Faroese language policy

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The Faroese language policy is the Føroyska málnevndin ( Faroese Sprachrat regulated). It was founded in April 1985 .

The Language Council has its seat in the so-called Málstovan ("Language Room"), within the Faroese Faculty ( Føroyamálsdeildin ) of the University of the Faroe Islands in Tórshavn . Like the university, it is subordinate to the culture minister of the state government of the Faroe Islands . Professor Jóhan Hendrik Winther Poulsen (* 1934) is considered the nestor of Faroese language policy .

The Language Council

tasks

The tasks of the Language Council are to preserve, promote and develop the Faroese language . He advises the government, companies and individuals on this.

The Language Council supports the creation and selection of new Faroese words and concepts. He also answers questions about Faroese personal names , place names and other names.

The corresponding Løgtingsgesetz also stipulates that the Language Council cooperates with the media in the Faroe Islands , because language is spread there, new terms can establish themselves, and incorrect use of language can be identified and criticized.

The Language Council can also intervene in disputes. The last time that happened was at the end of 2004 / beginning of 2005 , when the parents' council at the municipal school in Gøta demanded that the Danish mathematics textbooks used there be replaced by Faroese ones. In a press release by the Language Council at the time, it said in the same way:

If you can't sort that out, we'll do it.

That worked in favor of the Faroese teaching material.

The Faroese Language Council also sends a representative to the Nordic Language Council of the Nordic Council . The Faroe Islands are currently represented on the 10-person body by the linguist Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen . Together they take part in the internordic project Nordterm , in which terms from the modern world are collected and compared.

composition

The Language Council consists of five people appointed every four years by the Ministry of Culture. This is done at the suggestion of the University's Faroese Faculty, the National School Administration, the Faroese Teachers 'Association and the Faroe Islands ' Association of Writers . Accordingly, the members represent these respective institutions.

The language council has a permanent employee, the linguist Marius Staksberg, who is the contact person for all relevant questions and who also suggests new creations himself. Staksberg is among other things co-author of the Danish-Faroese dictionary from 1995 ( see below ).

Language policy and planning

Historical starting conditions

The starting conditions of Faroese were far more unfavorable than those of Icelandic , the most closely related sister language. After the Reformation in the 16th century , Icelandic was able to assert itself against Danish in all areas (church, state and literature) , while Faroese only survived orally in the old and new ballads . If Iceland can look back on an unbroken continuity since the conquest of the land , Faroese only emerged again after much struggle and struggle since the middle of the 19th century and has only been recognized in (almost) every respect since the middle of the 20th century .

In literature it is mostly described as a miracle that (and how) the Faroese could survive and not see the fate of the Norn . When the Faroese grammar was written down by VU Hammershaimb from the middle of the 19th century, the question of the purity of the language, especially the absence of danisms , quickly arose . The first purist is Hammershaimb's younger colleague Jakob Jakobsen , whose particular merit was to elevate the Faroese language to a scientific language for the first time through the creation of modern terms.

See also: Faroe Islands Christmas Meeting 1888 ; Faroese language dispute

Foreign influences

Foreign influences mostly came from Danish , but also from English .

Anglicisms before 1600 are for example koltur ( colt , foal, name of an island), pokari ( poker , poker game), syrkot ( surcoat , tabard ). Before 1800 , words like fittur ( fit ), smílur ( smell , odor) and trupul ( trouble , anger, problem) came up. Until 1940 : fulspit ( full speed , full speed), keis ( case , box, housing). An interesting modern borrowing is the joking term spikka from speak for speaking English . In total, around 800 loanwords came directly from the neighbor in the south. The Napoleonic Wars , fisheries and seafaring had a particular influence here - and not least the British occupation of the Faroe Islands in World War II , before the worldwide phenomenon of globalization became relevant.

Danisms can often be recognized by the morphological pattern, which in turn comes from Middle Low German . Strictly speaking, they are Germanisms . Examples are the endings -heit and -agtigur (-like) or the prefixes be and for- (ver). Verbs like begrípa , treatla , bekymra and bevísa sound very familiar to us: understand, treat, worry, prove . These words are also called an-be-for-ilsi-words . Sometimes there are self- creations here : bangheit (fear, worry) has no Danish equivalent * banghed .

There are also other examples of Danisms (low) of German origin in common words such as: melda ( melde , report), ringur ( ringe , low, poor, bad), treffa ( træffe , to meet).

