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Faroese language
Faroese (føroyskt, or ), 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.
HistoryAt 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 ) 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 *dusn?.) 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. 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 . 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 and up. Learning FaroeseIt 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:
Alphabet
Some Faroese isoglosses 
An example of Faroese ?
Notes:
PhonologyVowels
As in various other Germanic languages, stressed vowels in Faroese are long when not followed by two or more consonants. Two consonants or a consonant cluster usually indicates a short vowel. Exceptions may be short vowels in particles, pronouns, adverbs, and prepositions in unstressed positions, consisting of just one syllable. As may be seen on the table to the left, Faroese (like English) has a very atypical pronunciation of its vowels, with odd offglides and other features. For example, long í and ý sound almost like a long Hiberno-English i, and long ó like an American English long o.
Short vowels in endingsWhile in other languages a short /e/ is common for inflectional endings, Faroese uses /a, i, u/. This means that there are no unstressed short vowels except for these three. Even if a short unstressed /e/ is seen in writing, it will be pronounced like /i/: áðrenn (before). Very typical are endings like -ur, -ir, -ar. The dative is often indicated by -um which is always pronounced .
In some dialects, unstressed is realized as or is reduced further to . goes under a similar reduction pattern so unstressed and can rhyme. This can cause spelling mistakes related to these two vowels. The table to the right displays the different realizations in different dialects. Glide InsertionFaroese avoids having a hiatus between two vowels by inserting a glide. Orthographically, this is shown in three ways:
Typically, the first vowel is long and in words with two syllables always stressed, while the second vowel is short and unstressed. In Faroese, short and unstressed vowels can only be . Ð and G as glides
<Ð> and <G> are used in Faroese orthography to indicate one of a number of glide rather than any one phoneme. This can be:
Skerping (sharpening)
The so-called "skerping" (Thráinsson et al. use the term "Faroese Verschärfung" - in Faroese, skerping means "sharpening") is a typical phenomenon of fronting back vowels before and monophthongizing certain diphthongs before . Skerping is not indicated orthographically. These consonants occur often after /ó, ú/ (ógv, úgv) and /ey, í, ý, ei, oy/ when no other consonant is following.
ConsonantsThere are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including:
Omissions in consonant clustersFaroese tends to omit the first or second consonant in clusters of different consonants:
GrammarFaroese grammar is related and very similar to that of modern Icelandic and Old Norse. Faroese is an inflected language with three grammatical genders and four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Further readingThis is a chronological list of books about Faroese still available.
Hjalmar P. Petersen & Jonathan Adams: Faroese: A Language Course for Beginners. Grammar. Tórshavn, 2008:Stiðin
Adams, Jonathan & Hjalmar P. Petersen. Faroese: A Language Course for beginners Textbook. Tórshavn, 2008: Stiðin.
ReferencesExternal links
af:Faroëes am:??? ar:??? ?????? an:Idioma feroés bn:??????????? ???? bs:Farski jezik br:Faeroeg ca:Feroès cs:Faer?tina da:Færøsk (sprog) de:Färöische Sprache et:Fääri keel es:Idioma feroés eo:Feroa lingvo eu:Faroeera fa:???? ?????? fo:Føroyskt (mál) fr:Féroïen gv:Faaroish gl:Lingua feroesa ko:??? hsb:Färö??ina io:Faerana linguo id:Bahasa Faroe is:Færeyska it:Lingua faroese kw:Faroyek ku:Faroeî la:Lingua Faroensis lv:F?ru valoda lt:Farer? kalba lij:Lèngoa far?nse li:Faeröers hu:Feröeri nyelv mk:?????? ????? ms:Bahasa Faroe nl:Faeröers ja:????? no:Færøysk nn:Færøysk språk oc:Feroés pms:Lenga faroèisa pl:J?zyk farerski pt:Língua feroesa crh:Farer tili ro:Limba feroez? ru:????????? ???? se:Fearagiella simple:Faroese language sk:Faer?ina sl:Fer??ina fi:Fäärin kieli sv:Färöiska th:???????? tg:??????? ??????? tr:Faroe dili uk:????????? ???? vec:?éngoa faroexe wa:Faeroyès bat-smg:Far?ru kalba zh:??? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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