# Icelandic: hins/annars vegar



## Alxmrphi

> Birgitta Jónsdóttir, þingmaður Hreyfingarinnar, hefur fengið tvo  bandaríska lögfræðinga til að kanna réttarstöðu sína gagnvart  bandarískum dómsmálayfirvöldum.     Yfirvöld í Bandaríkjunum hafa krafið samskiptasíðuna Twitter um  upplýsingar um tölvunotkun Birgittu. Þetta er gert í tengslum við  sakamálarannsókn á Wikileaks. Birgitta er stödd í Kanada og mun í dag  ráðfæra sig við lögfræðinga frá tveimur bandarískum samtökum, annars  vegar um borgaraleg réttindi (American Civil Liberties Union) og hins  vegar samtökunum Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF


Birgitta Jónsdóttir, member of The (Icelandic) Movement, has two American lawyers to look into her legal status relating to the American court authorities. The authorities in America have demanded the social networking site Twitter hand over information about Birgitta's computer usage. This is being done in connection with the criminal investigation into Wikileaks. Birgitta is in Canada at the moment and will consult with her lawyers later today from two American organisations, on the other hand with civil liberties (ACLU) and on the other hand, the EFF.
​Hi all,

I'm a little confused with the last sentence here.
I can't tell if the two lawyers are being consulted and then _*on the other hand *_she is *also* meeting with the ACLU and EFF, or if I've misunderstood the translations of* hins vegar* and and* annars vegar* and it doesn't mean "on the other hand", and the two lawyers are actually from the EFF/ACLU, which probably makes sense.

If that's the case, what is the meaning of *annars/hins vegar* in the last sentence, because I can't make sense of it otherwise. With "*um borgarleg réttindi*", is this "about civil rights" or is it somehow adjectively modifying the ACLU, like "the civil rights organisation ACLU".

Any comments on the translation also welcome.

[Edit]: might it be: *one the one hand about civil rights (with the ACLU), and on the other samtökunum EFF* ?
Even in this, the meaning of *samtökunum*, or rather, how it fits into the sentence is still a little confusing. Maybe it just means '_*with the organisation* Electronic Frontier Foundation_' ?

Takk!


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## sindridah

Annars vegar er ég að fara til Manchester og svo hins vegar til Bangor!


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## Silver_Biscuit

When annar and hinn are used together in a sentence like this, they mean 'one and the other'. So in this case, I think it doesn't mean 'on the other hand... on the other hand', but 'on the one hand... on the other hand'.


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## Alxmrphi

So it shows an ordering, like in Sindri's example?
That seeing the ACLU_* first*_, *then* the EFF ?

So the declension of *samtökunum*, is due to the _*við*_ 17 words earlier?
That makes sense I guess.

So if I was talking about my plans for a night out I could say:

*Ég ætla annar vegar til húss vinarins míns til að drekka fordrykki og hins vegar ætlum við til knæpunnar*.
*I'm going (first) to my friend's house to pre-drink and then we're going to the pub.* (?)

Like that?


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## sindridah

Noooo not really. That's a bit exaggerated. It has to be you know "two" separate places/companies and so forth. 

Leikurinn er hafinn á milli Arsenal hins vegar og Manchester United annars vegar.

You see?


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## Alxmrphi

sindridah said:


> Noooo not really. That's a bit exaggerated. It has to be you know "two" separate places/companies and so forth.
> 
> *Leikurinn er hafinn á milli Arsenal hins vegar og Manchester United annars vegar.*
> 
> You see?



Riiight okay.
So it's when there is obviously a division of two separate items.
It didn't look that way with the ACLU/EFF issue, or with Manchester/Bangor!!

But generally, only when it's obvious there are two opposites, otherwise it's a bit 'too strong' to use it for something little like friends house/pub  ??

Can you give me maybe 2 more examples?


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## sindridah

Heheh ok
Alex sótti um í tvo háskóla annars vegar Cambridge og hins vegar University of Oxford

Ég á fjögur gæludýr, annars vegar 3 hunda og hinsvegar einn kött

Tvö stærstu íbúðar svæði Íslands eru annars vegar Stór-Reykjavíkur svæðið og hins vegar Akureyri

Is it getting clearer?


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## Alxmrphi

> Is it getting clearer?


Yes! 
Those examples explained it perfectly.


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## kepulauan

Annars vegar/hins vegar are best used when there is a lot of information being presented and the relationship between different parts start to be unclear. "Ég á fjögur gæludýr, annars vegar 3 hunda og hinsvegar einn kött" is fine but not really necessary. If you are counting something that needs a lot of explanation in the middle of saying it (where in writing you would consider putting a full stop before _hins vegar_), if you are counting categories and subcategories or both, this really comes in handy. For example:
Ég á fjóra hunda, annars vegar stóra, einn labrador og einn fjárhund, báðir ljósir á lit, og hins vegar litla, púðlu og chihuahua.


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## sindridah

yeah or something like that!


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## kepulauan

... or instead of saying (annars vegar (big dog + big dog) + hins vegar (small dog + small dog)) you can say (annars vegar (big dog + small dog) + hins vegar (big dog + small dog)), for example:
_Valið stóð helst á milli McCain og Palin annars vegar og Obama og Biden hins vegar._


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