ABSTRACT
Iceland was mainly settled in the late ninth and early tenth century and the majority of the settlers came from Norway. They spoke the language commonly referred to as Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. There probably were some dialectal differences in the Nordic language of the settlers. It is likely, however, that certain dialectal levelling took place after the settlement since it does not appear that the settlers speaking the same dialect formed any kind of dialectal colonies within Iceland. Yet it could be argued that West Nordic dialectal traits have prevailed in Iceland since Modern Icelandic is closest to Faroese and to the Norwegian dialects spoken in southwestern Norway.
