Faroese language
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Faroese ( ; ) 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 ...
spoken as a
first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...
by about 69,000 Faroe Islanders, of whom 21,000 reside mainly in
Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
and elsewhere. It is one of five languages descended from
Old West Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
spoken in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
; the others include Norwegian, Icelandic, and the extinct Norn and Greenlandic Norse. Faroese and Icelandic, its closest extant relative, are not easily
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...
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, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
, 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 is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
, but descendants of Norse settlers in the
Irish Sea The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...
region. In addition, women from Norse-occupied Ireland, the Norse–Gaelic Isles,
Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...
, and
Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...
often married native Scandinavian men before settling in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As a result, the
Middle Irish Middle Irish, also called Middle Gaelic (, , ), 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 English and Early Middle English. The modern Goideli ...
language has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic. There is speculation about Gaelic language place names in the Faroes: for example, the names of Mykines, Stóra Dímun, Lítla Dímun and Argir 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 mode ...
), cf.
Middle Irish Middle Irish, also called Middle Gaelic (, , ), 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 English and Early Middle English. The modern Goideli ...
; (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 ani ...
, 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#Characteristics, koala (which has two thumb#O ...
, paw), cf. Middle Irish ; (
bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not Castration, castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol cattle in r ...
), cf. Middle Irish ; and (
pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...
in the
outfield The outfield, in cricket, baseball and softball is the area of the field of play further from the batsman or batter than the infield. In association football, the outfield players are positioned outside the goal area. In bat and ball games ...
), cf. Middle Irish . Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved, although it was probably still mutually intelligible with
Old West Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
, and remained similar to the
Norn language Norn is an extinct North Germanic languages, 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 ...
of
Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...
and Shetland during Norn's earlier phase. Faroese ceased to be a written language after the Danish–Norwegian Reformation of the early 16th century, 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 were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
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 of the
Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...
, with Faroese on the left and Danish on the right.
Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb (, ; March 25, 1819 – April 8, 1909) was a Faroese Lutheran minister who established the modern orthography of Faroesethe language of the Faroe Islandsbased on the Icelandic language, which like Faroese, d ...
and the Icelandic grammarian and politician
Jón Sigurðsson Jón Sigurðsson (17 June 1811 – 7 December 1879) was the leader of the 19th century icelandic nationalism, Icelandic independence movement. Biography Born at Hrafnseyri, in Arnarfjörður in the Westfjords area of Iceland, he was the son of ...
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 convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
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 A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
attached to it.
Jakob Jakobsen Jakob Jakobsen (22 February 1864 — 15 August 1918) was a Faroe Islanders, 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 ...
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 published the
Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...
in Faroese. In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish 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. The first complete translation of the Bible was completed in 1948. Up until the 1980s, public radio broadcasts were primarily conducted in Norwegian and Danish. This helps to explain why older generations can speak Norwegian in addition to Danish and Faroese. Faroese broadcasts quickly replaced earlier programs and now all radio content is transmitted in the language, alongside all local newspapers. Today, Danish is considered a foreign language, although around 5% of residents on the Faroes learn it as a first language. Both Danish and English are obligatory at the primary and secondary school levels, with fluency in English becoming increasingly valued particularly among the younger generations. Films and television are frequently shown in English with Danish subtitles. In 2017, the tourist board Visit Faroe Islands launched a website entitled Faroe Islands Translate. Text can be entered in thirteen languages, including English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Instead of an instant machine translation being given, the text goes to a volunteer who will provide a live video translation, or else a recorded one later. The aim of this project was to get Faroese featured on
Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingualism, multilingual neural machine translation, neural machine translation service developed by Google to translation, translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a web applic ...
.


Old Faroese

Old Faroese (, ca. mid-14th to mid-16th centuries) is a form of
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
spoken in medieval times in the Faroe Islands. The most crucial aspects of the development of Faroese are diphthongisation 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
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
''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''.


Dialects

Faroese is a highly variable language with many dialects actively used across the islands’ approximately 120 communities. While the dialect of
Tórshavn Tórshavn (; ; Danish language, Danish: ''Thorshavn''), usually locally referred to as simply Havn, is the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands. It is located in the southern part on the east coast of Streymoy. To the northwest of th ...
is the most prominent due to the city's outstanding size, there is no official spoken standard variety, and little evidence that the Tórshavn dialect has developed
prestige Prestige may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films *Prestige (film), ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett: woman travels to French Indochina to meet up with husband *The Prestige (film), ''The Prestige'' (fi ...
status. Faroese speech communities are tightly knit and the use of dialectal speech is widely encouraged. The study of Faroese dialectology began hundreds of years ago, with the scholar Lucas Debes noting a north–south distinction as early as 1673. In the 18th century linguist Jens Christian Svabo made further distinctions, such as identifying the Tórshavn dialect, though his categorization lacked thorough justification. In 1891
Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb (, ; March 25, 1819 – April 8, 1909) was a Faroese Lutheran minister who established the modern orthography of Faroesethe language of the Faroe Islandsbased on the Icelandic language, which like Faroese, d ...
would write a more definitive study of the language's variation, noting distinguishing characteristics of the north–south divide such as the northern aspiration of unvoiced plosives after long vowels and the pronunciation of as in most of the north compared to in the south. The most recent and detailed classification by Hjalmar P. Petersen divides the language into four major varieties including North-Western Faroese, Central Faroese, Northern Faroese, and Southern Faroese. Additional sub-dialects of particular islands and villages have also been identified. Most of the analysis by Petersen and earlier authors is based on phonological evidence. The southern variety of Faroese is very distinct, possibly due to geographic distance exacerbated by the lack of underwater tunnels which have connected most other islands north of Sandur. The dialect of these islands is characterized by a unique form of certain personal pronouns, alongside phonological features such as the intervocalic voicing of non- geminate stops. The
fortis Fortis may refer to: Business * Fortis (Swiss watchmaker), a Swiss watch company * Fortis Films, an American film and television production company founded by actress and producer Sandra Bullock * Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in ...
consonants , , and are aspirated following long vowels. The central dialect area centered around Suðurstreymoy features a merging of and in unstressed ending syllables. The fortis consonants are neither aspirated nor weakened. The island of
Nólsoy Nólsoy (, previously also ''Nölsoy''; ; ) is an island and village in central Faroe Islands, 4km east of the capital Tórshavn in Streymoy. Description Nólsoy is the lowest of the Faroes; the highest point is Eggjarklettur (372 m) on the moun ...
is a notable transitional area due to its unique realization of long as and short as compared to the and found in Tórshavn and elsewhere. The northern dialect is characterized by weakened fortis consonants and a monophthongal pronunciation of in ending syllables, i.e., . The realization of as dominates in this region, although small parts of the central and northwestern regions use this pronunciation as well. The northwestern dialect features aspirated fortis consonants after long vowels. The and vowels remain unmerged in unstressed ending syllables. Long is pronounced and short is pronounced .


