Languages

Old Norse

Also Known As dǫnsk tunga Old Norse speakers' own name for their language, literally "Danish tongue"; "norrœnt mál," "Northern speech," was also used.

Language

Citation Formats

General Reference

Language Atlas. "Old Norse." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://language.interactiveatlas.org/languages/old-norse.

APA Style

Language Atlas. (n.d.). Old Norse. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://language.interactiveatlas.org/languages/old-norse

BibTeX

@misc{languageatlas-old-norse,
  author = {Language Atlas},
  title = {Old Norse},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://language.interactiveatlas.org/languages/old-norse},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Old Norse was the North Germanic language of Scandinavia, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Norse settlements as far afield as Normandy, Ireland and Kievan Rus, spoken from roughly the eighth to the fourteenth century across the Viking Age and into the early Middle Ages. It was first recorded in the Younger Futhark runic alphabet and later in the Latin alphabet after Christianization, and it evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages, with Icelandic and Faroese retaining its grammar most closely.

Facts

ISO 639-3 Code

non 1

Speaker Count

0 1

Extinct as a distinct spoken language; evolved into the modern North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages.

Status

Extinct 1

Extinct as a distinct language, having evolved directly into the modern North Germanic languages rather than being displaced.

Attested From (Year)

from 800 1

Attested To (Year)

to 1350 1

Sources place the transition to the early modern Scandinavian languages across the 14th century; 1350 marks a conventional midpoint rather than a sharp cutoff.

Region

Scandinavia, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Norse settlements in Normandy, Ireland and Kievan Rus 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

In Family

Germanic

Source Wikipedia: Germanic Languages

Written In

Latin Script

Adopted for Old Norse following Christianization in the 11th century, alongside continued runic use.

Source Wikipedia: Old Norse

Runic Alphabet (Elder Futhark)

Why this is disputed. This entity records the Elder Futhark. Old Norse proper was chiefly written in the later Younger Futhark, a reduced descendant of Elder Futhark not yet a separate entity on this atlas (see the entity request filed alongside this batch); the association is real but the direct ancestor-script link is the more precise claim once Younger Futhark exists.

Source Wikipedia: Old Norse

Younger Futhark

Sharpens the prior associated/debated-stance edge from Runic Alphabet (Elder Futhark) to Old Norse now that this more precise entity exists (EntityRequest 454).

Source Wikipedia: Younger Futhark

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Old Norse

WikipediaIntroduction

Quote, Introduction