THE LANGUAGE
The Icelandic language is the cornerstone of Icelandic culture. It has spawned a literary tradition that dates back to the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Violent tales of blood feuds, traditions, family and character. A strong literary tradition still thrives in modern Iceland. and Icelandic authors publish more books per capita than in any other country in the world. Iceland also prides itself of a prospering music scene, a burgeoning film industry, and Icelandic design, that is coming of age.
Icelandic is the official language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language, belonging to the sub-group of North Germanic languages. It is closely related to Norwegian and Faroese, although there are slight traces of Celtic influence in ancient Icelandic literature.
Icelandic is an insular language, and as such, has not been influenced greatly by other languages. As a result, the language has changed very little from when the country was settled in the ninth and tenth centuries. It did not become markedly different from Norwegian until the 14th century, when Norwegian became increasingly influenced by its neighbouring languages, Swedish and Danish. Because of this resistance to change, texts from the 12th century are still more or less understandable to Icelandic schoolchildren. <
Since the 18th century, when the Icelandic language was under threat from Danish influence, a movement of language purism rose, and has since been the dominant linguistic policy in the country. Icelandic does not usually adopt foreign words for new concepts, opting instead to coin new words, or give old words new meaning, to keep the langauge free of outside influence.
OTHER LANGUAGES
Almost every icelander speaks english.