What was the language the Vikings spoke?

Answer 1

They spoke Old Norse which was an ancient Germanic language from the North Germanic branch. It was closely related to Old English and was the language whence the modern Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese) sprang. Like most ancient Indo-European languages it was heavily inflected retaining much of the ancient fusional morphology. Nouns had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural) and declined into four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). Verbs conjugated for person (first, second, third), number (singular, dual, and plural), tense (present and preterite) and mood (indicative and subjunctive). Most of this inflection has been lost in the Modern Scandinavian languages which have moved towards more analytical structures. Below see and extract in Old Norse from the 13th century Egils Saga: Þorgeirr blundr, systursonr Egils, var þar á þinginu ok hafði gengit hart at liðveizlu við Þorstein. Hann bað Egil ok þá Þorstein koma sér til staðfestu út þangat á Mýrar; hann bjó áðr fyrir sunnan Hvítá, fyrir neðan Blundsvatn. Egill tók vel á því ok fýsti Þorstein, at þeir léti hann þangat fara. Egill setti Þorgeir blund niðr at Ánabrekku, en Steinarr fœrði bústað sinn út yfir Langá ok settisk niðr at Leirulæk. En Egill reið heim suðr á Nes eptir þingit með flokk sinn, ok skildusk þeir feðgar með kærleik.