Icelandic language

Icelandic is the language spoken by most people in Iceland. About 390,000 people speak it around the world. It is part of the North Germanic language family. It is closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and an old language called Norn.

Icelandic is different from other Scandinavian languages such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. It is harder for speakers of these languages to understand Icelandic.

What makes Icelandic special is that it has kept many of its old forms. Many languages simplify their grammar over time, but Icelandic still uses a system with four cases and many special patterns. The words in Icelandic also change less from other languages. It uses special rules to create new words from old Icelandic roots instead of borrowing words directly.

Besides Iceland, some people also speak Icelandic in Denmark, the United States, and Canada. There is a place called New Iceland in Manitoba where Icelandic people settled in the 1880s. The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies works to protect old Icelandic books and study the language. The Icelandic Language Council gives advice on language rules.

Every year on November 16, Iceland celebrates Icelandic Language Day to honor the birthday of the poet Jónas Hallgrímsson.

Classification

See also: Germanic languages

Icelandic is an Indo-European language. It belongs to the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages. It is a West Scandinavian language. It comes from an earlier language called Old Norse. This later changed into Old Icelandic and is now Modern Icelandic. The big change from old to modern Icelandic happened around the year 1540.

History

Main article: History of Icelandic

Around 900 CE, people from the Faroe Islands brought their language, called Old Norse, to Iceland when they settled there. These settlers came from many places, including Scandinavia and areas around the Irish Sea, Orkney, and Shetland.

The oldest Icelandic writings are from around 1100. They include famous stories called the sagas. These stories were first told by word of mouth and later written down. They are written in Old Icelandic, a type of Old Norse. Even though Iceland was ruled by Denmark from 1536 to 1918, the everyday language of the people stayed mostly the same.

Modern Icelandic has changed a little over time, especially in how words sound, but written Icelandic looks much like it did over a thousand years ago. Today, Icelanders can still read and understand the old sagas and poems with some help from modern spelling and notes.

Legal status and recognition

In 2011, Parliament made Icelandic the official language of Iceland. Public services must let people use Icelandic everywhere in the country.

Iceland is part of the Nordic Council, but the council mainly uses Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Since 1987, under the Nordic Language Convention, Icelanders can use their language when talking to officials in other Nordic countries, like hospitals or police offices, without paying for translation. But this is not well known, and many Icelanders use English instead because it is commonly understood.

Phonology

Main article: Icelandic phonology

Consonants

All sounds in Icelandic that stop, like the middle sound in "top," have no voice. These sounds can be told apart by adding a puff of air. They sound different depending on where they appear in a word.

Some sounds change based on their position in a word. For example, the sound at the end of a word often sounds rougher.

Vowels

Icelandic has 8 single vowel sounds and 5 sounds made by mixing two vowels together. These mixed sounds are formed by taking a single vowel and adding either the sound "i" or "u" to it. Each vowel can be said with a long or short sound. Vowels in words that are open are long, and vowels in words that are closed are short.

Grammar

Main article: Icelandic grammar

Icelandic has old rules from ancient Germanic languages. In this language, words change to show their meaning. There are four ways to show a word’s role: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. Nouns can be masculine, feminine, or neuter and follow patterns when their endings change.

Verbs change to show time and mood. They can be active, passive, or middle. The usual order of words in a sentence is subject-verb-object, but the order can change in poems because words change so much. The verb usually comes second in a sentence.

Vocabulary

Main articles: Icelandic vocabulary and Icelandic name

Icelandic words come from Old Norse. A few words came from Celtic languages when people first lived there. When Iceland became Christian, new words were needed for religious ideas. Many came from other Scandinavian languages, like kirkja, meaning "church".

Words from French, German, and other languages also entered Icelandic over time. In the late 1700s, Iceland started a movement to protect its language. Today, Iceland often makes new words from older Icelandic roots instead of borrowing them.

Icelandic names show the father or mother of a person, not a family name. For example, a boy might be named Jonsson, meaning "Jon's son". In 2019, Iceland allowed people who do not identify as male or female to use the ending -bur, meaning "child of", instead of -son or -dóttir.

Language policy

Iceland values keeping its language pure in writing and spelling. This idea is important to many people in Iceland, even though they may use other languages when talking.

Linguistic purism

Main article: Linguistic purism in Icelandic

Since the 1500s, people in Iceland have talked about keeping their language pure. In the 1800s, they made written Icelandic closer to how people spoke. Today, Iceland still tries to create new words for modern ideas using old Icelandic roots.

Writing system

Main articles: Icelandic orthography and Icelandic Braille

The Icelandic alphabet has three special letters not found in the English alphabet: Þ, þ, Ð, ð, and Æ, æ. These letters help make sounds that are special to the language.

The alphabet also includes letters with marks above them, like á and ö, which are treated as separate letters. The letter z was once part of the alphabet but was removed and is rarely used today except in some names.

Sample

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Here is a sample of Article 1 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Icelandic. There are two main versions. This one is from the United Nations website and a book made together by the Icelandic Human Rights Office and Iceland's Ministry of foreign affairs. The first line shows the written version, the second line shows how it sounds, and the third line explains the words.

Grein 1: Allir eru bornir frjálsir og jafnir öðrum að virðingu og réttindum. Allir eru gæddir skynsemi og samvisku og ber að breyta bróðurlega hverjum við annan.

The North Wind and the Sun

Here is a sample of the first sentence from the fable "The North Wind and the Sun" in Icelandic. The first line shows the written version, the second line shows how it sounds, and the third line explains the words.

Einu sinni deildu norðanvindurinn og sólin um, hvort þeirra væri sterkara.

One time the north wind and the sun were quarreling over which of the two was stronger.