The name Scandia, later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (Natural History), but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia. Scandia thus does not appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that Scadinavia may have been one of the Scandiae islands was instead introduced by Ptolemy (c.

Apart from the Sámi languages and the languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a neighboring state, the following minority languages in Scandinavia are protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Yiddish, Romani Chib/Romanes and Scandoromani. North Germanic languages[edit] Continental Scandinavian languages: Danish Norwegian Swedish Insular Scandinavian languages: Faroese Icelandic The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese), [54][55] but because of changes appearing in the languages since 1600 the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian (ö-nordisk/øy-nordisk) featuring Icelandic and Faroese[56] and Continental Scandinavian (Skandinavisk), comprising Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.