This critical report-cum-position statement summarises several workshops and conference panels recently held in three Nordic countries—Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands—based in developing the concept of island languages. It puts forward the epistemology and ontology of these sessions. The role these gatherings are playing in encouraging a more linguistically mandated direction within island studies and the study of island languages, especially in the Nordic countries and Europe, is summarised.

language contactlinguistic isolateslinguistics of islandssociolinguistics