It was at this time that Iceland was settled by Norwegians who spoke a variety of Old Norse. Most linguists place the beginning of the Icelandic language somewhere in the 9th century. Like most languages that use the Latin script, Icelandic is written from left-to-right. In total, the Icelandic alphabet is comprised of 32 letters. In addition to the standard set, there are letters that are duplicated but with an additional accent or mark to indicate a different sound these are considered separate letters. This script was standardized and established around the 19th century, but was based on earlier documentation found in the 12th century. Icelandic is written using the Latin script. The basis of the new words, of course, comes from its Old Norse roots, with academics taking roots, suffixes, and words, and combining them to make new terminology. Such coinage remains a common practice even today, with many public policies and institutions supporting it. However, because of a history of language purism, especially in the 18th-19th centuries, many writers and linguists at the time coined new words in an attempt to remove foreign words that entered the Icelandic vocabulary. Other sources of vocabulary include French, dialects of German, and of course due to the globalization, English. With the introduction of Christianity, much vocabulary pertaining to religious concepts were taken from other Scandinavian languages, which were more readily used to spread religious ideas at the time of Christianity’s inception in the region. Of course, with Old Norse as its basis, a large amount of Icelandic vocabulary has stemmed from it, which is why Icelandic speakers can read Old Norse texts. Icelandic rich vocabulary draws from a variety of sources. However, the verb usually appears in the second position, similar to languages like German. Its basic word order subject-verb-object, but due to the way word forms change to indicate meaning, the word order is rather flexible. In addition, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns also change depending on case and singular and plural. It is also a very heavily inflected language, meaning that verb forms are conjugated for tense, mood, case, and more. Grammatically, Icelandic has a case system that is similar to German. Icelandic has many similarities to Old Norse, so much so that modern speakers of Icelandic can read Old Norse literary works. Of course, belonging to the larger family group of Germanic languages, it is also related to English even though this may not be as apparent during modern times. Other languages that are in the West Scandinavian group include all the languages associated with Old Norse: Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian. About 358,000 speakers claim it as their native language. It is a Germanic language, and more specifically, a West Scandinavian language. Icelandic is the official language of Iceland.
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