Faroese ( / ˌ f ɛər oʊ ˈ iː z , ˌ f ær -/ FAIR -oh- EEZ , FARR - ; endonym : føroyskt [ˈføːɹɪst] ) is a North Germanic language spoken as a first language by about 69,000 Faroe Islanders , of which 21,000 reside mainly in Denmark and elsewhere.
43-451: Tórshavn Cathedral ( Faroese : Havnar Kirkja , or Dómkirkjan ) is the second oldest received church of the Faroe Islands , on Tinganes in the old town of Tórshavn . Painted white, and roofed with slate, it was established in 1788. The cathedral lies in the north of the peninsula of Tinganes and is one of the main attractions of the town. Like most churches of the country it belongs to
86-513: A change is quite a recent development, as well as change Cve > Cvø . Faroese is a highly variable language with many dialects actively used across the islands’ approximately 120 communities. While the dialect of Tórshavn is the most prominent due to the city's outstanding size, there is no official spoken standard variety, and little evidence that the Tórshavn dialect has developed prestige status. Faroese speech communities are tightly knit and
129-599: A more definitive study of the language's variation, noting distinguishing characteristics of the north–south divide such as the northern aspiration of unvoiced plosives after long vowels and the pronunciation of ⟨ó⟩ as / œ / in most of the north compared to / ɔ / in the south. The most recent and detailed classification by Hjalmar P. Petersen divides the language into four major varieties including North-Western Faroese, Central Faroese, Northern Faroese, and Southern Faroese. Additional sub-dialects of particular islands and villages have also been identified. Most of
172-431: A one-to-one correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and the letters ( graphemes ) that represent them. They may reflect etymology ( English , Danish , Swedish , Faroese , Chinese , Tibetan , Mongolian , Thai , Khmer , Burmese , Lao (until 1975; now only used overseas), French , or Franco-Provençal ). Orthographies such as those of German , Hungarian (mainly phonemic with the exception ly , j representing
215-517: A one-to-one relationship between its graphemes and phonemes, and the spelling of words is very consistent. Examples include Japanese kana , Hindi , Lao (since 1975), Spanish , Finnish , Turkish , Georgian , Latin , Italian , Serbo-Croatian , Ukrainian , and Welsh . In contrast, in deep (opaque) orthographies, the relationship is less direct, and the reader must learn the arbitrary or unusual pronunciations of irregular words. In other words, deep orthographies are writing systems that do not have
258-420: A result, children learn to read more slowly. For languages with relatively shallow orthographies, such as Italian and Finnish , new readers have few problems learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read relatively quickly. Van den Bosch et al. consider orthographic depth to be the composition of at least two separate components. One of these relates to the complexity of the relations between
301-492: Is a form of Old Norse spoken in medieval times in the Faroe Islands. The most crucial aspects of the development of Faroese are diphthongisation and palatalisation . There is not enough data available to establish an accurate chronology of Faroese, but a rough one may be developed through comparison to the chronologies of Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. In the 12th/13th centuries, á and ǫ́ merged as /ɔː/ ; later on at
344-552: Is pronounced [ɔu] and short ⟨ó⟩ is pronounced [œ] . The Faroese alphabet consists of 29 letters derived from the Latin script : As with most other Germanic languages, Faroese has a large number of vowels, with 26 in total. Vowel distribution is similar to other North Germanic languages in that short vowels appear in closed syllables (those ending in consonant clusters or long consonants) and long vowels appearing in open syllables. Faroese shares with Icelandic and Danish
387-443: 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 . Orthographic depth The orthographic depth of an alphabetic orthography indicates the degree to which a written language deviates from simple one-to-one letter – phoneme correspondence. It depends on how easy it
430-464: Is to predict the pronunciation of a word based on its spelling: shallow orthographies are easy to pronounce based on the written word, and deep orthographies are difficult to pronounce based on how they are written. In shallow orthographies, the spelling-sound correspondence is direct: from the rules of pronunciation, one is able to pronounce the word correctly. In other words, shallow (transparent) orthographies, also called phonemic orthographies , have
473-556: Is transmitted in the language, alongside all local newspapers. Today, Danish is considered a foreign language, although around 5% of residents on the Faroes learn it as a first language. Both Danish and English are obligatory at the primary and secondary school levels, with fluency in English becoming increasingly valued particularly among the younger generations. Films and television are frequently shown in English with Danish subtitles. In 2017,
