UniLang

I just noticed, that there's only a tutorial on Faroese, but no discussion group. So, I'm hereby creating one.

Any questions concerning the Faroese language, its history, etymology, spelling etc. etc. are welcome here.

So, let the discussion begin!

Johan Petur

Hvaðan ert tú?

I tried with Icelandic way.

Another question...Tórshavn---Tór's Town?

JackFrost wrote:Hvaðan ert tú?

Eg búgvi í lítlu bygdini, Funningur í Føroyum.

JackFrost wrote:I tried with Icelandic way.

Believe it or not, but that question is actually the prefer way with which to ask someone where they're from. The other one "Hvar ert tú frá?" is misleading, since it practically demands that you use the preposition "frá", which is wrong in about 99% of the villages/countries.

JackFrost wrote:Another question...Tórshavn---Tór's Town?

Tórshavn is in Icelandic Þórshöfn.

Þórs = genitive of Þór = Thor's
höfn = harbour

Ergo: Tórshavn = Thor's harbour.

Btw. I have a suspicion, that the English city of Torquay bears the same name as our small capital.

Takk fyrir!

One more question!

All Nordic languages have similar way of saying "who/that/which" as relative pronouns.

Danish, Norwegian, Swedish - som
Icelandic - sem
Faroese - ið

But it's strange that Faroese is "ið"

Do you have any idea why is it like that?

JackFrost wrote:Takk fyrir!

One more question!

All Nordic languages have similar way of saying "who/that/which" as relative pronouns.

Danish, Norwegian, Swedish - som
Icelandic - sem
Faroese - ið

But it's strange that Faroese is "ið"

Do you have any idea why is it like that?

Actually, Faroese has 2 ways of expressing the relative pronouns:

Faroese - sum [sUm:], ið [Ui]

I'm not totally sure about the etymology, but with the help of Hunefr, I've been able to get these two lines of development:

er > ir > ið
er -> sem -> sum

There's no rule to when to use sum, and when to use ið, heck, sometimes, it's not even necessary to use one of them.

A Norn example:

Favor i ir i chimrie -> Faðir vár, tú, sum ert í himli

Favor = Faðir + vár (our father in one word)
i = ið/sum
ir = er (are)
i = in
chimrie = himli (heaven)

Modern Faroese: Faðir vár, ið er í himli

l8r

Thanks

Góðan daginn.

ég eri nemandi íslensku, men ég hefi lesið pínulítið um málið þitt,
og vilji læra meira.

Egein wrote:Góðan daginn.

ég eri nemandi íslensku, men ég hefi lesið pínulítið um málið þitt,
og vilji læra meira.

Íðan, ver vælkomin.

Tú fert nokk at leggja til merkis, at føroyskt og íslendskt liggja nær í skrivt, men framburðurin er so ymiskur, at málini skilja ikki hvørt annað.

Hoyrast.

- - - - -

Well, be welcomed.

You'll probably notice, that Faroese and Icelandic are close in orthography but the pronunciation are so far apart, that the languages don't understand each other.

See you later.

Hi,

Can you please tell me what rainbow is in Faeroese? I've looked everywhere and it's driving me bonkers!

Thank you,
Barb

Rainbow = ælabogi (m)

Unfortunately, Daniel, there are no courses online.

Hopefully, this'll change.

Mulder-21 wrote: Takk fyrir!

Actually, Faroese has 2 ways of expressing the relative pronouns:

Faroese - sum [sUm:], ið [Ui]

I'm not totally sure about the etymology, but with the help of Hunefr, I've been able to get these two lines of development:

er > ir > ið
er -> sem -> sum

There's no rule to when to use sum, and when to use ið, heck, sometimes, it's not even necessary to use one of them.

<quote snipped for space>

Actually, there seems to be a difference of use of relative pronouns in Faroese.

First, of all, there is a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. The online Dictionary of Linguistics (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/)explains it like this:

"GENERAL: (A restrictive relative clause is a) relative clause which is used to restrict the class of entities that can be denoted by a noun phrase. EXAMPLE: in "the books that John read", the restrictive relative clause "that John read" restricts the set of books to those that are read by John. Non-restrictive relative clauses add further qualifications to the reference of the noun phrase but do not narrow down (nor expand) its extension. Thus in "this book, which John gave to me", the non-restrictive relative clause does not restrict the set of books. The difference between a restrictive and a non-restrictive interpretation is often only expressed intonationally."

