Faroese language Totally Explained

Everything about Faroese Language totally explained

Faroese (føroyskt, 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.
   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 wasn't 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 Welsh, he produced an orthography consistent with a continuous written tradition extending back to Old Norse. 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's a required subject for students 3rd grade 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 these dots might instantiate as short strokes forming a letter looking like Ő, ő.

Common family names on the Faroes are for example Joensen, Johansen, Dam, Dalsgarð or the Christian name Johannis. Even x was known in 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's written as <t> or as <h>, and if an Icelandic name has to be transcribed, <th> is common.

Phonology

Vowels

Grapheme	Name	Short	Long
A, a	fyrra a [ˈfɪɹːaɛaː] ("leading a")	/a/	/ɛaː/
Á, á	á [ɔaː]	/ɔ/	/ɔaː/
E, e	e [eː]	/ɛ/	/eː/
I, i	fyrra i [ˈfɪɹːaiː] ("leading i")	/ɪ/	/iː/
Í, í	fyrra í [ˈfɪɹːaʊiː] ("leading í")	/ʊi/	/ʊiː/
O, o	o [oː]	/ɔ/	/oː/
Ó, ó	ó [ɔuː]	/œ/	/ɔuː/
U, u	u [uː]	/ʊ/	/uː/
Ú, ú	ú [ʉuː]	/ʏ/	/ʉuː/
Y, y	seinna i [ˈsaiːdnaiː] ("rear i")	/ɪ/	/iː/
Ý, ý	seinna í [ˈsaiːdnaʊiː] ("rear í")	/ʊi/	/ʊiː/
Æ, æ	seinna a [ˈsaiːdnaɛaː] ("rear a")	/a/	/ɛaː/
Ø, ø	ø [øː]	/œ/	/øː/
Other vowels
ei	-	/ai/	/aiː/
ey	-	/ɛ/	/ɛiː/
oy	-	/ɔi/	/ɔiː/

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 endings

While 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'll be pronounced like /i/: áðrenn [ˈɔaːɹɪnː] (before). Very typical are endings like -ur, -ir, -ar. The dative is often indicated by -um which is always pronounced [ʊn].

[a] - bátar [ˈbɔaːtaɹ] (boats), kallar [ˈkadlaɹ] ((you) call, (he) calls)

Unstressed /i/ and /u/ in dialects
	Borðoy, Kunoy, Tórshavn	Viðoy, Svínoy, Fugloy	Suðuroy	Elsewhere (standard)
gulur (yellow)	[ˈɡ̊uːləɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːləɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːløɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːlʊɹ]
gulir (yellow pl.)	[ˈɡ̊uːləɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːləɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːløɹ]	[ˈɡ̊uːlɪɹ]
bygdin (the town)	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥ɪn]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥ən]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥øn]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥ɪn]
bygdum (the towns dat. pl.)	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥ʊn]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥ən]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊d̥øn]	[ˈb̥ɪɡ̊dʊn]
Source: Faroese: An Overview and Reference Grammar, 2004 (page 350)

[ɪ] - gestir [ˈdʒɛstɪɹ] (guests), dugir [ˈduːjɪɹ] ((you, he) can)

[ʊ] - bátur [ˈbɔaːtʊɹ] (boat), gentur [dʒɛntʊɹ] (girls), rennur [ˈɹenːʊɹ] ((you) run, (he) runs). In some dialects, unstressed /ʊ/ is realized as [ø] or is reduced further to [ə]. /ɪ/ goes under a similar reduction pattern so unstressed /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ 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 Insertion

Faroese avoids having a hiatus between two vowels by inserting a glide. Orthographically, this is shown in three ways:

vowel + ð + vowel

vowel + g + vowel

vowel + vowel 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 /a/, /i/, /u/.

Ð and G as glides

Glide insertion
First vowel		Second vowel			Examples
First vowel		i [ɪ]	u [ʊ]	a [a]
Grapheme	Phoneme	Glide
I-surrounding Type 1
i, y	[iː]	[j]	[j]	[j]	sigið, siður, siga
í, ý	[ʊiː]	[j]	[j]	[j]	mígi, mígur, míga
ey	[ɛiː]	[j]	[j]	[j]	reyði, reyður, reyða
ei	[aiː]	[j]	[j]	[j]	reiði, reiður, reiða
oy	[ɔiː]	[j]	[j]	[j]	noyði, royður, royða
U-surrounding Type 2
u	[uː]	[w]	[w]	[w]	suði, mugu, suða
ó	[ɔuː]	[w]	[w]	[w]	róði, róðu, Nóa
ú	[ʉuː]	[w]	[w]	[w]	búði, búðu, túa
I-surrounding Type 2, U-surrounding Type 2, A-surrounding Type 1
a, æ	[ɛaː]	[j]	[v]	-	ræði, æðu, glaða
á	[ɔaː]	[j]	[v]	-	ráði, fáur, ráða
e	[eː]	[j]	[v]	-	gleði, legu, gleða
o	[oː]	[j]	[v]	-	togið, smogu, roða
ø	[øː]	[j]	[v]	-	løgin, røðu, høgan
Source: Faroese: An Overview and Reference Grammar, 2004 (page 38)

<Ð> and are used in Faroese orthography to indicate one of a number of glide rather than any one phoneme. This can be:

[j]

"I-surrounding, type 1" - after /i, y, í, ý, ei, ey, oy/: bíða [ˈbʊija] (to wait), deyður [ˈdɛijʊɹ] (dead), seyður [ˈsɛijʊɹ] (sheep)
"I-surrounding, type 2" - between any vowel (except "u-vowels" /ó, u, ú/) and /i/: kvæði [ˈkvɛajɪ] (ballad), øði [ˈøːjɪ] (rage).

