Insular Nordic SAS1. April 22 nd , 2016 1 Classification of modern Nordic languages on the basis of oral similarity Model by Arne Torp Brief history Iceland The Faroe Islands 874–930: Landnám (Viking settlement) Early 9th century: Viking settlement 1200–1350: Icelandic sagas are written 1380: Norway w/colonies falls under Danish rule 1380: Norway w/colonies falls under Danish rule 1823: First (partial) Faroese Bible translation 1540: translation of the new testament into Icelandic (printed in 1584) 1845: school law (with Danish as educational language) 1816: Hið íslenzka bókmentafelag 1846: Faroese orthography 1904: Home rule (Hammershaimb ) 1911: University of Iceland 1938: Faroese allowed as school language 1918: Icelandic sovereignty 1939: Faroese allowed as church 1944: Icelandic republic language 1964: Icelandic language council 1948:Home rule. Faroese is recognized as the main language of the Faroe islands Population 2016: 332.529 1952: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag Land size: 103 000 km² 1965: University of the Faroe Islands 1985: Faroese language council Population 2014: 49 947 Land size: 1396 km² 2 The sound of Faroese: http://www.stidin.fo/FaroeseCourse/mp3/003%20p001%20Samr%C3%B8%C3%B0a%201%20%C3 %8D%20bussinum%20av%20flogv%C3%B8llinum%20til%20Havnar%20(1).mp3 The sound of Icelandic: http://icelandiconline.is/index.php Mainland Scandianavian vs. Insular Nordic Morphology: • loss of case system in Mainland Scandianavian Othography: • Insular Nordic: etymologically based orthography gives impression of insular linguistic ”unity” Vocabulary • Stronger Low German influence on Mainland Scandinavian in the Hanseatic period • Stronger lexical purism in Insular Nordic language planning, ecp. the last 150 years 3 Low German influence in Modern Norwegian and Icelandic: Skredderen tenkte at trøya passet fortreffelig, men kunden klaget og mente at plagget var kort og tøyet simpelt og grovt. De schrâder dachte dat die trôie vortreffelik paste, men de kunde klâgde und mênde dat die plagge kort was und dat tüg simpel und grof. Klæðskerinn hélt að skyrtan passaði fullkomlega, en viðskiptavinurinn kvartaði og taldi að flíkin væri stutt og efnið einfalt og gróft . Can you see features that Faroese and Icelandic share – or distinguish one from the other? Faroese: Sviar, norðmenn og danir skilja heilt væl hvønnannan.Teir hava størri trupulleikar við íslendskum, hóast íslendskt líkist tí skandinaviska málinum, ið varð tosað fyri túsund árum síðan. Næstringur hjá íslendskum er føroyskt, men málini eru ikki so lík, at ein íslendingur skilir ein føroying uttan trupulleikar. Icelandic parallel text: Svíar, Norðmenn og Danir skilja hver annan nokkuð auðveldlega. Þeir eiga í meiri vandræðum með íslensku þrátt fyrir að íslenskan líkist skandinavíska málinu sem talað var fyrir þúsund árum síðan. Nánasti ættingi íslenskunnar er færeyskan en tungumálin líkjast þó hvort öðru ekki svo mjög að Íslendingur geti skilið Færeying án vandræða. Rough translation: Swedes, Norwegians and Danes understand each other quite easily. They have more difficulties with Icelandic even though Icelandic resembles the Scandinavian language spoken a 1000 years ago. The closest relative to Icelandic is Faroese, but they are not so similar that Icelanders understand Faroese without difficulties. 4 Faroese : Finskt minnir um estiskt, men har er eisini skilskapur við sámisku málini. Í bæði finskum og sámiskum kann en til dømis skapa long orð við at leggja bendingar aftrat stovninum. Men viðvíkjandi longum orðum er grønlendskt heilt serstakt. Har øðrum málum tørvar eina heila meining, er ofta nóg mikið við einum einasta grønlendska orði. Icelandic : Finnskan minnir á eistnesku en á einnig ýmislegt sameiginlegt með samísku. Í bæði finnsku og samísku getur maður til dæmis myndað löng orð með því að bæta beygingarendingum við rót orðsins. Það er samt grænlenskan sem er í sérflokki hvað varðar löng orð. Meðan önnur tungumál nota heila setningu nægir stundum eitt grænlenskt orð. Rough translation: Finnish has many similarities with Estonian, but has at the same time many things in common with Sami languages. In both Finnish and Sami you can make long word by adding morphological endings to the root of the word. At the same time it is Greenlandic that stands out regarding long words. When other languages need a whole sentence, it is often enough with one single Greenlandic word. Just an example of Greenlandic word formation aagussaq noun en ting der kommer til syne efter at sneen er smeltet ‘a thing that appears after the snow has melted’ Download free app: oqaasileriffik 5 Early influences on Icelandic and Faroese • Celtic: Kjartan , Njáll , Dímon and slafak (‘water- cotton’ = seaweed)(Ice.); Dímun (Fo) and dunna (Anas platyrhynchos)(Fo). • Christianity brings new