Christer Platzack claims in his 2002 article "Relativization in the Germanic Languages" that in Faroese only "sum" (and "hvörs") can be used in non-restrictive clauses, while both "sum" and "ið" (and "hvörs") can be used in restrictive ones. In many languages it is possible to omit restrictive relative pronouns.

marchhare292 wrote:First, of all, there is a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. The online Dictionary of Linguistics (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/)explains it like this:

"GENERAL: (A restrictive relative clause is a) relative clause which is used to restrict the class of entities that can be denoted by a noun phrase. EXAMPLE: in "the books that John read", the restrictive relative clause "that John read" restricts the set of books to those that are read by John. Non-restrictive relative clauses add further qualifications to the reference of the noun phrase but do not narrow down (nor expand) its extension. Thus in "this book, which John gave to me", the non-restrictive relative clause does not restrict the set of books. The difference between a restrictive and a non-restrictive interpretation is often only expressed intonationally."

Christer Platzack claims in his 2002 article "Relativization in the Germanic Languages" that in Faroese only "sum" (and "hvörs") can be used in non-restrictive clauses, while both "sum" and "ið" (and "hvörs") can be used in restrictive ones. In many languages it is possible to omit restrictive relative pronouns.

I disagree with mr. Platzack. I've run the sentences in my head, and as far as how I speak Faroese, we don't make a difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, thus:

"The books that John reads" is:

Bøkurnar, John lesur
Bøkurnar, sum John lesur
Bøkurnar, ið John lesur

"This book that John gave me"

Henda bókin, John gav mær
Henda bókin, sum John gav mær
Henda bókin, ið John gav mær

I don't see any problems with these sentences, so as I said, I disagree with Platzack.

"Hvørs" (and not "hvörs", which is Icelandic) only applies, when dealing with the English 'whose' (German: dessen):

Erik, whose father is a goalkeeper, ... = Eirikur, hvørs pápi er málmaður, ...

So, my conclusion is, that we don't really make differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, since all options are possible.

Thank you so much. That is very interesting. In fact, I included your reply in an e-mail to my professor just now (I handed the paper in this morning). Thanks again for your help - it was very useful and I have included your examples in my paper in addition to a "Thank you" footnote to you .

Thanks again.
+Ulrike

Ps. I am definitely going to continue my interest in Faroese, especially because I think it is important to study languages that are not spoken by a large number of people.

Mulder-21, you should like go to wordgumbo.com and get a wordlist from there and translate it. That would be awesome

mulder-21
will you continue preparing lessons ?

Alcadras, yes, at least, that the intention.

However, I've found out, that I've made a mistake by starting with the articles, since it would be best to have started with either the nouns or pronouns, since those are, along with the verbs, probably the best place to start. Articles aren't that good to begin with, because they rely very much on the noun and/or adjective case. So we'll see, what comes up next.

you'd better start telling from zero

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone can help me. I'm writing a book called 'how to say fancy a shag in 52 languages' and I'm currently looking for phrases (deadline end of January). I visited the Faroes a few years ago and thought that it's too cool a country to miss off my list! If anyone's willing to help, send me a private message or email me asap. Cheers!
Merry Christmas!
Charlotte.

Hey,

Eg eiti Antissimo. Eg eri ungarskur. Eg eri trý og tjúgu ára gamal.


I hope what I wrote above is more or less correct... I just want to add that I really like your course!

Antissimo

Szia, Antissimo.

And welcome to the Faroese forum.

And yes, your sentence was great. Just one small thing:

"Eg eri ungarskur."

This isn't wrong, yet it's right either, since 'ungarskur' is an adjective, and in this case, when speaking about nationalities, Faroese uses a noun, so the right way would be:

Eg eri ungari.

Of course, if you were, say a Hungarian student, you'd say:

Eg eri ein ungarskur lesandi.

- OR -

Eg eri lesandi úr Ungarn (I'm a student from Hungary).

Alternately, you could say:

Eg eri ungverji.

Yet this word is old, and I believe it's only used about historical Hungarians and historical Magyars.

But once more: Welcome.