Icelandic

Icelandic (íslenska) is a North Germanic language of the Indo-European family spoken primarily in Iceland. It retains many conservative morphological and lexical features inherited from Old Norse and is noted for a rich literary tradition that begins in the medieval period with the Icelandic sagas.

Classification

Icelandic belongs to the Indo-European → Germanic → North Germanic (Scandinavian) → West Scandinavian (Insular Scandinavian) branch. Its closest living relative is Faroese; it is also historically related to the western Norwegian dialects and to the now-extinct Norn. Together these are the main descendants of Old West Norse (Old Norse).

Origins and historical development

Icelandic developed from the Old Norse spoken by Norse settlers — mainly from western Norway — who colonized Iceland in the late 9th and 10th centuries. The language of medieval Icelandic written sources (often called Old Icelandic) preserves many grammatical categories and vocabulary items from Old Norse with relatively little influence from other languages until the modern period. The major written corpus from the 12th–14th centuries — especially the family sagas and many historical and legal texts — both documents and helped standardize the language. Over the centuries Icelandic has changed, notably in phonology and some morphology, but compared with other Scandinavian languages it has remained morphologically conservative.

Where it is spoken and how many people speak it

Icelandic is the national and majority language of Iceland and is spoken as a first language by the great majority of Iceland’s population. Estimates for the number of speakers are in the low-to-mid 300,000s (roughly the population of Iceland), with smaller Icelandic-speaking communities abroad. Contemporary reference works typically place the number of native speakers at around ~300–340 thousand.

Mutual intelligibility and related languages

Because Icelandic is a conservative West Scandinavian language it is most closely related to Faroese. Mutual intelligibility between Icelandic and Faroese is limited but higher than with the East Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish). Norwegian (especially some western dialects) is more intelligible to Icelandic speakers than Danish or Swedish, but all three modern continental Scandinavian languages are sufficiently divergent in modern pronunciation and vocabulary that full mutual comprehension is generally not possible without study. In short: Icelandic ≈ Faroese (closest), partial intelligibility with some Norwegian dialects, low intelligibility with Danish and Swedish.

Literature and famous works

Icelandic’s written culture is unusually continuous. The most famous medieval corpus is the Icelandic sagas (Íslendingasögur) — prose narratives composed mainly in the 12th–14th centuries that recount the settlement period, family histories, feuds and voyages (including material later associated with Norse voyages to Greenland and Vinland). Notable examples include Njáls saga, Egils saga, and Gísla saga. These works are literary cornerstones of medieval Northern Europe and remain central to Icelandic identity and literary study. Later periods produced distinguished poetry, religious writing, modern novels and contemporary literature in Icelandic.

Phonology (brief overview)

• Consonants: Icelandic retains a full range of stops, fricatives and nasals similar to other Germanic languages, and distinctive features such as pre-aspirated stops in some dialects.

• Vowels: Icelandic has a relatively large vowel inventory with short/long contrasts; diphthongs are also prominent.

• Stress: Usually falls on the first syllable of the root word.

• Orthography vs. pronunciation: Icelandic orthography is largely phonemic and uses a Latin alphabet with a few special letters (e.g., þ /θ, ð /ð).

Grammar (overview)

Icelandic is morphologically rich compared with most other modern Germanic languages:

• Cases: Four grammatical cases — nominative, accusative, dative and genitive — are used for nouns, adjectives and pronouns.

• Number and gender: Nouns have two numbers (singular, plural) and three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).

• Articles and agreement: Definite forms are typically expressed as a suffix (postposed definite article) on the noun (e.g., hestur “horse” → hesturinn “the horse”) and adjectives agree with nouns in case, number and gender.

• Verbs: Verbs conjugate for person and number in finite forms and have strong/weak distinctions, multiple tense and mood categories, with remaining traces of older synthetic forms. The Icelandic verbal system retains a number of irregular (strong) verbs whose patterns are descended from Old Norse.

Verb Conjugation in Icelandic

Icelandic verbs are traditionally divided into strong verbs, weak verbs, and a small group of irregular verbs. Strong verbs form their past tense and past participles by ablaut (systematic vowel change), a feature inherited from Proto-Germanic. For example, syngja (“to sing”) has past tense söng (“sang”) and past participle sungið (“sung”). Weak verbs, by contrast, form their past tense with a dental suffix such as -aði, -di, or -ti, e.g., tala (“to speak”) → talaði (“spoke”). Verbs conjugate for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, plural) in the present and past indicative and subjunctive. There are also imperative forms, infinitives, and supine forms used in compound tense formation. Icelandic verbs show rich agreement morphology compared with most other modern Germanic languages, making mastery of conjugation a central aspect of the language.

