The answer is language

Having a shared language can facilitate innovation because it makes communication and collaboration easier, and it helps build a strong and cohesive culture. I see this every day. At Alvotech, we have more than 50 nationalities represented across our workforce, and between us we speak over 50 different languages. Many of them, like myself, operate every day in a language different from their native one.

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Our native language plays a vital role in shaping how we see the world, the words we use and how we build relationships. For me personally, Icelandic is that essential influence, and it is vital for Alvotech, with its headquarters in Reykjavik.

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Due to its roots and to Icelanders always being quick to adopt new technologies, native vocabulary is often invented to describe new concepts in Icelandic, instead of relying on foreign words. Many of these new words are in fact “recycled” from ancient terms which have fallen out of fashion.?

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In Icelandic, computer monitors and flat screen TVs are called “skjár” (pronounced roughly as s-cow-er), which was once used to describe semi-translucent windows made by stretching a cows’ stomach on a wooden frame. The term for computer, “t?lva” (pronounced tuh-lva) is an amalgam of the word for number (“tala” – pronounced tah-la) and oracle (“v?lva” – pronounced vuh-l-va). Hence a “number’s oracle”. And a telephone is called “sími” (pronounced see-me), an antiquated word meaning “thin string” - making a phone-call is now commonly referred to as “strumming the string”.

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So don’t be surprised if an Icelander tells you that they spent all day in front of the stretched cow’s stomach, working on his number oracle, but will strum the string for you later. None of this will sound weird to them at all.

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When Alvotech started, a word for biosimilars didn’t exist in Icelandic, so we created one. In true Icelandic fashion, we settled on a real tongue-twister: “líft?knilyfjahliest?eur” (pronounced like leef-tie-kni-live-ja-hlid-s-tie-duhrr). It is a compound word joining the modern terms for “life”, “technology”, “drug” and “equivalent”. Logical, right?

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Perhaps a clever wordsmith will one day dig up an archaic term fit for purpose, hopefully with far fewer syllables, but for now we are pleased to see that people are adopting it and using it more and more frequently.

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If you tried to learn the name of the Eyjafjallaj?kull (roughly pronounced ay-uh-fyat-luh-yoe-kuutl) volcano back in 2010, why not take on a new one and say this one with us: líft?knilyfjahliest?eur. (leef-tie-kni-live-ja-hlid-s-tie-duhr).