You might find it strange that we still speak Icelandic, the ancient language of the Vikings... although our language today has undergone some changes of course. A Viking from the past would definitely find our pronunciation and vocabulary today very funny, but he WOULD be able to understand us. (Although I sincerely doubt he would understand some of the English slang that has found its way into the language...)
Look to the Icelandic language if you want to get an idea of how the the Vikings spoke all those centuries ago. The language has not changed that much in 1100 years, or since Iceland was first settled in the 9th century.
Of course we have added new words but most common words have retained their form for all this time. Strange, isn't it?
The Icelandic language belongs to the Germanic languages, the northern branch, in fact, within the Indo-European family of languages. Our closest "relatives" are the Faroese, some West Norwegian dialects along with Danish and Swedish.
We strongly intend to preserve our language although only spoken by ca. 300.000 people. We also try to develop new words in our language to keep up with all changes in technology and the sciences.
This is our alphabet:
Aa Áá Bb Dd Ðð Ee Éé Ff Gg Hh Ii Íí Jj Kk
Ll Mm Nn Oo Óó Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Úú Vv Xx Yy Ýý Þþ Ææ Öö
Some surprising letters... I'm sure!
And here are some Icelandic phrases for you to practice on :-):
Ég heiti Margrét - My name is Margret
Góðan daginn - Good morning, good day
Gott kvöld - Good evening
Hæ - Hi
Bless - Goodbye
Hvað kostar þetta? - How much does this cost?
Takk fyrir – Thanks
