What Language is Spoken In Iceland (Official Language)

Iceland is one of the sparsely populated and isolated countries known for its scenery and rugged landscapes. 

In spite of being a monolingual country, Iceland has an extensive range of fascinating insular languages that are not used by the Icelanders but also by the Icelandic immigrants in Canada, the United States, and Europe.  

If you are wondering, What language is Spoken in Iceland? Then you will get your answer right here in this article. 

So without any delay, let’s explore the different languages spoken by the people in Iceland. 

Languages Spoken In Iceland

Iceland is home to several languages. To get insight into different languages spoken by the people in Brazil, scroll down to the below data. 

Sr.No.	Languages	% Of The Population Speaking Languages
1	Icelandic	93.3%
2	Polish	2.74%
3	Lithuanian	0.43%
4	English	0.32%
5	German	0.31%
6	Danish	0.31%
7	Portuguese	0.28%
8	Filipino	0.24%
9	Thai	0.17%
10	Latvian	0.14%
11	Other languages	1.89%

Source: Wikipedia 

Official languages of Iceland

Icelandic, which is an Indo-European language, is the official language of the people of Iceland. 

It is part of the Germanic language and has its roots in the Indo-European family. It is influenced by Norwegian and Faroese languages. 

Out of 372,520 people in Iceland, the language is spoken by around 3,00,000 people, which equates to 97%  of the population, making it the native language of Iceland. (Source: LinkedIn)

Countries speaking Icelandic Language	Number Of People Speaking The Icelandic Language
Denmark	8,000
United States	5,000
Canada	1,400

Source: LinkedIn

Foreign languages Are Spoken In Iceland

Historically migration to Iceland remained low due to a lack of economic opportunities, its remote location, and its rough climate.

But it showed a significant increase since Iceland joined the European Economic Area in the year 1994. The rise in migration led to the use of different foreign languages in the country. 

Here are a few Foreign languages spoken by the people in Iceland. 

Danish: Danish is spoken by around 1,000 people in Iceland and is offered as the first foreign language in several schools in Iceland. It is taught to 92.6% of the students at the lower secondary level. (Source: Babbel, mbl.is)

German:  Even though German and Icelandic are Germanic languages having certain similar words, the major part of the vocabulary is different for both languages. 

Around 0.31% of the population in Iceland speaks German, making it the third most spoken language of the country. (Source: Wikipedia)

English: English is one of the majorly spoken languages in Iceland, and around 0.32% of the people in Iceland speak English, and it is taught as a second language. 

It is demonstrated that approximately 98% of the people in Iceland speak English fluently. (Source: Prolingo) 

Polish: Approximately 2.74% of the population of Iceland speak Polish making it one of the widely spoken foreign languages of the country.  (Source: LinkedIn)

Out of all the foreign inhabitants residing in Iceland in the year 2022, the major part of the population had a Polish origin, i.e., around 20,000 people of Polish origin resided in Iceland.  (Source: Statista)

French: Although the people of Iceland occasionally use French, it was bought to the islands of Iceland by merchants and traders.  (Source: Iceland.org)

Languages Spoken By The Pupils In The Primary Schools Of Iceland

According to the research conducted by Statista in 2021, the following data represents the different languages spoken by the pupils in the primary schools of Iceland. 

Sr.No.	Languages (Mother Tongue of Pupil)	Number of Pupils speaking the language
1	Polish	1,960
2	English	421
3	Philippine language	326
4	Arabic	313
5	Lithuanian	277
6	Spanish	269
7	Thai	216
8	Vietnamese	204
9	Russian	166
10	Serbo-Croatian	155
11	German	151
12	Albanian	122
13	Romanian	118
14	Portuguese	117
15	African languages-various	110
16	Latvian	99
17	Danish	61
18	French	59
19	Kurdish	50
20	Bulgarian	48
21	Swedish	46
22	Chinese	44
23	Ukrainian	40
24	Italian	38
25	Czech	35
26	Persian	33
27	Slovene	30
28	Hindi	29
29	Dutch	26
30	Norwegian	23
31	Hungarian	22
32	Turkish	22
33	Nepali	16
34	Singhalese	16
35	Faroese	15
36	Japanese	14
37	Indonesian	14
38	Swahili	13
39	Greek	12
40	Macedonian	12
41	Urdu	11
42	Finnish	10
43	Estonian	10
44	Greenlandic	9
45	Tamil	6
46	Korean	5
47	Hebrew	4
48	Mongolian	3
49	Other and Undisclosed	1

Source: Statista 

Among 5,611 children in the primary schools of Iceland, Almost 2,000 children had Polish as their mother tongue, and English was the second-largest group of native speakers. 

Icelandic Sign Language 

The sign language of Iceland is based on the Danish sign language and is used by the Deaf-community of Iceland. The language is officially recognized and regulated by the national committee. 

Until 1910, the deaf community of Iceland was sent to Denmark to learn the Danish sign language, but since 2011, the country has had its own sign language.  

Related Read:

• Longest Word In The World
• Easiest Languages To Learn
• Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers
• How Many People Speak Spanish In The US
• How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese?

Conclusion: What Language is Spoken In Iceland

Along with the official language and other foreign languages, the Scandinavian language is one of the majorly spoken languages of the country. 

Icelandic is a West-Germanic language similar to English, with its roots in Norse. The language has undergone several changes, which has made it unique among the other Scandinavian languages. 

I hope the article provided you with a clear idea about the languages spoken in Iceland. If you have any queries, drop them in the comments section below. 

FAQs