Faroese language

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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

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands or Faeroe Islands or simply Faroe or Faeroes are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately half way between Scotland and Iceland....
and about 12,000 Faroese

Faroese people

The Faroese or Faroe Islanders are the people of the Faroe Islands in Northern Europe of Scandinavians and British people origins.About 21,000 Faroese live in neighbouring countries, particularly in Denmark, Iceland and Norway....
in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
. It is one of three insular

Island

An island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets....
Scandinavian languages descended from the Old Norse language spoken in Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
in the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries....
, the others being Icelandic

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
and the extinct Norn

Norn language

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken on Shetland and Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland, and in Caithness. After the islands were pledge to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century, it was gradually replaced by Scots language....
, 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
Landnám

Landn?m is old Norse which literally translates to touching land. It is used in the North Atlantic to describe the time when land and islands in this area were first populated....
that began in AD 825.

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Encyclopedia

Faroese (føroyskt, or ), often also spelled Faeroese (cf. Merriam-Webster, which prefers this spelling), is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language

Language

Faroe Islands

Faroese people

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
. It is one of three insular

Island

Scandinavia

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the eighth to eleventh centuries....
, the others being Icelandic

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
and the extinct Norn

Norn language

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
Landnám

Landn?m is old Norse which literally translates to touching land. It is used in the North Atlantic to describe the time when land and islands in this area were first populated....
that began in AD 825. However, many of the settlers weren't really Norwegians, but descendants of Norwegian settlers in the Irish Sea

Irish Sea

The Irish Sea also known as the Mann Sea or Manx Sea, separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea portion of the Atlantic Ocean by St George's Channel between Republic of Ireland and Wales, and to the north by the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland which forms part of...
. 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

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
influenced both Faroese and Icelandic

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
. This may be why, for example, Faroese has two words for duck: dunna (from Gaelic

Goidelic languages

The Goidelic languages, , historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, through the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland....
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

Proto-Germanic language

Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the hypothetical common ancestor of all the Germanic languages such as modern English language, Dutch language, German language, Danish language, Norwegian language, Icelandic language, Faroese language, and Swedish language....
*dusno.) There is also some debatable evidence of Celtic language place names in the Faroes: for example Mykines

Mykines

Mykines is the western-most of the main 18 islands in the Faroe Islands. See also the only settlement on the island, Mykines, Mykines.Only 11 people live in village Mykines all year around....
and Stóra

Stóra Dímun

St?ra D?mun is an island in the southern Faroe Islands, sometimes only referred to as D?mun. The island is accessible from sea only during periods of clear and calm weather, but regular helicopter service is available twice a week through the whole year, as the Faroese government takes pity on those who might want to escape....
& Lítla Dímun

Lítla Dímun

L?tla D?mun is a small island between the islands of Su?uroy and St?ra D?mun in the Faroe Islands. It is the smallest of the main 18 islands, being less than 1 km? in area, and is the only uninhabited one....
have been hypothesized to contain Celtic roots.
Other examples of early introduced words of Celtic origin are; "blak/blaðak" (buttermilk

Buttermilk

Buttermilk is a fermented dairy product produced from cow's milk with a characteristically sour taste. The product is made in one of two ways....
) Irish bláthach; "drunnur" (tail-piece of an animal) Irish dronn; "grúkur" (head

Head

In anatomy, the head of an animal is the rostral part that usually comprises the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth . Some very simple animals may not have a head, but many bilateria do....
, headhair) Irish gruaig; "lámur" (hand

Hand

The hands are the two intricate, prehensile, multi-fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a human or other primate. They are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, using anywhere from the roughest motor skills to the finest , and since the fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve e...
, paw

PAW

PAW may refer to:*...
) Irish lámh; "tarvur" (bull

Bull

A bull is an adult male of various large mammal species including elk, moose, bovinae , elephants, whales, pinniped, and sea lions.Things...
) Irish tarbh; and "ærgi" (pasture

Pasture

Pasture is land with herbaceous vegetation cover used for grazing of ungulate livestock as part of a farm or ranch. Prior to the advent of factory farming, pasture was the primary source of food for grazing animals such as cattle and horses....
in the outfield

Outfield

The outfield is a sporting terminology used in cricket and baseball to refer to the area of the field of play further from the batsman or Batter than the Infielder....
) Irish áirge.

