Some thoughts on Faroese

by LoveUniHateExams 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  I mentioned using Faroese as a basis for a PW in answer to FatFreek's OP.

  So, I got curious about the language and dug further on YouTube, looking at a few Faroese language channels*.

  Here's what I found out ...

  Faroese is kinda between Icelandic and Nynorsk (one of the two Norwegian standard languages) in many ways. Which is neat, considering the islands are geographically between Iceland and Norway.

  The way it's written emphasises its connection to Old Norse, and makes the language look like Icelandic.

  Icelandic has a letter for the voiced sound 'th', as in this. The letter is called edh and looks like this: ð. But in Faroese, it doesn't have a sound of its own. Sometimes it's silent, other times it's pronounced like a w or y or hard g.

  So góðan morgun (good morning) is pronounced 'go-wan morgun'.

  So, yeah, pronunciation is very interesting. Sometimes the accent is like Norwegian. So, manga takk is very like the Norwegian mange takk (many thanks). But I think Faroese has kinda gone off on its own course.

  One letter, í, is interesting. I thought it would be pronounced something like 'ee' but it's actually a dipthong. A dipthong is two vowel sounds elided together. And í is pronounced like 'ui' or 'oo-ee'. Very strange. But English has a similar thing. The first person pronoun I is pronounced like 'ai' (a + i). Single-syllable words like kind and mind have the same pronunciation.

  The sound for the letter a is kinda more at the front of the mouth, and not at the back of the throat like Swedish and Norwegian.

  Faroese also has a hard g and soft g, like Swedish. The difference is Faroese soft g sounds like English j and not like English y.

  at gera vs att göra (to do). The first is Faroese, and sounds a bit like 'jera'. The second is Swedish, and sounds a bit like 'yeura'. I don't think English influenced Faroese - the islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark and Danish is understood as a second language but Danish doesn't even have a soft g ... I guess it just happened on its own.

  The letter r is pronounced exactly like Scottish Gaelic r, which is interesting, considering the ethnic background of the local people is part Scandinavian, part Gaelic (Irish and Scottish).

  Faroese has three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative) - like Icelandic and German. So it's quite conservative in grammatical terms, if not in pronunciation.

  If any of you speak Swedish or another Scandinavian language, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

  * Faroese in America, Learn Faroese with Bergur.
• 

  Queequeg

  I seem to remember reading, when I was trying to learn some Icelandic, that while Icelandic and Faroese look almost identical in written form, they are mutually unintelligable in the spoken form.
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  Phizzy

  I seem to remember a lady on You tube speaking Faroese , I remember it sounded lovely, if my old memory serves me well, it may possibly have been one of the Islands closer to Scotland ?

  What should not surprise me , but always does, is how these languages are so very different from near neighbours, but of course they would be, what I think of as near is a pretty insurmountable barrier, or one that is pointless to cross, so of course they developed very differently.
• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  @Queequeg - yes, I think you're right.

  I haven't learnt Icelandic properly, but I've kinda looked into it.

  Here's the Icelandic word for 'not':

  ekki (pronounced 'ehki')

  And here's the Faroese version:

  ikki (pronounced 'itch-uh')

  So, yeah, they look very similar, but with radically different pronunciation.

  Faroese has been isolated for centuries, and thus has had the time and conditions to develop its own pronunciation.

  Perhaps Faroese has more in common with some Western Norwegian dialects, at least in terms of pronunciation. Some of these dialects have also preserved the three genders, as opposed to Bokmaal, Danish and Swedish which have in essence two genders - common gender and neuter gender (en man; ett hus).

  Another thing I forgot to talk about was that Faroese doesn't appear to have the speech melody, the single tone and double tone, of Norwegian and Swedish. Or if it does it's so toned down I didn't pick up on it.
• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  @Phizzy - I remember watching a lady speak in her dialect on YT - it might have been Orkney or Shetland.

  Those islands used to have their own language, Norn. Indeed, Shetland was ruled by Norway until the mid-fifteenth century, from what I remember. And Norn has influenced Shetlandic and Orcadian speech.

  And you're right about different languages and dialects forming because of natural barriers. Apparently, Faroese has a number of dialects, and I suppose it's no coincidence that there are 18 inhabited islands in the Faroe Islands. I don't think Icelandic varies much in terms of dialects.
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  Queequeg

  There are some great Icelandic words. For example - Gluggaveður or "window weather " referring to weather that's nice to look at but you wouldn't want to be out in. Also, the Icelandic word for computer is fun.