Everything about Icelandic Language totally explained
Icelandic is a
North Germanic language, the official language of
Iceland and the
mother tongue of the
Icelandic people. Its closest relatives are
Faroese and West
Norwegian dialects such as
Sognamål.
While most West European languages have reduced greatly the extent of
inflection, particularly in
noun declension, Icelandic retains an inflectional grammar comparable to that of
Latin or, more closely,
Old Norse and
Old English.
Classification
Icelandic is an
Indo-European language belonging to the
North Germanic branch of the
Germanic languages. It is the closest living relative of
Faroese and along with this and
Norwegian it forms the West Scandinavian languages, the descendant of the western dialects of
Old Norse.
Danish and
Swedish make up the other branch, called the East Scandinavian languages. More recent analysis divides the North Germanic languages into insular Scandinavian and continental Scandinavian languages, grouping Norwegian with Danish and Swedish based on
mutual intelligibility and the fact that Norwegian has been heavily influenced by East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) during the last millennium and has diverged considerably from both Faroese and Icelandic.
Geographic distribution
The vast majority of Icelandic speakers live in
Iceland. There are about 8,165 speakers of Icelandic living in
Denmark, of which approximately 3,000 are students. The language is also spoken by 5,655 people in the
USA and by 2,385 in
Canada (mostly in
Gimli,
Manitoba). 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue, but in communities outside Iceland the usage of the language is declining. Extant Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, which was settled from the 1880s onwards.
Iceland is the only territory where Icelandic enjoys
official status. It is also the only official language of the country. Though Iceland is a member of the
Nordic Council, the Council uses only
Danish,
Norwegian and
Swedish as its working languages, though it publishes material in Icelandic . Under the
Nordic Language Convention, since 1987, citizens of Iceland have the opportunity to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. The Convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police and social security offices, however the Convention isn't very well known and is mostly a recommendation. The countries have committed themselves to providing services in various languages, but citizens have no absolute rights except for criminal and court matters.
The state-funded
Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. The
Icelandic Language Council, made up of representatives of universities, the arts, journalists, teachers, and the Ministry of Culture, Science and Education, advises the authorities on
language policy. The
Icelandic Language Fund supports activities intended to promote the Icelandic language. Since
1995,
November 16 each year, the birthday of 19th century poet
Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as
Icelandic Language Day and
z was officially abolished in 1974.
Cognates with English
As Icelandic shares its ancestry with
English, there are many
cognate words in both languages; each have the same or a similar meaning and are derived from a common root.
Phonological and
orthographical changes in each of the languages will have changed
spelling and
pronunciation. But a few examples are given below.
| English word |
Icelandic word |
Spoken comparison |
| apple |
epli |
|
| book |
bók |
|
| high/hair |
hár |
|
| house |
hús |
|
| mother |
móðir |
|
| night |
nótt |
|
| stone |
steinn |
|
| that |
það |
|
| word |
orð |
|
Many dialects in England have inherited words from the Vikings and are thus the same as in Icelandic. For example, the word
laik for "to play" is common across the north of England. In the north-east of England,
to gang is used for "to go".
Examples
The following is an extract from
Kvennafræðarinn (Elín Briem, 1889); a recipe book (page pictured right):
Further Information
Get more info on 'Icelandic Language'.
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