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#1732883837376516-688: The Evangelical - Lutheran national Church of the Faroe Islands . Since 1990, it has been the seat of the Bishop of the Faroes and is therefore known as a cathedral. The early history of the church is quite complicated. To all appearances there was no church in the strict sense in Tórshavn in the Middle Ages, only perhaps a "prayer house". It has been suggested that services were held in the Munkastovan in Tinganes. It
559-812: The Gospel of John in Faroese. In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish as the official school language, in 1938, as the church language, and in 1948, as the national language by the Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands. The first complete translation of the Bible was completed in 1948. Up until the 1980s public radio broadcasts were primarily conducted in Norwegian and Danish. This helps to explain why older generations can speak Norwegian in addition to Danish and Faroese. Faroese broadcasts quickly replaced earlier programs and now all radio content
602-528: The Last Supper and the words of institution. The inscription reads: Gud Allermechtigste Hans Hellige Ord och Sacramenter Till Ere och denne Steed til Zirat haffuer Hans Sevrensen fordum Kiøbmand her paa Ferøe foraerit denne Altertaffle til Torßhaffns Kiercke 1647 . ('For the Glory of God Almighty's Words and Sacraments and to ornament this Place, Hans Sevrensen, former Merchant on the Faroes, bestowed this altarpiece on
645-598: The [ɔu:] and [œ] found in Tórshavn and elsewhere. The northern dialect is characterized by weakened fortis consonants and a monophthongal pronunciation of ⟨á⟩ in ending syllables, i.e., / aː / . The realization of ⟨ei⟩ as [ɔi:] dominates in this region, although small parts of the central and northwestern regions use this pronunciation as well. The northwestern dialect features aspirated fortis consonants after long vowels. The ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ vowels remain unmerged in unstressed ending syllables. Long ⟨ó⟩
688-558: The outfield ), cf. Middle Irish áirge . Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved, although it was probably still mutually intelligible with Old West Norse , and remained similar to the Norn language of Orkney and Shetland during Norn's earlier phase. Faroese ceased to be a written language after the Danish–Norwegian Reformation of the early 16th century, with Danish replacing Faroese as
731-568: The Church of Torshavn in 1647'). It is a rather simple piece of work from the late Renaissance, with a central section flanked by degenerated pilasters, a pedestal section and a small top section. The painting of the central section, the Last Supper, belongs to the large group of Danish 17th-century paintings derived from the painting of the Last Supper by Peter Candid – the Court painter to Wilhelm V – for
774-874: The Faroe Islands and Iceland. As a result, the Irish language has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic . There is speculation about Irish language place names in the Faroes: for example, the names of Mykines , Stóra Dímun , Lítla Dímun and Argir have been hypothesized to contain Celtic roots. Other examples of early-introduced words of Celtic origin are: blak / blaðak ( buttermilk ), cf. Middle Irish bláthach ; drunnur (tail-piece of an animal), cf. Middle Irish dronn ; grúkur ( head , headhair), cf. Middle Irish gruaig ; lámur ( hand , paw ), cf. Middle Irish lámh ; tarvur ( bull ), cf. Middle Irish tarbh ; and ærgi ( pasture in
817-586: The Franciscan house in Munich, and popularised through prints by Sandeler. It was restored in 1961 by Ernst and Holmer Trier together with the local painter Fraser Eysturoy. The painting measures 100 x 100 cm. The bell is said to have been acquired in 1708. It originates from the ship "Norske Löve" (Norwegian Lion), which went down in Lambavík on New Year's Eve, 1707. The bell is decorated with palmettes and bears
860-495: The Icelandic grammarian and politician Jón Sigurðsson published a written standard for Modern Faroese in 1854, which still exists. They set a standard for the orthography of the language, based on its Old Norse roots and similar to that of Icelandic. The main purpose of this was for the spelling to represent the diverse dialects of Faroese in equal measure. Additionally, it had the advantages of being etymologically clear and keeping
903-406: The analysis by Petersen and earlier authors is based on phonological evidence. The southern variety of Faroese is very distinct, possibly due to geographic distance exacerbated by the lack of underwater tunnels which have connected most other islands north of Sandur . The dialect of these islands is characterized by a unique form of certain personal pronouns, alongside phonological features such as
