hverjar

Hverjar is a word in Icelandic that functions as the feminine plural form of the interrogative determiner or pronoun hver, meaning “which” or “what.” It is used when the referent is feminine in gender and the question concerns more than one item.

Grammatical notes: hver inflects for gender and number, and hverjar is the feminine plural form used with feminine nouns in questions or dependent clauses. In standard usage it appears in combinations that require a feminine plural subject or object, and it can occur in nominative or accusative positions, among others, depending on the sentence structure.

Usage and examples: a common example is Hverjar af þessum konum hafa komið? which translates to “Which of these women have arrived?” The form is chosen to agree with a feminine plural noun, and it is typically found in direct questions or in subordinate clauses where the feminine plural is the antecedent.

Etymology: hverjar derives from Old Norse hverr, the historical form for “which,” and is related to cognates across the Germanic languages. The word has maintained its interrogative function in modern Icelandic, adapting its form to fit the language’s gender and number agreement system.