| Icelandic is a Germanic language, being related to German, Dutch and
all the Scandinavian languages, save Finnish. Its closest "living
relative", so to speak, is Faroese, which like Icelandic is derived from
Old Norse -- the language of Norway until around 1500.
Iceland as a country is incredibly protective of her language. It refuses to
integrate english words (for example) as loan-words into the language,
instead inventing new icelandic words for these. This is the responsibility of
the language board in Reykjavík. For example, the icelandic word for
"computer" is tölva -- a combination of the words tala
("number"), and völva ("prophet").
Icelandic is a higly-inflected language, meaning that the ends of words
change according to their form. Icelandic nouns can be inflected in four
cases, as with German, viz.: the nominative, accusative, genitive and
dative cases. There are also different endings for singular and plural. Most
pronouns and adjectives are also inflected, and objects may be of three
genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Icelandic is also devoid of an indefinite article ("a"/"an" in English).
The definite article ("the") changes according to gender: hinn (masc.),
hin (fem.), and hið (neut.). It is normally attached to the end
of a noun, as with the other Scandiavian languages, where it also drops the
/h/: maðurinn (the man). The definite article also declines with the
noun. Verbs are inflected in three persons, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, singular, and
plural.
Icelandic uses the special characters þ (called "thorn" by linguists; a voiceless 'th' -- like in "maths"),
ð (called "edh"; a voiced 'th' -- as in "the"), and the vowels á, é, í, ó, ö, ú,
ý, and æ. | 
