Faroese ( ; ''føroyskt mál'' ) is a

North Germanic language The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...

spoken as a

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

by about 72,000

Faroe Islanders Faroese people or Faroe Islanders ( fo, føroyingar; da, færinger) are a North Germanic ethnic group and nation native to the Faroe Islands. The Faroese are of mixed Norse and Gaelic origins. About 21,000 Faroese live in neighbouring countri ...

, around 53,000 of whom reside on the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

and 23,000 in other areas, mainly

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. It is one of five languages descended from

Old West Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

spoken in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, the others being Norwegian, Icelandic, and the extinct Norn and Greenlandic Norse. Faroese and Icelandic, its closest extant relative, are not

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

in speech, but the written languages resemble each other quite closely, largely owing to Faroese's etymological orthography.

History

Around 900 AD, the language spoken in the Faroes was

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

, which Norse settlers had brought with them during the time of the settlement of Faroe Islands () that began in 825. However, many of the settlers were not from

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

, but descendants of Norse settlers in the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...

region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland,

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

, or

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

often married native Scandinavian men before settling in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As a result, the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic. There is speculation about Irish language place names in the Faroes: for example, the names of Mykines,

Stóra Dímun Stóra Dímun ( da, Stor Dímun) is an island in the southern Faroe Islands, sometimes only referred to as Dímun. It is accessible by sea only during periods of clear and calm weather, but there is a regular helicopter service twice a week all ye ...

Lítla Dímun Lítla Dímun is a small, uninhabited island between the islands of Suðuroy and Stóra Dímun in the Faroe Islands. It is the smallest of the main 18 islands, being less than a square kilometre (247 acres) in area, and is the only uninhabited o ...

and

Argir Argir ( da, Arge) is a village in the Faroe Islands. Argir most likely takes its name from Old Irish ''airge'' meaning ''summer pasture''.; several placenames in Faroe carry the same name with this meaning. Once a village south of Tórshavn, Arg ...

have been hypothesized to contain Celtic roots. Other examples of early-introduced words of Celtic origin are: / (

buttermilk Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most mod ...

), cf.

Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engli ...

; (tail-piece of an animal), cf. Middle Irish ; (

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

, headhair), cf. Middle Irish ; (

hand A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "h ...

, paw), cf. Middle Irish ; ( bull), cf. Middle Irish ; and (

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

in the outfield), cf. Middle Irish . Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved, although it was probably still mutually intelligible with

, and remained similar to the

Norn language Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland) off the north coast of mainland Scotland and in Caithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland. After Orkney and Shetland were pledged t ...

and Shetland during Norn's earlier phase. Faroese ceased to be a written language after the union of Norway with Denmark in 1380, with Danish replacing Faroese as the language of administration and education. The islanders continued to use the language in

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s, folktales, and everyday life. This maintained a rich spoken tradition, but for 300 years the language was not used in written form. In 1823, the Danish Bible Society published a

diglot A polyglot is a book that contains Parallel text, side-by-side versions of the same text in several different languages. Some editions of the Bible or its parts are polyglots, in which the Hebrew language, Hebrew and Greek language, Greek origina ...

of the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and for ...

, with Faroese on the left and Danish on the right. Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb and the Icelandic grammarian and politician Jón Sigurðsson published a written standard for Modern Faroese in 1854, which still exists. They set a standard for the

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

of the language, based on its Old Norse roots and similar to that of Icelandic. The main purpose of this was for the spelling to represent the diverse dialects of Faroese in equal measure. Additionally, it had the advantages of being etymologically clear and keeping the kinship with the Icelandic written language. The actual pronunciation, however, often differs considerably from the written rendering. The letter '' ð'', for example, has no specific

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

attached to it.

Jakob Jakobsen Jakob Jakobsen (22 February 1864 — 15 August 1918) was a Faroese linguist and scholar. The first Faroe Islander to earn a doctoral degree, his thesis on the Norn language of Shetland was a major contribution to its historical preservation. I ...

devised a rival system of orthography, based on his wish for a phonetic spelling, but this system was never taken up by the speakers. In 1908,

Scripture Gift Mission Lifewords (formerly Scripture Gift Mission) is a Christian mission based in London, but with offices worldwide. It exists to promote the positive influence of the Bible on everyday life. This has been done traditionally through literature distribu ...

