Nordish

Nordish is a term that may be encountered in encyclopedic or linguistic discussions to describe the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, including Old Norse and its modern descendants: Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Faroese. In linguistic practice, the standard terms are North Germanic languages or Nordic languages; Nordish is not widely used as a formal label.

The historical development began with Proto-North Germanic, which evolved into Old Norse and diversified during the medieval period. Old East Norse produced Danish and Swedish; Old West Norse produced Icelandic and Norwegian; Faroese developed from Old Norse settlers in the Faroe Islands.

Modern descendants are relatively mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Icelandic remains closest to Old Norse in many features, while the Scandinavian languages form a continuum with varying levels of mutual intelligibility among Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese.

Writing systems evolved from runic inscriptions to the Latin alphabet. Icelandic preserves several archaic letters, such as þ and ð, while Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish use the Latin alphabet with letters like æ, ø, and å. Each language has developed its own standard practices, such as Bokmål and Nynorsk in Norwegian.

Usage and status: Nordish as a label is rare in scholarly contexts and should be interpreted cautiously. In encyclopedic writing, it is better to use North Germanic languages or Nordic languages. In popular or fictional contexts, Nordish may appear as a constructed language or a generic term.