Iceland Languages
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Description[edit | edit source]
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. [1]
Word List(s)[edit | edit source]
Alphabet and Pronunciation[edit | edit source]
- 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
Language Aids and Dictionaries[edit | edit source]
Icelandic to English Dictionary
Additional Resources[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Icelandic language," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_language, accessed 21 March 2021.