The history of the Icelandic language began in the 9th century with the settlement of Iceland when settlers, who mostly came from Norway, brought a dialect of Old Norse to the island. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. The majority of these texts are poems or laws, preserved orally for generations before being written down.

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  • The history of the Icelandic language began in the 9th century with the settlement of Iceland when settlers, who mostly came from Norway, brought a dialect of Old Norse to the island. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. The majority of these texts are poems or laws, preserved orally for generations before being written down. The most famous of these, written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are without doubt the Icelandic Sagas, the historical writings of Snorri Sturluson; and eddaic poems. The language of the era of the sagas is called Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse, the common Scandinavian language of the Viking era. Old Icelandic was, in the strict sense of the term, Old Norse with some Celtic influence. 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. The same applied to the British occupation of Iceland during World War II and was gradually withdrawn in the 1950s. Though Icelandic is considered more archaic than other living Germanic languages, the language has nevertheless been subject to some important changes. The pronunciation, for instance, changed considerably between the 12th and 16th centuries, especially that of vowels. Nevertheless, written Icelandic has changed relatively little since the 13th century. As a result of this, and of the similarity between the modern and ancient grammar, modern speakers can still understand, more or less, the original sagas and Eddas that were written some 800 years ago. This ability is sometimes mildly overstated by Icelanders themselves, most of whom actually read the Sagas with updated modern spelling and footnotes—though otherwise intact.
  • Il periodo che va dal 550 al 1050 viene detto scandinavo (o nordico) comune. A quell'epoca si parlava comunemente in tutta la Scandinavia una lingua notevolmente unitaria. La posizione-chiave della Danimarca come baricentro dell'intera area fece sì che la lingua fosse semplicemente chiamata danese (dönsk tunga). Sebbene i primi accenni dei futuri sviluppi particolari fossero già individuabili in diverse regioni di quel vasto territorio, non esisteva alcun problema di comprensione reciproca; a questo si deve aggiungere la notevole somiglianza con i dialetti anglosassoni parlati in Gran Bretagna che, all'epoca della conquista danese di vaste porzioni dell'isola (VIII secolo), portarono ad una vera e propria compenetrazione, specialmente nel territorio da allora chiamato Danelaw (lett. , " legge dei Danesi"). Molti sovrani anglosassoni furono di origine danese, tra cui il celebre Canuto (ingl. Canut < dan. Knud, nome maschile ancora oggi comunissimo). Il principale poema epico anglosassone, il Beowulf, tratta in realtà di argomenti di ambientazione danese e i danesi sono nominati fin dal primo verso (Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum / þeoðcyninga þrym gefrunon "Udite! Abbiamo udito le gesta gloriose degli antichi Re del popolo dei Danesi dalle lunghe lance"). Per quanto riguarda la dönsk tunga parlata in Islanda non possediamo, per questo periodo, alcun documento scritto. Le antiche rune scandinave erano certamente conosciute dappertutto, ma non furono mai usate per scrivere su pergamena (erano state concepite come alfabeto sacrale adatto ad essere inciso su pietra, metalli o legno). In Islanda non sono attestate che poche iscrizioni runiche e quasi tutte risalgono a dopo il 1200.
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  • Icelandic exonyms
  • Street names in Iceland
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  • The history of the Icelandic language began in the 9th century with the settlement of Iceland when settlers, who mostly came from Norway, brought a dialect of Old Norse to the island. The oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100. The majority of these texts are poems or laws, preserved orally for generations before being written down.
  • Il periodo che va dal 550 al 1050 viene detto scandinavo (o nordico) comune. A quell'epoca si parlava comunemente in tutta la Scandinavia una lingua notevolmente unitaria. La posizione-chiave della Danimarca come baricentro dell'intera area fece sì che la lingua fosse semplicemente chiamata danese (dönsk tunga).
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  • History of Icelandic
  • Storia della lingua islandese
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