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#1732883837376946-461: The beginning of the 14th century, delabialization took place: y , øy , au > /i, ɔi, ɛi/ ; í and ý merged in addition to i and y , but in the case of í and ý , it appears that labialisation took place instead as is documented by later development to /ʊi/ . Further, the language underwent a palatalisation of k , g and sk before Old Norse e , i , y , ø , au > /kʲ, ɡʲ, skʲ/ > /cᶜ̧, ɟᶨ, ɕcᶜ̧/ > /tʃʰ, tʃ, ʃ/ . Before
989-502: The building master in Torshavn. The church of Christian IV was demolished in 1798 following the consecration of the new church, and the timber was sold at an auction. Part of the furniture was transferred to the new church. In 1788 the population of Torshavn numbered approx. 600 people and in 1865 approx. 900 people. Though it completely changed the appearance of the church, the rebuilding in 1865 seems in fact to have only marginally affected
1032-621: The components of the grapheme, is actually pronounced as [hunnil] . Among the consonants of the Korean language, only one is always pronounced exactly as it is written. Italian offers clear examples of differential directionality in depth. Even in a very shallow orthographic system, spelling-to-pronunciation and pronunciation-to-spelling may not be equally clear. There are two major imperfect matches of vowels to letters: in stressed syllables, e can represent either open [ɛ] or closed [e] , and o stands for either open [ɔ] or closed [o] . According to
1075-441: The dissolution of þ ( þ > t ; þ > h in demonstrative pronouns and adverbs) appeared before the end of the 13th century. Another undated change is the merger of ǫ , ø and ǿ into /ø/ ; pre-nasal ǫ , ǫ́ > o , ó . enk , eng probably became eing , eink in the 14th century; the development of a to /ɛ/ before ng , nk appeared after the palatalisation of k , g , and sk had been completed, such
1118-542: The elements at the graphemic level (graphemes) to those at the phonemic level (phonemes), i.e., how difficult it is to convert graphemic strings (words) to phonemic strings. The second component is related to the diversity at the graphemic level, and to the complexity of determining the graphemic elements of a word (graphemic parsing), i.e., how to align a phonemic transcription to its spelling counterpart. Xavier Marjou uses an artificial neural network to rank 17 orthographies according to their level of transparency. Among
1161-400: The extinct Norn and Greenlandic Norse . Faroese and Icelandic, its closest extant relative, are not easily mutually intelligible in speech, but the written languages resemble each other quite closely, largely owing to Faroese's etymological orthography . East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 900 AD,
1204-478: The feature of maintaining a contrast between stops based exclusively on aspiration, not voicing. Geminated stops may be pre-aspirated in intervocalic and word-final position. Intervocalically the aspirated consonants become pre-aspirated unless followed by a closed vowel. In clusters, the preaspiration merges with a preceding nasal or apical approximant, rendering them voiceless. There are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including: Faroese grammar
1247-474: The inscription: "Danscke Ostindische Compagnies Scheb Nordische Löwe" (The Danish East India Company's ship Nordische Löwe , 1704), and the crowned monogram of the company. It is 30 cm tall, and the diameter of the outside rim is 41.5 cm. Faroese language It is one of five languages descended from Old West Norse spoken in the Middle Ages ; the others include Norwegian , Icelandic , and
1290-530: The intervocalic voicing of non- geminate stops. The fortis consonants / p / , / t / , and / k / are aspirated following long vowels. The central dialect area centered around Suðurstreymoy features a merging of ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ in unstressed ending syllables. The fortis consonants are neither aspirated nor weakened. The island of Nólsoy is a notable transitional area due to its unique realization of long ⟨ó⟩ as [au:] and short ⟨ó⟩ as [ɔ] compared to
1333-411: The kinship with the Icelandic written language. The actual pronunciation, however, often differs considerably from the written rendering. The letter ð , for example, has no specific phoneme attached to it. Jakob Jakobsen devised a rival system of orthography, based on his wish for a phonetic spelling, but this system was never taken up by the speakers. In 1908, Scripture Gift Mission published
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1376-400: The language is represented by a letter but the letters are packaged into "square" units of two to four phonemes, each square representing a syllable. Korean has very complex phonological variation rules, especially regarding the consonants rather than the vowels, in contrast to English. For example, the Korean word 훗일 , which should be pronounced as [husil] based on standard pronunciations of
