Faeroese

Faeroese, Faroese

the chief language of the Faeroes, closely related to Icelandic, although they are not mutually intelligible

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Faeroese 

a people, the principal population of the Faeroe Islands. The Faeroese number 35,000 people (1975, estimate) on the islands and 5,000 in other parts of Denmark. They speak the Faeroese language. Believers are Lutherans. The Faeroese are descendants of Vikings, who settled on the islands in the ninth and tenth centuries. Their chief occupation is fishing; the traditional occupation, from the time of Viking settlement, is sheep raising. Other occupations are farming, the catching of seabirds and whaling. The Faeroese have preserved the traditional dwellings, clothing, and utensils.

REFERENCES

Narody zarubezhnoi Evropy, vol. 2. Moscow, 1965.
Anokhin, G. I. Na ostrovakh dozhdei. Moscow, 1966.

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Faeroese 

the language of the Faeroese people, who inhabit the Faeroe Islands, an autonomous region of Denmark. Since 1938, Faeroese has been the official language of the Faeroe Islands; it is spoken by more than 35,000 people (1975, estimate).

Faeroese derives from the language of the Norsemen who emigrated from southwestern Norway and colonized the Faeroe Islands in the ninth and tenth centuries. It belongs to the northern, or Scandinavian, group of Germanic languages and most nearly resembles Icelandic and the western Norwegian dialects. Like Icelandic, it differs from other Scandinavian languages in its archaic morphology. The lexicon has been strongly influenced by Danish. Until the early 19th century, Faeroese remained an unwritten language; the earliest records of Faeroese are folk ballads written down in the late 18th century. In 1846, V. U. Hammer-shaimb developed an orthography based on the Latin alphabet. Faeroese was first taught in the schools in the early 20th century.

REFERENCES

Steblin-Kamenskii, M. I. Istoriia skandinavskikh iazykov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1953.
Lockwood, W. B. An Introduction to Modern Faroese. Copenhagen, 1955.

A. A. KOROLEV