Old Norse

Old Norse is an umbrella term for the earliest recorded stages of the mutually intelligible dialects of the Scandinavian, that is North Germanic languages. It includes texts in the different dialects of Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Swedish, and Old Danish. There is no clear periodization for Old Norse, because Old Norse is in itself an imprecise term. The majority of texts surviving in Old Norse is in reality Old Icelandic because of the rich literary output of medieval Iceland.