🇮🇸 What Language Do They Speak in Iceland?
The short answer
Iceland speaks Icelandic, the closest living language to Old Norse — modern Icelanders can still read medieval sagas in the original. It is famously conservative: new concepts get Icelandic words (a computer is tölva, 'number prophetess') rather than English loans.
Worth knowing
- ●Icelandic has changed so little that 12th-century texts remain readable today
- ●Danish is still taught in Icelandic schools alongside English
- ●With about 350,000 speakers, Icelandic is one of Europe's smallest national languages
Also useful there
Danishtaught in every Icelandic school and the historical bridge to Scandinavia
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