published the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

in Faroese. In 1937, Faroese replaced

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

as the official school language, in 1938, as the church language, and in 1948, as the national language by the Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands. Today, Danish is considered a foreign language, , and it is taught in school from the first grade. In 2017, the tourist board Visit Faroe Islands launched a website entitled Faroe Islands Translate, featuring recorded translations of submitted phrases available in 13 languages, including English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Old Faroese

Old Faroese (, ca. mid-14th to mid-16th centuries) is a form of

spoken in medieval times in the Faroe Islands. The most crucial aspects of the development of Faroese are

diphthongisation In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture, or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong. Types Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of ...

and palatalisation. There is not enough data available to establish an accurate chronology of Faroese, but a rough one may be developed through comparison to the chronologies of Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. In the 12th/13th centuries, ''á'' and ''ǫ́'' merged as ; later on at the beginning of the 14th century, delabialization took place: ''y'', ''øy'', ''au'' > ; ''í'' and ''ý'' merged in addition to ''i'' and ''y'', but in the case of ''í'' and ''ý'', it appears that labialisation took place instead as is documented by later development to . Further, the language underwent a palatalisation of ''k'', ''g'' and ''sk'' before

''e'', ''i'', ''y'', ''ø'', ''au'' > > > . Before the palatalisation ''é'' and ''ǽ'' merged as and approximately in the same period epenthetic ''u'' is inserted into word-final and clusters. A massive quantity shift also operated in Middle Faroese. In the case of ''skerping'', it took place after delabialization but before loss of post-vocalic ''ð'' and ''g'' . The shift of ''hv'' to , the deletion of in (remaining) word-initial –sonorant clusters (''hr'', ''hl'', ''hn'' > ''r'', ''l'', ''n''), and the dissolution of ''þ'' (''þ'' > ''t''; ''þ'' > ''h'' in demonstrative pronouns and adverbs) appeared before the end of the 13th century. Another undated change is the merger of ''ǫ'', ''ø'' and ''ǿ'' into ; pre-nasal ''ǫ'', ''ǫ́'' > ''o'', ''ó''. ''enk'', ''eng'' probably became , in the 14th century; the development of ''a'' to before ''ng'', ''nk'' appeared after the palatalisation of ''k'', ''g'', and ''sk'' had been completed, such a change is quite a recent development, as well as change ''Cve'' > ''Cvø''.

Alphabet

The Faroese alphabet consists of 29 letters derived from the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

Phonology

As with most other Germanic languages, Faroese has a large number of vowels, with 26 in total. Vowel distribution is similar to other North Germanic languages in that short vowels appear in closed syllables (those ending in consonant clusters or long consonants) and long vowels appearing in open syllables. Faroese shares with Icelandic and Danish the feature of maintaining a contrast between stops based exclusively on aspiration, not voicing. Geminated stops may be pre-aspirated in intervocalic and word-final position. Intervocalically the aspirated consonants become pre-aspirated unless followed by a closed vowel. In clusters, the preaspiration merges with a preceding nasal or apical approximant, rendering them voiceless. There are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including: *Nasals generally assume the place of articulation and laryngeal settings of following consonants. *Velar stops palatalize to postalveolar affricates before and * becomes before voiceless consonants * becomes after and before * becomes retroflex before consonants in consonant clusters, yielding the allophones while itself becomes , example: is realized as . *

Pre-occlusion In linguistics, pre-stopping, also known as pre-occlusion or pre-plosion, is a phonological process involving the historical or allophonic insertion of a very short stop consonant before a sonorant, such as a short before a nasal or a lateral . Th ...

of original to and to . *Pre-aspiration of original voiceless stops after non-high long vowels and diphthongs or when a voiceless stop is followed by . All long voiceless stops are pre-aspirated when doubled or in clusters .

Grammar

Faroese grammar is related and very similar to that of modern Icelandic and

. Faroese is an inflected language with three

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

s and four cases:

nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...

dative In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...

and

genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

References

Footnotes

Citations

External links

Faroese-English dictionary

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20101209133511/http://www.fmn.fo/malnevndin/about.htm FMN.fo – Faroese Language Committee(Official site with further links)
'Hover & Hear' Faroese pronunciations
and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.

How to count in FaroeseFaroe Island Translate
{{Authority control Languages of Denmark West Scandinavian languages Subject–verb–object languages Verb-second languages

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

Stress-timed languages Vulnerable languages

History

Old Faroese

Alphabet

Phonology

Grammar

See also

Further reading

To learn Faroese as a language

Dictionaries

Faroese literature and research

Other

References

Footnotes

Citations

External links