of the European continent, probably most of them, have concepts that derive from the Latin word “isola”, meaning “island”. “Isolation” means to be like an island in some sense.

Text by Hermann Stefánson