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Icelandic grammar is the set of structural rules that describe the use of the Icelandic language. Icelandic is a heavily inflected language . Icelandic nouns are assigned to one of three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and are declined into four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive).
Icelandic is an Indo-European language and belongs to the North Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Icelandic is further classified as a West Scandinavian language. [8] Icelandic is derived from an earlier language Old Norse, which later became Old Icelandic and currently Modern Icelandic. The division between old and modern Icelandic is ...
This opened the eyes of Icelanders with regard to their cultural importance and increased their self-confidence. The Danish linguist Rasmus Rask (1787–1832) learnt Icelandic in his youth and it became his favorite language. He compiled the first real Icelandic grammar, which was a huge step forward in comparison with earlier attempts.
The body of Old Gutnish is smaller than that of the other attested Old Norse dialects. It includes runic inscriptions on Gotland such as G181 and G 207.Old Gutnish runic calendars have also been collected, including one dating to 1328 and one dating to 1578 which is now lost but is partly preserved in Analecta Gothlandensia Walliniana, compiled in the 1740s.
The language of the era of the sagas is called Old Icelandic, a dialect of (Western) Old Norse, the common Scandinavian language of the Viking Age. The Danish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, which remained in daily use among the general population: Danish was not used for official communications.
Icelandic is not only the national language, but is now “the official language in Iceland” by virtue of Act No 61/2011, adopted by parliament in 2011. [1] Icelandic Sign Language was also officially recognised by law in 2011 as a minority language with constitutional rights and the first language of the Icelandic deaf community.
The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes spoke the same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech").
It is often the case in Icelandic that words for new concepts or ideas are composites of other words, veðurfræði (‘meteorology’), is derived from veður (‘weather’) and -fræði (‘studies’); or simply that old disused words are revived for new concepts. Like other Germanic languages, Icelandic words have a tendency to be ...