Faroese language dispute

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The Faroese language dispute was a phase in the history of the Faroe Islands in the first half of the 20th century (approx. 1908 to 1938 in the narrower sense). It was the political and cultural conflict between the Faroese language's right to general recognition and the Danish language as the official language in the Faroe Islands .

At the beginning of the 20th century, the starting point was as follows: Danish was the language of the church, the school system, the administration and the judiciary. Faroese, on the other hand, was the language of the people, which has been written more and more since the laying down as written language by VU Hammershaimb from the middle of the 19th century and the formation of the Faroese national awakening since the Christmas meeting in 1888 .

The language dispute was primarily not a dispute between Faroese and Danes , but a dispute in the - changing - Faroese society.

Political camp

In addition to the mood of cultural change, the development of the first two political parties in the Faroe Islands began in 1906 and represented the respective camps in the language dispute: Sambandsflokkurin (Unionists) and Sjálvstýrisflokkurin (Separatists).

Position of Samband

Samband's view was that the Faroese language should be developed and used in the literary field. On the other hand, the Danish language should continue to be the official language of education, which all Faroese must be fluent in. At the same time, the Unionists turned against the comprehensive introduction of Faroese for purely dogmatic reasons, as they accused Sjálvstyri.

Samband was able to put forward two important arguments: Any further training opportunities are only available if the Faroese have a good command of Danish that they can study in Denmark without any problems. Furthermore, there were too few or no school books for the small island people. The latter problem could theoretically be solved with the appropriate use of all forces, but not the former.

Position of Sjálvstyri

Sjálvstyri, on the other hand, had the national feeling on his side. It was considered untenable that the official language should be any other than the mother tongue. A key requirement in the party program was that the Faroese language should become the language of instruction in all subjects. At the same time she tried to use the language dispute for her separatist goals.

The separatists had a sound argument in favor of Faroese as the language of instruction: in the other parts of the kingdom, instruction was given in the respective mother tongue: Icelandic in Iceland , Greenlandic in Greenland , English in the Danish West Indies and, until 1864, German in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein . It was therefore a question of equal treatment to allow Faroese as the language of instruction.

Breakthrough as the language of instruction

The story should work for Sjálvstyri's claims . 1908 is considered to be the real beginning of the conflict that lasted until 1938 . That year the teachers at the secondary school in Tórshavn applied to be allowed to use Faroese in their lessons. The school management reacted with rejection: Faroese should (outside of the pure Faroese lessons) only be used as an aid to explain certain things. This was opposed by the future pastor Jacob Dahl , who from then on taught in Faroese. The school management involved the Danish Ministry of Education, which in turn passed this matter on to Løgting .

There the camps were divided. No agreement was reached and therefore in 1910 two declarations, a majority opinion and a minority vote. The majority opinion was represented by Samband : Danish should be more than just a foreign language like German or English, but the students should hear and speak it in all subjects. An important argument for this was that Danish was a key to further education in Denmark and thus to the professional advancement of young people.

Sjálvstyri withdrew from the position already substantiated above that it is a matter of course elsewhere that members of a people are trained in their mother tongue. On the other hand, in addition to the further training argument, there was of course the undisputed fact that there were no corresponding teaching aids in Faroese, and so Sjálvstyri suggested that it should be up to each teacher to decide which language to teach in.

As a compromise , Faroese was finally envisaged as the language of instruction for the small children and as a permitted aid for the older age groups within a basic instruction in Danish. On January 16, 1912 , this regulation (Section 7 of the Faroese School Regulations) was issued by the Danish government.

Although it could be seen as a partial success of Sjálvstyri , the demand to change this § 7 remained on the agenda of the party. Louis Zachariasen was the first teacher to openly oppose it in Velbastaður , stating that he refused to continue teaching in Danish. In doing so, he broke a taboo, because under the hand the rule "Faroese as an auxiliary language" was used generously. Zachariasen publicly resigned as a teacher and thus helped the separatists to become a “martyr”.

The language dispute entered a new round in 1918 when the question arose as to why Faroese spelling was not yet a compulsory subject in schools. This question was deliberately excluded from the school regulations of 1912, as many Faroese teachers did not have sufficient knowledge of the spelling of their mother tongue. However, this has already been counteracted by organizing holiday courses. Now that the time seemed ripe, the Løgting approached the Danish government with a request to introduce Faroese spelling as a compulsory subject. This was immediately complied with, but Section 7 remained unaffected.

The language dispute became more and more abstract and it was only a matter of a suitable formulation, which on the one hand equates Faroese completely (and thus permeates) and on the other hand ensures that the professional advancement of young people with appropriate knowledge of the Danish language is guaranteed. The Copenhagen Ministry of Education therefore proposed in 1925 that Faroese should become the general language of instruction, but that Danish should remain the language of geography and history lessons. Now it was the partisans of Samband who protested, because that was going too far for them. And since they had the majority in Løgting, the proposal was rejected.

Only the Løgting elections of 1936 brought a change in the deadlocked process: The newly formed Javnaðarflokkurin (Social Democrats) party was able to increase its share of the vote considerably at the expense of Samband . Together with Sjálvstyri , the Social Democrats voted for a change in the law that equates the Faroese language with Danish. On December 13, 1938 , the Danish government agreed.