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

Norn language

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
and Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
, but after the Reformation in 1536

Reformation in Denmark

The Reformation in Denmark meant the transition from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism in the Church of Denmark which was implemented in 1536 at the decision of Christian III of Denmark....
, the ruling Danes

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries....
outlawed its use in schools, churches and official documents. The islanders continued to use the language in ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative story and set to music. Ballads were characteristic of particularly British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the nineteenth century and used extensively across Europe and later north America, Australia and north Africa....
s, folktales

Folklore

Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, superstitions, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group ....
, and everyday life. This maintained a rich spoken tradition

Oral history

Oral history can be defined as the recording, preservation and interpretation of history, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker....
, but for 300 years the language was not written.

This changed when Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb

Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb

Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb established the modern orthography of Faroese language, the language of the Faroe Islands, in 1854. He was born in Sandav?gur on the island of Vagar....
, 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

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
, he produced an orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
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

D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled dee , plural dees....
, for example, has no specific phoneme

Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
s attached to it. Furthermore, although the letter 'm' corresponds to the bilabial nasal

Bilabial nasal

The bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m....
as it does in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, it also corresponds to the alveolar nasal

Alveolar nasal

The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant nasal consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n....
in the dative

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
ending -um .

Hammershaimb's orthography met with some opposition for its complexity, and a rival system was devised by Jakob Jakobsen

Jakob Jakobsen

Dr. phil. Jakob Jakobsen, , was a Faroese linguist as well as a scholar of literature. He was the first Faroese person to earn a doctoral degree....
. Jakobsen's orthography was closer to the spoken language, but was never taken up by speakers.

In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish

Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
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 Faroese

It is unusual for Faroese to be taught at universities outside the Faroes (within Scandinavian studies). However, University College London

University College London

University College London is a university institution and constituent college of the University of London based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom....
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

Postverk Føroya

Postverk F?roya [] is the mail of the Faroe Islands and was founded on 1 April 1976 under the Home Rule of the Faroe Islands.On 16 December 2005, it became a public joint stock company under the name P/F Postverk F?roya ....
and reading both in Faroese and English (or German, French and Danish) as well as an online dictionary on Sprotin , which requires a small subscription fee.

The University of the Faroe Islands

University of the Faroe Islands

The University of the Faroe Islands is a Public university located in T?rshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. It consists of three faculties: Faroese language Language and Literature, Science and Technology, and History and Social Sciences....
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
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
:

Majuscule Forms Capital letters Capital letters or majuscules [IPA pronunciation: /m?'d??skjuls, 'm?d???skjuls/], in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, etc., may also be called capitals, or caps.... (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A A The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is a ; the plural is aes or, more commonly, a's....	Á A The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is a ; the plural is aes or, more commonly, a's....	B B For technical reasons, B# redirects here. For the musical note, see C B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled bee , plural bees....	D D D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled dee , plural dees....	Ð Eth Eth is a Letter used in Old English language, Icelandic alphabet, Faroese language#alphabet , and Dalecarlian language. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d....	E E E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled e , plural ees . The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech language, Danish language, Dutch language, English language, French language, German language, Hungarian language, Latin language, Norwegian language, Spanish language...	F F F is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ef or eff ....	G G G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled gee....	H H H is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in both British English and American English is aitch , though it is also pronounced haitch in some dialects ....	I I I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....	Í I I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....	J J J or j is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing a voiced postalveolar fricative , and is equivalent to the voiced postalveolar fricative, , or the voiced retroflex fricative, ....	K K K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled kay ....	L L L or l, described in English language as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish alphabet, Kashubian alphabet, Sorbian alphabet, Lacinka alphabet , Wymysorys, Navajo language, Dene Suline language, Inupiaq language and Dogrib language alphabets, and of several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language....	M	N N N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled en ....	O O O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes ....	Ó O O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes ....	P P P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is pronounced pee ....	R R R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ar ....	S S S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ess or generally es- when part of a compound word, plural esses....	T T T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled tee . It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language....	U U U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled u ....	Ú U U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled u ....	V V V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled vee ....	Y Y The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled wye or occasionally wy' , plural wyes....	Ý Y The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled wye or occasionally wy' , plural wyes....	Æ Æ ? is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of many languages....	Ø Ø ? , is a vowel and a Letter used in the Danish and Norwegian alphabet, Faroese language#Alphabet and Danish and Norwegian alphabet languages....
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

"?", or "?", is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut ....
, ö
Ö

"?", or "?", is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut ....
in poetic language, such as Föroyar (the Faroes) (cf. Swedish-Icelandic typographic/orthographic tradition vs. Norwegian-Danish). In handwriting O
O

