The national language of Iceland, spoken by most of its population, is Icelandic.
Icelandic is a North Germanic language descended from the Norse language brought to Iceland by settlers from Scandinavia and the British Isles during the settlement period, traditionally dated to the late ninth and tenth centuries. It is the main language of government, education, media, and daily life in Iceland.
The language is famous for preserving many grammatical features and vocabulary patterns found in older Norse. Icelandic speakers can also recognize some words in medieval texts, although modern Icelandic is not identical to Old Norse.
Icelandic is closely related to Faroese and more distantly to Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. It should not be confused with Danish, which historically had an important administrative role in Iceland when the country was under the Danish crown.