1419-478: The language of administration and education. 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 used in written form. In 1823, the Danish Bible Society published a diglot of the Gospel of Matthew , with Faroese on the left and Danish on the right. Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb and
1462-469: The language spoken in the Faroes was Old Norse , which Norse settlers had brought with them during the time of the settlement of Faroe Islands ( landnám ) that began in 825. However, many of the settlers were not from Scandinavia , but descendants of Norse settlers in the Irish Sea region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland, Orkney , or Shetland often married native Scandinavian men before settling in
1505-636: The letter e above, the stressed o of Carsoli , which is [ɔ] , is unknown from the spelling). According to the orthographic depth hypothesis, shallow orthographies are more easily able to support a word recognition process that involves the language phonology. In contrast, deep orthographies encourage a reader to process printed words by referring to their morphology via the printed word's visual-orthographic structure (see also Ram Frost ). For languages with relatively deep orthographies such as English , French , unvocalised Arabic or Hebrew , new readers have much more difficulty learning to decode words. As
1548-437: The orthographic principles used for the language, [ˈsɛtta] 'sect', for example, with open [ɛ] can only be spelled setta , and [ˈvetta] 'summit' with closed [e] can only be vetta — if a listener can hear it, they can spell it. But since the letter e is assigned to represent both [ɛ] and [e] , there is no principled way to know whether to pronounce the written words setta and vetta with [ɛ] or [e] —
1591-544: The palatalisation é and ǽ merged as /ɛː/ and approximately in the same period epenthetic u is inserted into word-final /Cr/ and /CrC/ clusters. A massive quantity shift also operated in Middle Faroese. In the case of skerping , it took place after delabialization but before loss of post-vocalic ð and g /ɣ/ . The shift of hv /hw/ to /kw/ , the deletion of /h/ in (remaining) word-initial /h/ –sonorant clusters ( hr , hl , hn > r , l , n ), and
1634-399: The same sound, but consonant and vowel length are not always accurate and various spellings reflect etymology, not pronunciation), Portuguese , modern Greek , Icelandic , Korean , Tamil , and Russian are considered to be of intermediate depth as they include many morphophonemic features. (see §Comparison between languages ) Written Korean represents an unusual hybrid; each phoneme in
1677-503: The spelling does not present the information needed for accurate pronunciation. A second lacuna in Italian's shallow orthography is that although stress position in words is only very partially predictable, it is normally not indicated in writing. For purposes of spelling, it makes no difference which syllable is stressed in the place names Arsoli and Carsoli , but the spellings offer no clue that they are ARsoli and CarSOli (and as with
1720-409: The structural parts of the 1788 church. The church has on the whole preserved its structure from 1865. In 1935, however, the choir was extended by four metres and a new sacristy was built. The choir was also extended with an office and other secondary rooms in 1968. The nave itself contains 44 benches, the gallery 14. The altarpiece from 1647 is fitted on the north wall of the nave, with a painting of
1763-519: The tourist board Visit Faroe Islands launched a website entitled Faroe Islands Translate. Text can be entered in thirteen languages, including English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Instead of an instant machine translation being given, the text goes to a volunteer who will provide a live video translation, or else a recorded one later. The aim of this project was to get Faroese featured on Google Translate . Old Faroese ( miðaldarføroyskt , ca. mid-14th to mid-16th centuries)
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1806-429: The use of dialectal speech is widely encouraged. The study of Faroese dialectology began hundreds of years ago, with the scholar Lucas Debes noting a north–south distinction as early as 1673. In the 18th century linguist Jens Christian Svabo made further distinctions, such as identifying the Tórshavn dialect, though his categorization lacked thorough justification. In 1891 Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb would write
1849-494: Was only in 1609, that a proper church, built on a stony hill, known as "úti á Reyni" was built on Tinganes, when King Christian IV directed the Lord Lieutenant at Bergenshus "to bestow upon the Faroese people some timber for the construction of their church..." In 1780 Rasmus Jørgen Winther became minister in Tórshavn and in 1782 seized the initiative to build a new church. However it was only in 1788 that Johannes Poulsen, to
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