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Although the Icelandic or Norse language prevails, northern trade routes brought German, English, Dutch, French and Basque to Iceland. Some merchants and clergymen settled in Iceland throughout the centuries, leaving their mark on culture, but linguistically mainly trade, nautical, and religious terms.
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 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 ...
Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire. Exceptions include Rwanda and Burundi , which were formerly German and then Belgian colonies; Cameroon, where only part of the country was under the British mandate; and Liberia , the Philippines , the Federated States of Micronesia , the Marshall ...
The main focus of linguistic purism in Icelandic is to maintain the structure of the language (for instance as a declined language compared to some other West European Indo-European languages, such as English and French), and to develop its vocabulary, so that the language can be used to speak about any topic—no matter how technical—which ...
Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated language groups, the common linguistic heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. [119] Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish belong to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The languages have developed from a common Nordic ...
The principal language of Iceland is Icelandic, a highly inflected North Germanic language. Danish and English are also taught in schools. Linguistic purism is strongly supported in Iceland to prevent loanwords from entering the language. Instead, neologisms are coined from Icelandic roots, creating a compound word to describe new
The Anglo-Frisian language family is now mostly represented by English (Anglic), descended from the Old English language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons: English , the main language of the United Kingdom and the most widespread language in the Republic of Ireland , also spoken as a second or third language by many Europeans .