O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes ....
, o
O

O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes ....
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/o.
Common family names on the Faroes are e.g. Joensen, Johansen, Dam, Dalsgarð or the Christian name Johannis.
While C
C

C or c is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing a voiceless postalveolar affricate , and is equivalent to the voiceless postalveolar affricate, , or the voiceless retroflex affricate, ...
, Q
Q

Q is the seventeenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled cue ....
, W
W

W is the 23 letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled double-u ....
, X
X

X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ex , plural exes .History...
, and Z
Z

Z is the twenty-sixth and final Letter of the modern English alphabet....
are not found in the Faroese language, X
X

X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ex , plural exes .History...
was known in earlier versions of Hammershaimbs orthography, such as Saxun for Saksun
Saksun

Saksun is a picturesque village near the north-west coast of the Faroe Islands island of Streymoy.*Population: 34*Postal code : FO 436...
.
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.

Phonology

Vowels

Grapheme Grapheme In typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in writing systems. Graphemes include letter , Chinese characters, numerals, punctuation marks, and all the individual symbols of any of the world's writing systems....	Name	Short	Long
A A The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is a ; the plural is aes or, more commonly, a's.... , a	fyrra a ("leading a")
Á A The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is a ; the plural is aes or, more commonly, a's.... , á	á
E E E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled e , plural ees . The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech language, Danish language, Dutch language, English language, French language, German language, Hungarian language, Latin language, Norwegian language, Spanish language... , e	e
I I I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i .... , i	fyrra i ("leading i")
Í I I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i .... , í	fyrra í ("leading í")
O O O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes .... , o	o
Ó O O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled o , plural oes .... , ó	ó
U U U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled u .... , u	u
Ú U U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled u .... , ú	ú
Y Y The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled wye or occasionally wy' , plural wyes.... , y	seinna i ("latter i")
Ý Y The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled wye or occasionally wy' , plural wyes.... , ý	seinna í ("latter í")
Æ Æ ? is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of many languages.... , æ	seinna a ("latter a")
Ø Ø ? , is a vowel and a Letter used in the Danish and Norwegian alphabet, Faroese language#Alphabet and Danish and Norwegian alphabet languages.... , ø	ø
Other vowels
ei	-
ey	-
oy	-

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

Hiberno-English

Hiberno-English also known as Anglo-Irish and Irish English is English language as spoken in Ireland, partly the result of the interaction of the English and Irish languages....
i, and long ó like an American English

American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
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 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 .

- bátar (boats), kallar ((you) call, (he) calls)

Unstressed /i/ and /u/ in dialects
	Borðoy Borðoy Bor?oy is an island in the north-east of the Faroe Islands. There are eight settlements: Klaksv?k , Nor?oyri, ?nir, ?rnafj?r?ur, Strond, Nor?toftir, Depil and Nor?depil.... , Kunoy Kunoy Kunoy is an island located in the north-east of the Faroe Islands between Kalsoy and Bor?oy .* Number of summits: 11... , Tórshavn Tórshavn T?rshavn 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 north west of the town lies the high mountain H?sareyn, and to the southwest, the high Kirkjub?reyn....	Viðoy Viðoy Vi?oy is the northern-most island in the Faroe Islands, located east of Bor?oy to which it is linked via a causeway. The name means wood island, despite the fact that no trees grow on the island: the name relates to the driftwood that floats in from Siberia and North America.... , Svínoy Svínoy Sv?noy is an island located in the north-east of the Faroe Islands, to the east of Bor?oy and Vi?oy. It is divided into two unequally sized peninsulas.... , Fugloy Fugloy Fugloy is the eastern-most island in the Faroe Islands. The name means bird island, after the large number of birds that nest on the island's cliffs....	Suðuroy Suðuroy Su?uroy is the southernmost of the Faroe Islands. The island covers 163.7 km?. In 2004 there were 5041 inhabitants, but there has been a gradual decline in the population numbers ever since the 1950s....	Elsewhere (standard)
gulur (yellow)
gulir (yellow pl.)
bygdin (the town)
bygdum (the towns dat. pl.)
Source: Faroese: An Overview and Reference Grammar, 2004 (page 350)

- gestir (guests), dugir ((you, he) can)
- bátur (boat), gentur (girls), rennur ((you) run, (he) runs).

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 Insertion
Faroese avoids having a hiatus
Hiatus (linguistics)

Hiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. In poetic metre , hiatus can also refer to the failure of two vowels straddling a word boundary to coalesce, for example by elision of the first vowel....
between two vowels by inserting a glide
Semivowel

Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllable vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the syllable nucleus of a syllable or mora ; they are not the most prominence part of the syllable....
. 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 .

