Old Norse is the Germanic language spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. It evolved from the older Proto-Norse, in the 8th century.
Because most of the surviving texts are from Medieval Icelandic, the de facto standard version of the language is the Old West Norse dialect, that is Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. Sometimes, Old Norse is defined as Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. However, there was also a very similar Old East Norse dialect that was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and their settlements. There was no clear geographical separation between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. In addition, there was also an Old Gutnish dialect, sometimes included in Old East Norse because it was the least known dialect. Until the 13th century the three dialects were considered by their speakers to be one and the same language, and they called it dansk tunga (in the eastern dialect) or dǫnsk tunga (in the western dialect). This autonym translates as "Danish tongue". It was also called norrœnt mál ("Norse language").
Old Norse was mutually intelligible with Old English, Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian. It gradually evolved into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.
Modern Icelandic is the descendant that has diverged the least from Old Norse. In its normalised written form, Old Norse is understandable to modern day Icelandic-speakers. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much as other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic (Scots and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development influenced by Middle Low German.