Alphabet

The Faroese alphabet consists of 29 letters derived from the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a 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 Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
:


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 Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
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 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
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...
. Faroese is an inflected language with three
grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
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 E ...
,
accusative In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive 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", " ...
, dative 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 ...
.


See also

* Faroese language conflict *
Goidelic languages The Goidelic ( ) or Gaelic languages (; ; ) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from Ireland through the Isle o ...
* Gøtudanskt accent *
Old Norwegian Old Norwegian ( and ), also called Norwegian Norse, is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian. Its distinction from O ...


Further reading


To learn Faroese as a language

*Adams, Jonathan & Hjalmar P. Petersen. ''Faroese: A Language Course for beginners'' Grammar & Textbook. Tórshavn, 2009: Stiðin (704 p.) *W. B. Lockwood: ''An Introduction to Modern Faroese.'' Tórshavn, 1977. (no ISBN, 244 pages, 4th printing 2002) *Michael Barnes: ''Faroese Language Studies'' Studia Nordica 5, Supplementum 30. Tórshavn, 2002. (239 pages) *Höskuldur Thráinsson (Þráinsson), Hjalmar P. Petersen, Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen, Zakaris Svabo Hansen: ''Faroese. An Overview and Reference Grammar''. Tórshavn, 2004. (500 pages) *Richard Kölbl: ''Färöisch Wort für Wort''. Bielefeld 2004 (in German)
Faroeseonline.com


Dictionaries

*Johan Hendrik W. Poulsen: ''Føroysk orðabók''. Tórshavn, 1998. (1483 pages) (in Faroese) *Annfinnur í Skála / Jonhard Mikkelsen: ''Føroyskt / enskt – enskt / føroyskt'', Vestmanna: Sprotin 2008. (Faroese–English / English–Faroese dictionary, 2 volumes) *Annfinnur í Skála: ''Donsk-føroysk orðabók''. Tórshavn 1998. (1369 pages) (Danish–Faroese dictionary) *M.A. Jacobsen, Chr. Matras: ''Føroysk–donsk orðabók.'' Tórshavn, 1961. (no ISBN, 521 pages, Faroese–Danish dictionary) *Hjalmar Petersen, Marius Staksberg: ''Donsk–Føroysk orðabók''. Tórshavn, 1995. (879 p.) (Danish–Faroese dictionary) *Eigil Lehmann: ''Føroysk–norsk orðabók''. Tórshavn, 1987 (no ISBN, 388 p.) (Faroese–Norwegian dictionary) *Jón Hilmar Magnússon: ''Íslensk-færeysk orðabók''. Reykjavík, 2005. (877 p.) (Icelandic–Faroese dictionary) *Gianfranco Contri: ''Dizionario faroese-italiano = Føroysk-italsk orðabók''. Tórshavn, 2004. (627 p.) (Faroese–Italian dictionary)


Faroese literature and research

*V.U. Hammershaimb: ''Færøsk Anthologi.'' Copenhagen 1891 (no ISBN, 2 volumes, 4th printing, Tórshavn 1991) (editorial comments in Danish) *Tórður Jóansson: ''English loanwords in Faroese''. Tórshavn, 1997. (243 pages) *Petersen, Hjalmar P. 2009. ''Gender Assignment in Modern Faroese. Hamborg. Kovac'' *Petersen, Hjalmar P. 2010. ''The Dynamics of Faroese-Danish Language Contact. Heidelberg. Winter'' *Faroese/German anthology "From Djurhuus to Poulsen – Faroese Poetry during 100 Years", academic advice:
Turið Sigurðardóttir Turið Sigurðardóttir (born 12 August 1946) is a Faroese educator, writer and translator, specializing in the history of Faroese literature. She lives in Tórshavn and teaches at the University of the Faroe Islands. Biography Born in Copenhagen, ...
, linear translation: Inga Meincke (2007), ed. by Paul Alfred Kleinert


Other

*


References


Footnotes


Citations


External links


Faroese-English dictionary


* ttps://malrad.fo/in-english Faroese Language Council
Useful Faroese Words & Phrases for Travelers

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