Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies is an institute of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Iceland which conducts research in Icelandic and related academic studies, in particular the Icelandic language and Icelandic literature, to disseminate knowledge in those areas, and to protect and develop the collections that it possesses or those placed in its care. It is named after Árni Magnússon, a 17th–18th century collector of medieval Icelandic manuscripts.
Árnagarður, on the campus of the University of Iceland, which houses the institute
A page from a skin manuscript of Landnáma
Image: Icelandic sagas book 11 38 13 352000
Image: Icelandic sagas book
Icelandic is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German. The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible.
A page from the Landnámabók, an early Icelandic manuscript
Photograph taken from page 176 of Colloquial Icelandic
Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, situated to the north of Skógar and to the west of Mýrdalsjökull, is Icelandic for "glacier of Eyjafjöll", in turn "glacier of island mountains".