10.3.3. Faroese

One of the two languages spoken on the Faroe Islands is Faroese.

The Faroe Islands have been administered by Denmark since 1380, although they have their own government and parliament. Seventeen of them are inhabited, one-third of the population (about 15,000 people) lives on the main island, Streymoy.

Since 1948 Faroese has been taught in the schools of the Faroe Islands as a first language. Contrary to Icelandic, Faroese writing tradition dates from the 18^th century. The earliest texts in Faroese, aside from some Faroese-tinted Old Norwegian texts from the Middle Ages, are three ballads that were recorded in 1773 by Svabo.

Two varieties of metre in ballads are the same all over Scandinavia: 1) in a two-line metre lines are linked by final rhymes, either masculine (single) or feminine (double); each line has four stressed syllables, the number of unstressed syllables is various; the lines are connected by a refrain; 2) in a four-line metre only even lines are linked by final masculine or feminine lines; odd lines have four and even lines have three stressed syllables; the last line of a four-line metre is followed by a refrain.

Scandinavian ballad is a dance tune song. Dancers took two steps to the left and then one step to the right. The ballad was given the tune by the first singer; all the rest sang the refrain, which was very much like an invitation to dance.

Scandinavian ballads have typical rehashes, similar to many ballads. Individual and original is often neglected, substituted by stereotypes and repeated epithets: a beautiful girl, a green grove, white hands, a grey wolf and the like. Phraseology is in accordance with the custom of singing and dancing in a ring. Archaic elements are of Scandinavian origin.

The contents of the ballads are also common in Scandinavian. 89% of the ballads recorded in Sweden are similar to those in Denmark; 70% of Norwegian ballads have correspondences in Denmark and 58% in Sweden.

The famous publisher of Danish ballads S.Grundtvig ditinguishes the following types of Scandinavian ballades:

1. heroic ballads (Dan. kæmpeviser, Sw. kämpavisor, Norw. kjempeviser): in his edition they comprise only 6%. Heroic ballads tell us about ancient heroes of eddic songs, heroes of Low German heroic poetry and French heroic epics. Among Faroese heroic ballads one of the most popular is about Sigurd, a renowned hero of eddic songs. Heroic ballads Norway; relatively late they spread to East Scandinavia;

2. legendary ballads (Dan. legendeviser, Sw. legendvisor, Norw. Heilagviser) are as few as heroic ballads; the main hero or heroine is a saint. Legendary ballads are particularly famous in Sweden. But the best legendary ballad “Draumkvædet” (“A song about the dream”) was recorded in Norway;

3. historical ballads (Dan., Norw. historiske viser, Sw. historiska visor) comprise 12% of Danish ballads, 9% of Swedish ballads, 4% of Norwegian ballads. Most of them refer to the reign of Danish kings Valdemar I the Great (1157-1182), Valdemar II Victorious (1202-1241), Swedish and Norwegian rulers (13-14 cc.).

One of the most famous Faroese historical ballad is about Margaret, the niece of a Norwegian king, who inherited her fathr’s throne. She was burnt in 1301 by her uncle’s order;

4. fairy-tale ballads (Dan. trylleviser, Norw. trollvisor, Sw. naturmytiska visor) comprise 16% of Danish and Swedish ballads, almost 20 % of Norwegian ballads. Trolls, elfs, ghosts, mermaids, dwarves, were-wolves are obligatory personages. The most famous ballad is about a young man, hurrying on horseback to see his bride; but a girl-elf, whom he had rejected, mortally wounded him; on coming back home the man died;

5. knight ballads (Dan. ridderviser, Norw. riddarviser, Sw. riddarvisor) are numerous. Their main hero is a knight who is sometimes called a king. Knight ballads are dynamic, the number of scenes and personages is minimal. The whole ballad is often a setting which prepares denouement – the death of a hero or heroine, or both of them. Sometimes knight ballads are full of humour; they depict unfaithful wives, lusty monks, quarrels and fights.

Faroese is intermediate between Icelandic and West Norwegian dialects, with enough distance from both. As in Icelandic and West Norwegian, long vowels have been diphthonised. Most striking is the development of i/­­ÿ to [uj] as in tið and the sharpening of intervocalic glides jw to stops gj and gv. The semi-Icelandic spelling has made some think of Faroese as an Icelandic dialect. A literary orthography was devised by V.U.Hammershaimb in 1846. His norm is based on the old Norse-Icelandic tradition. Hammershaimb tried to take into account stardadised Old Icelandic orthography (Svabo’s orthography was based on Danish spelling conventions).

Like West Norwegian (but contrary to Icelandic), Faroese has palatalised affricates g, k, sk, but unlike Norwegian, Faroese has its own treatment of þ in pronouns making it now h (in Norwegian the corresponding sound is d).

Faroese phonetic peculiarities are:

1. diphthongisation of monophthongs in an open syllable or before a consonant: a, æ > [εa] (læsa ['lεasa] “lock”);

2. all plosives are voiceless, like in Icelandic and Dutch (letters b, d, g denote weak non-aspirated sounds p, t, k);

3. before voiceless consonants (excluding b, d, g) sonorants are devoiced (the same in Icelandic);

4. l and n are palatalised before [dƷ], [ts]: fólkið [fœlʧi] “folk”;

5. rn, ll, in some cases nn are assimilated into [dn], [dl], [dn]: allur [‘adlur] “all” (common with Icelandic);

6. before front vowels and in combinations with j, k > [t], g > [dƷ], sk > [∫]: kirkija [ʧirʧa] “church”;

7. special junction of syllables, if a stressed one ends in a vowel and the following begins with a vowel: góður [gɔuwur] “good”/ eyga [‘εija] “eye”.

The grammar is also intermediate. Like in New Norwegian, Faroese has lost the active use of the Genetive, a special possessive construction has been developed instead.

Daily Faroese speech is influenced by Danicisms. A determined effort has been made to follow the lead of Icelandic in order to eliminate the number of Danish loanwords. Nevertheless, Danish is still in a very strong position – the result of the many centuries of political dependence on Denmark. The population is too small to sustain literary or scientific production of its own.