[w] "U-surrounding, type 1" - after /ó, u, ú/: Óðin [ˈɔuwɪn] (Odin), góðan morgun! [ˌgɔuwanˈmɔɹgʊn] (good morning!), suður [ˈsuːwʊɹ] (south), slóða [ˈslɔuwa] (to make a trace).

[v]

"U-surrounding, type 2" - between /a, á, e, æ, ø/ and /u/: áður [ˈɔavʊɹ] (before), leður [ˈleːvʊɹ] (leather), í klæðum [ɪˈklɛavʊn] (in clothes), í bløðum [ɪˈbløːvʊn] (in newspapers).
"A-surrounding, type 2"
- These are exceptions (there is also a regular pronunciation): æða [ˈɛava] (eider-duck), røða [ˈɹøːva] (speech).
- The past participles have always [v]: elskaðar [ˈɛlskavaɹ] (beloved, nom., acc. fem. pl.)
Silent
- "A-surrounding, type 1" - between /a, á, e, o/ and /a/ and in some words between <æ, ø> and : ráða [ˈɹɔːa] (to advise), gleða [ˈg̊leːa] (to gladden, please), boða [ˈboːa] (to forbode), kvøða [ˈkvøːa] (to chant), røða [ˈɹøːa] (to make a speech)

Skerping (sharpening)

Skerping
Written	Pronunciation	instead of
-ógv-	[ɛɡv]	*[ɔuɡv]
-úgv-	[ɪɡv]	*[ʉuɡv]
-eyggj-	[ɛdːʒ]	*[ɛidːʒ]
-íggj-, -ýggj-	[ʊdːʒ]	*[ʊidːʒ]
-eiggj-	[adːʒ]	*[aidːʒ]
-oyggj-	[ɔdːʒ]	*[ɔidːʒ]

The so-called "skerping" (Thráinsson et al. use the term "Faroese Verschärfung" - in Faroese, skerping /ʃɛɹpɪŋɡ/ means "sharpening") is a typical phenomenon of fronting back vowels before [ɡv] and monophthongizing certain diphthongs before [dːʒ]. Skerping isn't indicated orthographically. These consonants occur often after /ó, ú/ (ógv, úgv) and /ey, í, ý, ei, oy/ when no other consonant is following.

[ɛɡv]: Jógvan [ˈjɛɡvan] (a form of the name John), Gjógv [dʒɛɡv] (cleft)

[ɪɡv]: kúgv [kɪɡv] (cow), trúgva [ˈtɹɪɡva] (believe), but: trúleysur [ˈtɹʉuːlɛisʊɹ] (faithless)

[ɛdːʒ]: heyggjur [ˈhɛdːʒʊɹ] (high, burial mound), but heygnum [ˈhɛiːnʊn] (dat. sg. with suffix article)

[ʊdːʒ]: nýggjur [ˈnʊdːʒʊɹ] (new m.), but nýtt [nʊiʰtː] (n.)

[adːʒ]: beiggi [ˈbadːʒɪ] (brother)

[ɔdːʒ]: oyggj [ɔdːʒ] (island), but oynna [ˈɔinːa] (acc. sg. with suffix article)

Consonants

	Labial	Apical	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d			k ɡ
Affricate			tʃ dʒ
Fricative	f v	s	ʃ			h
Nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Approximant	w	l	ɹ	j

There are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including:

Voiced stops are devoiced word-finally and before voiceless consonants

Liquids are devoiced before voiceless consonants

Nasals generally assume the place of articulation and laryngeal settings of following consonants.

Velar stops palatalize to postalveolar affricates before /j/ /e/ /ɪ/ /y/ and /ɛi/

/v/ becomes /f/ before voiceless consonants

/s/ becomes /ʃ/ after /ɛi, ai, ɔi/ and before /j/ and may assimilate the retroflexion of a preceding /r/ to become [ʂ].

Omissions in consonant clusters

Faroese tends to omit the first or second consonant in clusters of different consonants:

fjals [fjals] (mountain's gen.) instead of *[fjadls] from [fjadl] (nom.). Other examples for genitives are: barns [ˈbans] (children's), vatns [van̥s] (lake's, water's).

hjálpti [jɔl̥tɪ] (helped) past sg. instead of *[ˈjɔlpta] from hjálpa [ˈjɔlpa]. Other examples for past forms are: sigldi [ˈsɪldɪ] (sailed), yrkti [ˈɪɹ̥tɪ] (wrote poetry).

homophone are fylgdi (followed) and fygldi (caught birds with net): [ˈfɪldɪ].

skt will be:

[st] in words of more than one syllable: føroyskt [ˈføːɹɪst] (Faroese n. sg.; also [ˈføːɹɪʂt]) russiskt [ˈɹʊsːɪst] (Russian n. sg.), íslendskt [ˈʊʃlɛŋ̊st] (Icelandic n. sg.).
[kst] in monosyllables: enskt [ɛŋ̊kst] (English n. sg.), danskt [daŋ̊kst] (Danish n. sg.), franskt [fɹaŋ̊kst] (French n. sg.), spanskt [spaŋ̊kst] (Spanish n. sg.), svenskt [svɛŋ̊kst] (Swedish n. sg.), týskt [tʊkst] (German n. sg.).
- However [ʂt] in: írskt [ʊʂt] (Irish n. sg.), norskt [nɔʂt] (Norwegian n. sg.)

Grammar
Faroese 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 Information
Get more info on 'Faroese Language'.

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