Breakthrough as the language of the church

Danish has been the only church language on the archipelago since the Reformation in the 16th century . This was one of the main reasons why Faroese could not develop a written tradition for centuries, but was only spoken.

In 1903 Faroese was then permitted for church activities under certain conditions: The Lord's Supper must take place in Danish, and Faroese may only be preached if all church authorities ( provost and parish council) agree. From 1912 onwards the Lord's Supper could also be held in Faroese, but only if the bishop had given his prior consent.

It was the Faroese themselves who hindered the general implementation of their mother tongue as the church language. A conservative attitude of most of the faithful linked the Danish language firmly with the liturgy , the hymns, and not least the Bible . Even today certain Faroese hymns are often sung in an old Danish. A referendum was carried out in Tórshavn , where the majority of churchgoers were in favor of keeping Danish.

Nevertheless, the question was discussed several times in the Løgting , and again it was Samband politicians who put forward further pragmatic arguments: Many of the priests are Danes, and if every priest is free to choose the language in which he preaches, then that inevitably leads to a general one Confusion when a congregation is used to a Faroese church service and then gets a Danish pastor.

As with the question of the language of instruction, however, the establishment of the mother tongue in the church was only a matter of time and available literature. The Gospel of Matthew appeared in Faroese as early as 1823 , but it was not widely accepted by the people, which was also due to the orthographic uncertainty that prevailed before VU Hammershaimb's time. The Gospel of John followed in 1908 , but it was not until the pastor Jacob Dahl that Faroese made its breakthrough as the church language when he presented a Faroese hymnbook in 1921 and translated the New Testament by 1937 . He continued to work on the Old Testament until his death in 1944 , which Kristian Osvald Viderø completed and published by 1961 .

Dahl's works were authorized by the Evangelical Lutheran state church immediately after they were published. He also translated the catechism and a history of religion. His collection of sermons in book form should be important for the Faroe Islands. In the remote areas it was normal for a pastor to have up to six churches in his care, which he visited in sequence. The services in the churches in which he could not be, were held by lay people who used a printed collection of sermons.

The 13. March 1939 is the day, was admitted to the Faroese in full as a church language. Today the Faroe Islands have almost exclusively local clergy.

Legal equality

From 1920 onwards the question of what about the use of Faroese in the legal system was raised. This resulted from a reform in Denmark , where the spoken word is now also valid in court, whereas previously only documents were valid. On April 11, 1924 , the rule came into force in the Faroe Islands that the legal language is Danish, but Faroese-speaking judges may conduct their negotiations in Faroese if the parties to the proceedings are Faroese. The relevant documents could also be drawn up in Faroese, but had to be made in Danish with a certified translation if the law required it or if the defense required it. These Danish documents were important, for example, when an appeal was made in Denmark.

From 1931 onwards, the use of Faroese in the legal system should be expanded. This in turn met with resistance from Samband with the above argument that Danish documents are indispensable for revision negotiations.

It was not until January 4, 1944 , that the Løgting decided to fully equate Faroese in the legal system. However, this happened in the special situation of the Faroe Islands during World War II , where all connections with Denmark were broken. After the war, this regulation remained in force.

Faroese in other areas

The process of introducing Faroese as the official language also took place in other areas over a longer period of time. From 1920 the Faroese phone book appears in the local language. From 1925 it was the second language in the postal system, and from 1927 the logs of the Løgting are kept in the Faroese language.

With the Autonomy Act of 1948, Faroese is finally the main language in all matters, while Danish must always be taught at school to an extent that all Faroers can use it fluently for their advancement and communication with other Scandinavians.

Only on June 1, 1962, the Danish place names on the postmarks were replaced by Faroese.

In retrospect, it can be said of the Faroese language dispute that it started less in favor of Sjálvstyri because of the political wing battles , but rather because of the power of the factual , namely the comprehensive breakthrough of Faroese literature due to the extraordinary work of the Bible translator Jacob Dahl and Faroese writers like JHO Djurhuus , Hans Andrias Djurhuus , Heðin Brú , Jóannes Patursson and so on.

aftermath

Despite the establishment of Faroese as the national language, there were always cases where Danish took its place. In schools, the Abitur was still done in Danish when the examiners were Danish and could not speak Faroese. In 1974 the students in Hoydalar demanded the exclusive use of Faroese in the Abitur. That was as far as possible, but not for the oral exams in social studies. Two students still spoke Faroese and therefore did not receive their Abitur. The following year, twelve students refused to take their written biology exams in Danish. They also denied the opportunity to have the work translated as they did not want the translations to be evaluated instead of their original work. These twelve did not get their Abitur either.

From 1975 the University of the Faroe Islands offered a master's degree in Faroese, but much was still written in Danish. For example, much of the Dimmalætting newspaper was still in Danish in the 1970s.

Today, Danish has been pushed back a long way in the Faroe Islands. The English is increasingly the preferred second language. For example, many websites are only in Faroese, or they also have an English offering. However, Danish is rarely offered there. As long as the Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Danish is still required as a second official language.

These trends are similar to those in Iceland, where Danish officially abolished as a second language in 1999 and English became the general business language.

See also

literature

  • John F. West : Faroe. The Emergence of a Nation . Hurst, London et al. 1972, ISBN 0-8397-2063-7 , (the Danish translation of this standard work is largely the basis for this article).