Internationalisms then often came through Danish mediation, such as: bilur ( bil , automobile), bussur (bus), kumpass ( kompas , compass), professari (professor), púra ( pure , pure, totally) or sosialur ( social , social).

Today, Icelandic is often used as a guide , especially as it is the most closely related neighboring language. Many modern terms from Iceland have been adopted 1: 1 in Faroese - of course only if there are commonly applicable word formation patterns. Therefore, these words are hardly perceived as loan words , but as conscious neologisms . Examples are sjónvarp (“sight throw”, television ), útvarp (“out throw”, radio ) or tónlist (“sound art”, music ). There are also homonyms in both languages, each with a different meaning ( faux amis ). Richard Kölbl calls, for example: elding (. Isl flash , everyone. Cookery ), pynta (isl. Torment , everyone. Decorate ).

Neologisms

The Faroese language policy is largely based on the Icelandic language policy with its málnefnd , the language council there. Most neologisms are accepted by the population and could quickly become naturalized. Examples are tyrla (from tyril - whorl) instead of helikoptari for helicopter , or telda instead of the older roknari (literally calculator) for computer . Other terms such as løgregla (lit. "legal regulation") for police are used in general, but the Danish politi is still on the police car .

Since April 2005 there are terms proposed by the Language Council for:

For Germany there was previously only the name Týskland . The Federal Republic of Germany is called Sambandslýðveldið Þýskaland in Icelandic . This is what it says in the official terminology of the Federal Foreign Office . Lýðveldi means republic in both languages ( tjóðveldi is a Faroese synonym ), while the idea of ​​the state in Faroese is evidently better expressed with samveldi than with samband . In the Faroese media, the state offices have so far only been named as kanslari (chancellor) or forseti (president, literally chairman).

Acceptance in the population

Survey: Anglicisms in Faroese
 
There are too many Anglicisms in Faroese
Anglicisms should be replaced by Faroese neologisms
Men Women <30 30-44 45-59 60>
Yes 45% 53% 46% 40% 52% 64%
I do not know 9% 5% 9% 6% 8th % 8th %
No 46% 42% 45% 54% 40% 28%
Yes 67% 76% 65% 74% 68% 74%
I do not know 10% 9% 8th % 9% 10% 11%
No 23% 15% 27% 17% 22% 15%

However, certain new words are viewed with skepticism by many native speakers. Attempts to completely cleanse the Faroese language of Anglicisms and Danisms are seen by them as a pointless undertaking, especially since many words are very common and older. A 2003 survey of 537 Faroese people showed that around half of them do not think that there are too many Anglicisms in Faroese. On the other hand, over two thirds were in favor of replacing them with new Faroese creations if possible. Women turned out to be more puristic about their language. The group of 30 to 44-year-olds of both sexes is also striking: the majority do not feel that they are surrounded by too many Anglicisms, but at the same time 3/4 support the active introduction of Faroese words.

Dictionaries play an important role in language policy. The degree of their purism allows conclusions to be drawn about their language planning intentions - what is allowed, what is “unfaroan”?

Purism in dictionaries

an-be-for-ilsi-words
Svabo
1800 		Jakobsen
1891 		Danish-Far.
1995 		Orðabók
1998
Words 25,000 10,000 54,000 65,000
on- 3 1 3 3
loading 33 7th 44 45
for- 58 14th 364 96
~ is 63 1 143 24
~ ilsi 12 3 190 85
~ arí 2 0 130 20th
total 171 26th 882 273
in % 0.68 0.26 1.63 0.42

The an-be-for-heit-ilsi-words mentioned above are called colloquial in the first separate Faroese dictionary (Føroysk Orðabók) from 1998 (65,000 headwords) and are often not listed separately as separate lexemes . It is strict in this regard: only 478 (0.7%) slang words were used there. From the an-be-for-heit-ilsi group there are 273 (0.42%), such as begynna (begin) and begynnilsi (beginning). These two Danisms / Germanisms can already be found in the purist Jakobsen in 1891 (10,000 keywords).

The Danish-Faroese dictionary by Hjalmar P. Petersen and Marius Staksberg 1995 (54,000 headwords) is less puristic and presented the (puristic) classic by Jóhannes av Skarði ( 1967 ) in a revised form.