Ð and G as glides

Glide insertion
First vowel Second vowel Examples
i u a
Grapheme Phoneme Glide
I-surrounding Type 1
i, y sigið, siður, siga
í, ý mígi, mígur, míga
ey reyði, reyður, reyða
ei reiði, reiður, reiða
oy noyði, royður, royða
U-surrounding Type 2
u suði, mugu, suða
ó róði, róðu, Nóa
ú búði, búðu, túa
I-surrounding Type 2, U-surrounding Type 2, A-surrounding Type 1
a, æ - ræði, æðu, glaða
á - ráði, fáur, ráða
e - gleði, legu, gleða
o - togið, smogu, roða
ø - 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:

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

Odin , is considered the chief ?sir in Norse paganism. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxons Woden and the Old High German Wotan, it is descended from Proto-Germanic *Wodanaz or *Wodanaz....
(Odin), góðan morgun! (good morning!), suður (south), slóða (to make a trace).

"U-surrounding, type 2" - between /a, á, e, æ, ø/ and /u/: áður (before), leður (leather), í klæðum (in clothes), í bløðum (in newspapers).
"A-surrounding, type 2"
These are exceptions (there is also a regular pronunciation): æða (eider-duck), røða (speech).
The past participles have always : elskaðar (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 (to advise), gleða (to gladden, please), boða (to forebode), kvøða (to chant), røða (to make a speech)

Skerping (sharpening)

Skerping
Written Pronunciation instead of
-ógv-
-úgv-
-eyggj-
-íggj-, -ýggj-
-eiggj-
-oyggj-
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.
Jógvan (a form of the name John), Gjógv
Gjógv

Gj?gv is a village located on the northeast tip of the island of Eysturoy, in the Faroe Islands and 63 km north by road from the capital of T?rshavn....
(cleft)
kúgv (cow), trúgva (believe), but: trúleysur (faithless)
heyggjur (high, burial mound), but heygnum (dat. sg. with suffix article)
nýggjur (new m.), but nýtt (n.)
beiggi (brother)
oyggj (island), but oynna (acc. sg. with suffix article)

Consonants

Labial
Labial consonant

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth . English is a bilabial nasal consonant sonorant, and are bilabial stop consonant , and are labiodental fricative consonant....
Apical
Apical consonant

An apical consonant is a Phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue ....
Post-
alveolar
Postalveolar consonant

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate ....
Palatal
Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate . Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex consonant....
Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Plosive
Affricate
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....

Fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...

Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....

Approximant
Approximant consonant

Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence....

There are several phonological
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
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 and
becomes before voiceless consonants
becomes after and before and may assimilate the retroflexion of a preceding to become .

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

fjals (mountain's gen.) instead of * from (nom.). Other examples for genitives are: barns (children's), vatns (lake's, water's).
hjálpti (helped) past sg. instead of * from hjálpa . Other examples for past forms are: sigldi (sailed), yrkti (wrote poetry).
homophone
Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as Carat , caret, and carrot, or to, two and too....
are fylgdi (followed) and fygldi (caught birds with net): .

skt will be:
1. in words of more than one syllable: føroyskt (Faroese n. sg.; also ) russiskt (Russian n. sg.), íslendskt (Icelandic n. sg.).
2. in monosyllables: enskt (English n. sg.), danskt (Danish n. sg.), franskt (French n. sg.), spanskt (Spanish n. sg.), svenskt (Swedish n. sg.), týskt (German n. sg.).
  - However in: írskt (Irish n. sg.), norskt (Norwegian n. sg.)

Grammar

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

Icelandic grammar

Icelandic grammar is a body of rules specifying how meanings are created in Icelandic language. Icelandic is an Fusional language with four Grammatical case: Nominative case, Accusative case, Dative case and Genitive case....
and Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
. Faroese is an inflected language with three grammatical gender

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
s and four cases: nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
, accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
, dative

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
and genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
.

External links

(the Faroese-Faroese dictionary of 1998 online)
(complete English-Faroese/Faroese-English and Danish-Faroese online dictionary - requires a subscription)
(Official site with further links)
from - the Rosetta Edition.
, and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.
incl. sound file

Faroese language

History

Learning Faroese

Alphabet

Phonology

Vowels

Short vowels in endings

Glide Insertion

Ð and G as glides

Skerping (sharpening)

Consonants

Omissions in consonant clusters

Grammar

Further reading

External links