History
Iceland was first settled in the 9th century by Norwegians who took captive Irish slaves. At this time, the same language was spoken in both Iceland and Norway. Vocabulary was largely Norse, and significant changes did not start to occur until the 13th and 14th centuries. Around this time, Norwegian declension and inflection became considerably simplified, whereas Icelandic’s did not. This difference can be seen today by comparing the two modern languages.
The introduction of Christianity to Iceland in the 11th century brought with it a need to describe new religious concepts. The majority of new words were taken from other Scandinavian languages; kirkja (‘church’) and biskup (‘bishop’), for example. The relationship between the English and Icelandic languages is made evident by such importations. Other Germanic languages, Greek, and Latin also had a lesser influence.
Numerous other languages have had their influence on Icelandic, French for example brought many words related to the court and knightship; words in the semantic field of trade and commerce have been borrowed from Low German because of trade connections. Many words were also brought in from Danish and German during the language reformation as the Bible was translated into Icelandic.
Nowadays, it is common practice to coin new compound words from Icelandic derivatives.
Read more about this topic: Icelandic Vocabulary
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