Modern Icelandic

noun

1. the Icelandic language since c1550.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Modern Icelandic¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Modern Icelandic is often spoken of as a linguistic time capsule — a cryogenically frozen version of the language the first settlers of Iceland spoke 1,200 years ago, when they landed on this island populated by only birds and arctic foxes.

Read more on New York Times

That is the modern Icelandic saga of Heida Ásgeirsdottír, who, at the age of 20 gave up on a potential career on the catwalk – she had been press-ganged into it by scouts and photographers, and by a fairy-godmother aunt who worked at the Elite model agency – to return home for lambing season; to become, as a recently published book of her life has it: “A shepherd at the edge of the world.”

Read more on The Guardian

Made with a finely honed sense of the ridiculous as well as unexpected emotion, this modern Icelandic saga is completely serious about its wall-to-wall wackiness, which of course is the only way to go.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"When Laxness won the Nobel prize in 1955 he put modern Icelandic literature on the map," Solvi tells me.

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The ancient and modern Icelandic foxes share one DNA variation, called I2, which arctic foxes from other parts of the world don't have.

Read more on Science Magazine