Icelandic

Indo-European (Germanic)350,000 speakersLatin

RegionIceland

FamilyIndo-European (Germanic)

Speakers350,000 speakers

ScriptLatin

TypeAlphabetic

About Icelandic

The closest living language to Old Norse, the tongue of the Vikings. Icelanders still read 800 year old sagas with little trouble. A language committee coins native words instead of borrowing, like the word for computer, number prophetess. Change has been fiercely resisted for centuries.

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