Hælish language

Hælish
Hælandic
Hælsk
Native to	Kingdom of Hæland
Region	Northwestern Europe
Ethnicity	Hælish
Native speakers	~1,350,000 (2020)
Language family	Germanic Northwest Germanic North Germanic Hælish language Hælish
Early forms	Proto-Hælish Hæleþan Old Norse Old Hælish
Writing system	Latin Hælish alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Kingdom of Hæland
Regulated by	Nationalsprognævnet
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hæ
ISO 639-2	hæl
ISO 639-3	–

Hælish is a North Germanic language spoken by about 1.3 million people, principally in and around Hæland. Communities of Hælish speakers are also found in Shetland, Orkney and the Faroe Islands. Minor Hælish-speaking communities are also found in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, and Scotland. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Hælish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. Hælish, together with Danish, derives from the East Norse dialect group. A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish as "mainland (or continental) Scandinavian", while Hælish, Icelandic and Faroese are classified as "insular Scandinavian". Although the written languages are compatible, spoken Hælish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and nearly completely indistinguishable with Danish, thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either is variable between regions and speakers.