words: kirkja , prestur , biskup (of Latin and Greek origin) – Also English words: synd (sin) and guðspjall (gospel) – Translations of the Bible bring in new words (NT 1540), (Icelandic Bible 1584) • French words on court and knightship – kurteis (Ice. courteous), silki (silk) Low German and Danish loanwords Low German loanwords in Icelandic – through trade connections and Danish through governmental language – blífa (bleiben, blive) → verða – þenkja (denken, tænke) → hugsa – bífala (befehlen, befale) → skipa – makt (Macht, magt) → vald 6 The Faroes Faroese population • 1801: 5300 inhabitants • 1901: 15.200 • 1945: 29.200 • 1960: 34.600 • 1989: 47.900 • 1990–1995: economic crisis and 10% emigrated • 2010: 49.050 • 2014: 49.947:19.300 in Tórshavn Number of speakers: 75.000 7 Faroese - summary • Faroese is the closest relative to Icelandic, and like Icelandic, it has developed from Old West Norse (West Scandinavian), which Norwegian settlers brought with them during the Viking Age • Very few documents exist that were written in the Faroe Islands in the Old Norse period, but the few that have been found show that the language was quite close to the literary language in Norway at the time • We still see similarities between Norwegian (esp. south- western Norwegian dialects) and Faroese • Similar vocabulary to Norwegian • Celtic languages also influenced Faroese – some of the settlers were descendants of Norwegian settlers from the Irish Sea, and some had taken wives from Norse Ireland, Orkney or Shetland before coming to the Faroes. • Words of Celtic origin are still found in the language. For example, there are two Faroese words for duck, one from Norse and one from Gaelic. 8 • The Faroe Islands became a part of the Kingdom of Norway in 1035, and when Norway and Denmark entered into a union, the Danes took over the administration and used their own language, both spoken and written • After the Denmark-Norway union dissolved in 1814, The Faroe Islands were ceded to Denmark, and are still a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. • The Danes outlawed the use of Faroese in schools, churches and official documents – eventually the written language died out, yet there was still a rich spoken tradition and the language survived as a collection of spoken dialects, just like Norwegian did • In the decades around 1800, Faroese ballads started being written down, which was the beginning of the revival of written Faroese • Since the language had not been written in almost three centuries, there was a need for a Faroese orthography (standardized spelling). • In 1854, a written standard for Modern Faroese was written, and it still exists today. The spelling was brought as close to Old Norse and Icelandic as possible, even though oral Faroese had gone through several changes since medieval times and was not as similar to Old Norse as it had been the last time a written language had been in use. Because of this, there were (and still are – this orthography is still used today) differences between the written and the oral language which highlight the changes that have taken place in oral Faroese, and which also make it difficult to learn Faroese spelling, even for the Faroese themselves. Even so, the Faroese do not want to change their orthography to make it more phonetic/similar to the spoken language – there have been reform proposals, but they've never won public approval. They still want to keep this orthography which is similar to Icelandic and Old Norse 9 • Purism - they don't want a lot of foreign influence on the language, and they have a quite restrictive attitude towards loan words, although not to the degree that Icelanders do • Faroese became an official language in 1948, when the Faroe Islands became self-governing/ an autonomous province of the Kingdom of Denmark. • Today, Faroese is dominant in speech and in writing in the Faroe Islands, but Danish is still an official language there and everyone has to learn it V.U. Hammershaimb • Danish written language, many dialects and folk songs written down with phonological spelling • 1846: V.U. Hammershaimb introduces a spelling norm and Faroese becomes a modern written language (not oral norm) • Cooperation with Jón Sigurðsson og C.C. Rafn • etymological orthography → great gap between speech and written form, but great consensus 10 Jakob Jakobsen (1864–1918) • tried to introduce a more phonological spelling, but failed • mainly concerned by the vocabulary and all the “danismer” (loanwords from Danish). Many words with affixes like an-, be-, for-, -het and -else had Faroese equivalents, but with negative connotations • he was the first purist: new words in new domains → neologisms and many translation loans: eftirspurningur (‘etterspørsel’: demand), tollkrevjari (‘toller’: customs officer),