The Faroese Language/Føroyskt Mál

The Faroese language belongs to the North Germanic group of the Indo-European language. Since Norway and her dominions entered into a royal union with Denmark in 1380, many changes began to come to the Faroese language. Danish became the only language permitted in schools, administration and in church; yet, Faroese still remained the mother language and has always been widely spoken by the Faroese people. Because of the suppression of the Faroese language under Danish rule, there hasn't been much documented about the language until the late 18th century. Many archaic features of the language have been preserved due to the isolation of the country, and is quite unique compared to other Scandanavian languages (Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish).

Jens Christian Svabo (1746-1824) was a Faroese linguist, who wrote a dictionary and a complilation of folk ballads based on his own orthography. He wanted to preserve the endangered language and song culture before it became extinct. Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb (1819-1909) helped establish a written form by publishing Færøsk Sproglære (Faroese Grammar), which is the basis for modern day Faroese.

Increasingly over the past century, Faroese language reform has taken place, and is currently the national language of the Faroe Islands. All Faroese people still continue to learn Danish starting in the third grade and English in the fourth, but all street signs, newspapers, churches, schools and administration use only the Faroese language. Danish is considered a foreign langauge, and many Faroese people refuse to speak it. Because of the centuries long Danish rule on the islands, there are a lot of Danish loan words in the Faroese language today. Many of these Danish borrowings are the Faroese compound words. Some writers prefer uncompounded verbs instead of compounds, such as gera av (decide) instead of avgera, in order to avoid the Danish borrowing.

There is a language commitee, Málstovan, that has the job of strengthening the Faroese language by weeding out many of these loanwords by creating pure Faroese alternatives. To avoid this threat to the language, Old Norse words have been given new meaning. For example, "litur" (Color) instead of the borrowed "farva" (color). There has also been a growing concern from language purists for a spelling reform with the letter ð being the subject of a lot of criticism.

For anyone wanting to learn the Faroese language, there is an excellent course called "Faroese: A Language Course for Beginners," which comprises of two textbooks and an audio CD with dozens of dialogues from the book. One can take themselves to a proficient level of the language with this advanced course. A link to the program is on the links page of this website.