Verb Tenses in Icelandic

The finite tense system of Icelandic is relatively conservative, consisting primarily of present and past tenses. These can be used in both the indicative and subjunctive moods. The present tense can express habitual, ongoing, or even future actions depending on context. The past tense is used for completed actions, historical narration, or hypothetical situations in the subjunctive. Other temporal and aspectual distinctions, such as perfect, pluperfect, and future, are expressed through compound constructions with auxiliary verbs. For example, the perfect tense uses hafa (“to have”) plus the supine form of the main verb: Ég hef lesið bókina (“I have read the book”). The future is typically conveyed by the present tense with adverbs, or with modal verbs such as munu: Ég mun fara (“I will go”). This system balances a limited set of synthetic tense forms with productive periphrastic constructions, reflecting both conservatism and adaptability in Icelandic grammar.

Weak verb: tala (“to speak”)

Present indicative

• Ég tala — I speak

• Þú talar — You (sg.) speak

• Hann/Hún/Það talar — He/She/It speaks

• Við tölum — We speak

• Þið talið — You (pl.) speak

• Þeir/Þær/Þau tala — They speak

Past indicative

• Ég talaði — I spoke

• Þú talaðir — You spoke

• Hann/Hún/Það talaði — He/She/It spoke

• Við töluðum — We spoke

• Þið töluðuð — You (pl.) spoke

• Þeir/Þær/Þau töluðu — They spoke

Past participle: talað
Supine: talað (used with hafa: Ég hef talað = “I have spoken”)

Strong verb: syngja (“to sing”)

Present indicative

• Ég syng — I sing

• Þú syngur — You (sg.) sing

• Hann/Hún/Það syngur — He/She/It sings

• Við syngjum — We sing

• Þið syngið — You (pl.) sing

• Þeir/Þær/Þau syngja — They sing

Past indicative

• Ég söng — I sang

• Þú söngst — You sang

• Hann/Hún/Það söng — He/She/It sang

• Við sungum — We sang

• Þið sunguð — You (pl.) sang

• Þeir/Þær/Þau sungu — They sang

Past participle: sungið
Supine: sungið (Ég hef sungið = “I have sung”)

Irregular verb: vera (“to be”)

Present indicative

• Ég er — I am

• Þú ert — You (sg.) are

• Hann/Hún/Það er — He/She/It is

• Við erum — We are

• Þið eruð — You (pl.) are

• Þeir/Þær/Þau eru — They are

Past indicative

• Ég var — I was

• Þú varst — You (sg.) were

• Hann/Hún/Það var — He/She/It was

• Við vorum — We were

• Þið voruð — You (pl.) were

• Þeir/Þær/Þau voru — They were

Subjunctive forms (very common in Icelandic, especially in indirect speech):

• Present subjunctive (sing. 1st): Ég sé — I be / I may be

• Past subjunctive (sing. 1st): Ég væri — I would be / I might be

Past participle: verið
Supine: verið (Ég hef verið = “I have been”)

👉 Vera is highly irregular and frequently used in both main and auxiliary functions (e.g., in the passive voice and with periphrastic constructions). It is among the first verbs Icelandic learners must master.

Vocabulary

Iceland has a strong modern tradition of coining native neologisms rather than borrowing foreign words wholesale. Language institutes and cultural attitudes encourage the creation of Icelandic terms for new concepts (for example, technical and scientific terminology), though English influence and loanwords have increased in recent decades. The Icelandic alphabet includes letters such as ð (eth) and þ (thorn), which reflect older phonological stages of the language.

Example sentences

Below are a few simple Icelandic sentences with literal and idiomatic English glosses.

1. Ég heiti Anna.
   — Ég (I) heit-i (am called) Anna.
   — “My name is Anna.”

2. Hesturinn stendur í haganum.
   — Hest-urinn (horse-the) stand-ur (stands) í (in) hagan-um (the pasture-dat).
   — “The horse is standing in the pasture.”

3. Ég las Njálu í síðasta mánuði.
   — “I read Njál’s saga last month.” (literature reference)

4. Hvað kostar þetta?
   — “How much does this cost?”

These illustrate typical Icelandic word order (SVO in main clauses), use of suffixed definite articles and case marking on noun phrases.

Scripts and standardization

Modern Icelandic uses a Latin-based alphabet standardized to reflect Icelandic phonology. The language has a long written tradition (medieval manuscripts have been preserved), and in modern times institutions such as the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies and language committees provide guidance on orthography and neologisms.

Sociolinguistic notes and contemporary situation

Icelandic functions as the primary language of education, government and daily life in Iceland. Because of the small population and extensive literacy in a consistent standard language, Icelandic shows a high degree of linguistic cohesion on the island. At the same time, globalization and tourism have increased contact with English and other languages, prompting ongoing debates and active policies to preserve Icelandic vocabulary and usage.