Icelandic Verbs

by Ken Beckwith

In the eighth century, western Germanic went to Iceland. There, it experienced the influx of Danish, and the effects of mainland Norway. However, through perseverance, the Icelanders maintained and forged their own identity. By enduring both hardship, and famine language became a key point of Icelandic identity. In order to stay in touch with the past, and understand their ancestors through the sagas, eddas, folk and fairytales the Icelanders upkept and maintained their language-thereby preserving the links to their origins-encapsulated here, in their verb inflections, stretching all the way back to 900 and 1000 CE. No other people in the world fluently speak a language which stretches back so far in time, today.

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Published November 10, 2022