Faroese language

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Faroese
føroyskt 
Pronunciation: [ˈføːɹɪst], [ˈføːɹɪʂt]
Spoken in: Faroe Islands, Denmark, Norway

Total speakers: 60,000–80,000
Language family: Indo-European
 Germanic
  North Germanic
   West Scandinavian
    Faroese 
Writing system: Latin (Faroese variant) 
Official status
Official language in:  Faroe Islands
Regulated by: Faroese Language Board Føroyska málnevndin
Language codes
ISO 639-1: fo
ISO 639-2: fao
ISO 639-3: fao 

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Faroese (føroyskt, pronounced [ˈføːɹɪst] or [ˈføːɹɪʂt]), often also spelled Faeroese (cf. Merriam-Webster, which prefers this spelling), is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese in Denmark. It is one of three insular Scandinavian languages descended from the Old Norse language spoken in Scandinavia in the Viking Age, the others being Icelandic and the extinct Norn, which is thought to have been mutually intelligible with Faroese.

History

At one point, the language spoken in the Faroe Islands was Old West Norse, which Norwegian settlers had brought with them during the time of the landnám that began in AD 825. However, many of the settlers weren't really Norwegians, but descendants of Norwegian settlers in the Irish Sea. In addition, native Norwegian settlers often married women from Norse Ireland, the Orkneys, or Shetlands before settling in the Faroe Islands and Iceland. As a result, Celtic languages influenced both Faroese and Icelandic. This may be why, for example, Faroese has two words for duck: dunna (from Gaelic tunnag) for a domestic duck, and ont (from Old Norse ǫnd) for a duck in general. (This example has been criticized, however, by people claiming that the word is derived from Old Norse dunna, from Proto-Germanic *dusnō.) There is also some debatable evidence of Celtic language place names in the Faroes: for example Mykines and Stóra & Lítla Dímun have been hypothesized to contain Celtic roots.
Other examples of early introduced words of Celtic origin are; "blak/blaðak" (buttermilk) Irish bláthach; "drunnur" (tail-piece of an animal) Irish dronn; "grúkur" (head, headhair) Irish gruaig; "lámur" (hand, paw) Irish lámh; "tarvur" (bull) Irish tarbh; and "ærgi" (pasture in the outfield) Irish áirge.[1]

Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved, although it was still intelligible with Old West Norse language. This would have been closely related to the Norn language of Orkney and Shetland.

Until the 15th century, Faroese had a similar orthography to Icelandic and Norwegian, but after the Reformation in 1536, the ruling Danes outlawed its use in schools, churches and official documents. The islanders continued to use the language in ballads, folktales, and everyday life. This maintained a rich spoken tradition, but for 300 years the language was not written.

This changed when Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb, along with the Icelandic grammarian, and politician, Jón Sigurðsson, published a written standard for Modern Faroese 1854 that exists to this day. Although this would have been an opportunity to create a phonetically true orthography like that of Finnish, he produced an orthography consistent with a continuous written tradition extending back to Old Norse, which gives the written language a very archaic look similar to Icelandic. The letter ð, for example, has no specific phonemes attached to it. Furthermore, although the letter 'm' corresponds to the bilabial nasal as it does in English, it also corresponds to the alveolar nasal in the dative ending -um [ʊn].

Hammershaimb's orthography met with some opposition for its complexity, and a rival system was devised by Jakob Jakobsen. Jakobsen's orthography was closer to the spoken language, but was never taken up by speakers.

In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish as the official school language, in 1938 as church language, and in 1948 as national language by the Home Rule Act of the Faroes. However, Faroese didn't become the common language in the media and advertising until the 1980s. Today, Danish is considered a foreign language, though around 5% of the Faroe Islanders learn it as a first language and it is a required subject for students 3rd grade[2] and up.

Learning Faroese

It is unusual for Faroese to be taught at universities outside the Faroes (within Scandinavian studies). However, University College London and the University of Copenhagen have course options in Faroese for students reading Scandinavian Studies. So most students are forced to learn it autodidactically by books, listening to Faroese on the radio (there is an internet live stream) and trying to correspond with Faroese people. A good opportunity for learning Faroese is also visiting the websites of Postverk Føroya and reading their stories about the stamp editions both in Faroese and English (or German, French and Danish).

The University of the Faroe Islands offers an annual Summer institute over 3 weeks including:

• 50 lessons of Faroese grammar and language exercises.
• 20 lectures on linguistic subjects, culture, society and nature. The lectures on culture include oral poetry and modern literature.
• 2 excursions to places of historical and geographical interest.

Alphabet

The Faroese alphabet consists of 29 letters derived from the Latin alphabet:

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A Á B D Ð E F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P R S T U Ú V Y Ý Æ Ø
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a á b d ð e f g h i í j k l m n o ó p r s t u ú v y ý æ ø

Notes:

• Ð, ð can never come at the beginning of a word, but can occur in capital letters in logos or on maps, such as SUÐUROY (Southern Isle).
• Ø, ø can also be written Ö, ö in poetic language, such as Föroyar (the Faroes) (cf. Swedish-Icelandic typographic/orthographic tradition vs. Norwegian-Danish). In handwriting Ő, ő is used to differentiate ø from ö. Earlier versions of the orthography used both ø and ö with ø being the long ø and ö being the short equivalent. As a result using ö as a substitute for ø is incorrect, since it's not the same letter as ø/ő.
• Common family names on the Faroes are e.g. Joensen, Johansen, Dam, Dalsgarð or the Christian name Johannis.
• While C, Q, W, X, and Z are not found in the Faroese language, X was known in earlier versions of Hammershaimbs orthography, such as Saxun for Saksun.
• While the Faroese keyboard layout allows one to write in Latin, English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, etc., the Old Norse and Modern Icelandic letter þ is missing. In related Faroese words it is written as <t> or as <h>, and if an Icelandic name has to be transcribed, <th> is common.