Example: "Egoism" in New Faroese

In 1967, av Skarði only mentions one Faroese equivalent of the Danish word for egoism (egoisme):

  • sjálvsøkni
(literally: "selfishness", sjálv = self, søkin = searching, active, enterprising)

Petersen and Staksberg are more detailed by first documenting the colloquial Faroese synonyms (or new creations) in 1995, then the borrowed foreign word and finally the (older, outdated?) Term from the written language:

  • sjálvgleði, sjálvgóðska, egoisma , særlystur, sjálvsøkni
(literally: self-pleasure, self-goodness, selfishness, self-lust, selfishness)

For this, the dictionary received criticism in the Faroese press. Petersen defended it as a hóvlig málrøkt (moderate language planning ).

In the Faroese dictionary of 1998 one searches in vain for the keyword egoisma , although it is in use. Instead, all Faroese terms mentioned by Petersen / Staksberg are found. In fact, the preface states that their edition was an important source in compiling the synonyms.

In addition, there is the term eginkærleiki (self-love), which is itself a Danism ( egenkærlighed is the Danish synonym for egoism ). A Google search on .fo pages shows: sjálvsøkni has the most hits, and egoisma only one. You googling the rest of the synonyms in vain.

Grammatical momentum

In addition to trying to avoid borrowed and foreign words, there is, as in any other language, a momentum in language development with regard to grammar . It is controversial here to what extent this is due to the influence of the neighboring languages ​​or is inherent in Faroese. Its structure may make it subject to processes similar to those in Norwegian and Icelandic, the latter being the least distant from Old Norse .

Well-known phenomena in Faroese are z. B .:

  • the (apparent?) disappearance of the genitive or its description with the (newer) ending -sa , the preposition hjá (at, from) or the possessive pronouns,
  • the disappearance of alternative plural forms ,
  • the disappearance of alternative cases after certain prepositions.

The genitive problem is often discussed in the literature. Here WB Lockwood had an influence with his Introduction to Modern Faroese , which was one of the most important books on the Faroese language for decades. Lockwood describes the genitive as dying out and puts these forms in brackets in his declension tables. However, Hammershaimb did this in 1891 in the case of the plural. The Føroysk Orðabók from 1998 dispenses with such a designation and names the genitive forms as equivalent.

Kölbl's first German Faroese language guide from 2004 completely dispenses with these forms in his inflection paradigms, but (like all his predecessors) cannot avoid mentioning that after the important prepositions til (zu, nach, bis, für) and vegna (because of) the genitive is often or in principle. Of course, he is following the self-imposed goal of conveying the spoken language compactly without excessive grammatical ballast.

Examples of the living genitive can be found not only in personal names ending in -dóttir and -son , but also in many proper names such as Postverk Føroya , Strandfaraskip Landsins or Løgmansskrivstovan . Føroya (the Faroe Islands) is a feminine genitive plural, Landsins (des Landes) is a determinate neuter singular form, and Løgmans- (genitive of the male Løgmaður) is a typical example of the genitive in composite.

Publications of the Language Council

In addition to the current website fmn.fo and the Orðafar newsletter (until 2002):

  • Jóhan Hendrik W. Poulsen : Nøkur teldorð (1985, 2nd edition, 1990. Computer terms, are kept up to date on the website)
  • Jóhan Hendrik W. Poulsen: Fólkanøvn: Úrval til leiðbeiningar (1989, personal names ).
  • Jeffrei Henriksen: Mál- og bókmentaorðalisti (2003, Glossary of Linguistics and Literature Studies).

literature

  • VU Hammershaimb : Færøsk Anthologi . Copenhagen, 1891, third unchanged edition, Tórshavn 1991; Volume 2 Ordsammling by Jakob Jakobsen . (Faroese-Danish glossary)
  • Jóhannes av Skarði : Donsk-Føroysk Orðabók . Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag, 1967;
    • extended edition 1977;
    • New edition by Hjalmar P. Petersen and Marius Staksberg 1995
  • Tórður Jóansson: English Loanwords in Faroese . Tórshavn: Fannir, 1997
  • Jóhan Hendrik W. Poulsen et al .: Føroysk Orðabók . Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag, 1998
  • Christer Lindqvist : "Language ideological influences on Faroese orthography (research)" In: North-Western European Language Evolution (NOWELE) , Odense, 43: 77-144 (2003)
  • Höskuldur Thráinsson et al .: Faroese. An Overview and Reference Grammar . Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag, 2004 (pages 445–458: "Foreign influence and Faroese language policy", scientific outline, largely based on this article)
  • Richard Kölbl: Faroese word for word . Bielefeld: Reise Know-How Verlag, 2004 (introduction, short grammar, Faroese-German-Faroese basic glossary)

Web links

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 15, 2005 .