Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language
Quick Summary
Rasmus Rask was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to the field of comparative linguistics. His work, Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language (1818), primarily compared Scandinavian languages with Latin and Greek. Rask was the first to suggest that Celtic languages belong to the Indo-European family and established relationships between Old Norse and Gothic, as well as Lithuanian, Slavic, Greek, and Latin. Old Norse, the classical North Germanic language used from approximately 1150 to 1350, is the literary language of Icelandic sagas and poems. It is the parent language of modern Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian.12
Ask Britannica AI about this topic
Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.
