> I don't know how similar Icelandic is to other Nordic/Scandinavian languages so maybe a speaker of these languages would have been able to identify the lyrics

Not likely, Icelandic has kept much closer to old norse in grammar and phonology so sounds nothing like continental scandinavian (also much prefers neologisms to loanwords, but that’s maybe less of an issue for song lyrics). You’d have had to ask specifically icelanders, maybe faroe islanders as a last recourse, but there’s a lot less of the latter than the former.

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vidarh 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, as a Norwegian, I can sometimes somewhat read Icelandic, but it takes a lot of effort, and it sounds familiar but not enough for me to remotely reliably transcribe.

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embedding-shape 3 hours ago | parent [-]

As a Swede, Icelandic is a foreign to me as Finnish, meaning I don't understand it at all, in any way. Some words could be guessed, but that's the same for German too for most of us. Danish and Norwegian people I have no problem talking with though.

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vidarh 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I might be biased with some exposure to Norse and Old English too, so I don't know whether Norwegians without that would recognise nearly as much (or little) Icelandic given how much Icelandic still takes from Norse.

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masklinn 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand the western Norwegian dialects (/ nynorsk) have a much stronger old / west norse influence so are closer to Icelandic, maybe you are from those regions or are familiar with these dialects?

	▲	vidarh 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm from the east, but Nynorsk is required for all students (each region picks the main written language they want to use in schools, but also need to teach the other one), so we do certainly all get some exposure to Nynorsk as well and it certainly might help.