ekkert glúten
The Icelandic phrase for "no gluten" is ekkert glúten.
The phrase ekkert glúten is used to indicate that a food or drink does not contain the protein gluten. While this phrase literally means "no gluten", the adjective glútenfrítt is more commonly used on food packaging to mean "gluten-free".
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase is composed of ekkert (no/nothing) and glúten (gluten).
How does it change in a sentence?
In this phrase, glúten is a neuter noun. The word ekkert is the neuter form of the negation pronoun, used here to agree with the neuter noun glúten.
Did you know?
- The term glúten is a loanword, and Icelandic linguistic purism often attempts to create native versions of such words, though scientific terms are frequently left as international cognates.
- If you were to describe a person who cannot eat gluten, you would not use the word for 'no gluten' but would instead use terms related to 'intolerance' or 'allergy'.
- Because Icelandic is a highly inflected language, the phrase might change its ending if it were part of a larger sentence structure, though it stays simple in isolation.
Example conversation
Guðrún and Ólafur are looking at a menu at a cafe.
- GuðrúnÓlafur, viltu sjá eftir kakanum?Ólafur, do you want to check the cake?
- ÓlafurJá, er það ekkert glúten?Yes, is it no gluten?
- GuðrúnJá, það stendur hér að það sé ekkert glúten.Yes, it says here that there is no gluten.
- ÓlafurÞá kaupum við það!Then we will buy it!
