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In other languages: Íslenska

Iceland

Languages

Description

Icelandic is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland where it is the national language. It is most closely related to Faroese and Western Norwegian.

The language is more conservative than most other Western European languages. While most of them have greatly reduced levels of inflection (particularly noun declension), Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar (comparable to German, though considerably more conservative and synthetic) and is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Since the written language has not changed much, Icelanders can read classic Old Norse literature created in the 10th through 13th centuries (such as the Eddas and sagas) with relative ease.

Icelandic is closely related to Faroese; the written forms of the two languages are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible.[2] It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German, than those three are.

Word List(s)

• Icelandic Genealogical Word List
• Danish Genealogical Word List
• Latin Genealogical Word List

• 1000 Most Common Icelandic Words

Alphabet and Pronunciation

• Icelandic Language alphabet and pronunciation (Omniglot online encyclopedia of writing systems & languages
• How the letters are pronounced in the Icelandic language
• The Alphabet of the Icelandic Language
• Icelandic Alphabet

The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters that no longer exist in the English alphabet: Þ, þ (þorn, modern English "thorn") and Ð, ð (eð, anglicised as "eth" or "edh"), representing the voiceless and voiced "th" sounds (as in English thin and this), respectively. The complete Icelandic alphabet is:

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A	Á	B	D	Ð	E	É	F	G	H	I	Í	J	K	L	M	N	O	Ó	P	R	S	T	U	Ú	V	X	Y	Ý	Þ	Æ	Ö
Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a	á	b	d	ð	e	é	f	g	h	i	í	j	k	l	m	n	o	ó	p	r	s	t	u	ú	v	x	y	ý	þ	æ	ö

Pronunciation Aids

• Icelandic Pronunciation (ielanguages.com)
• Icelandic Pronunciation Guide (World Nomads)
• Icelandic Words, Letters, and Pronunciation Guide

Language Aids and Dictionaries

Language Aids

• Icelandic Grammar - Wikipedia
• Icelandic Grammar - Pinhok Languages
• Icelandic 101
• Learn Icelandic - My Languages.org
• Learn Icelandic Online - ielanguages.com

Dictionaries

• Hilmisdóttir, Helga. Icelandic practical dictionary: Icelandic-English/English-Icelandic. New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 2017. Available at: WorldCat.
• Taylor, A R. Icelandic-English, English-Icelandic dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2016. Available at: WorldCat.
• Zoega, Geir Tomasson. Icelandic-English dictionary. Reykjavik: Bokaverzlun Sigurthar Kristjanssonar, 1957. Available at: WorldCat.

Online Dictionaries

• Icelandic to English Dictionary
• Icelandic Dictionary (Lexilogos)
• Icelandic-English Dictionary (Glosbe)
• An Icelandic-English dictionary

The University of Iceland offers free courses in Icelandic at Icelandic Online.

Additional Resources

• Jónsdóttir, Hildur. Icelandic. London: Hodder Headline, 2004. Available at: WorldCat.
• Marsh, George P and Rasmus Kristian Rask. A compendious grammar of the Old-Northern or Icelandic language. Burlington: Hiram Johnson & Co., 1838. Available at: WorldCat.
• Hogg, John. On the history of Iceland, and the Icelandic Language and Literature. London: J. Murray, 1859. Available at: WorldCat.
• Jónsdóttir, Hildur. Complete Icelandic. London: Teach Yourself, 2010. Available at: WorldCat.