The phonology of
Faroese has an inventory similar to the closely related
Icelandic language, but markedly different processes differentiate the two. Similarities include an aspiration contrast in stop consonants, the retention of front rounded vowels and vowel quality changes instead of vowel length distinctions.
Vowels
* and appear only in loanwords.
* The long mid vowels tend to be diphthongized to .
* According to the mean formant values of the native vowels (so excluding and ) in , cited in :
** are more open than the corresponding tense vowels, with being the most open of the three () and having the same F1 value as the back . The F2 value of is closer to that of , which means that it is a front vowel.
** and especially are more open than the phonetically close-mid (, often diphthongized to ). Both and are more open than the corresponding short vowels; in addition, is more central than any of the mid front vowels, including , whereas is the most front of the mid vowels. This suggests that they are best transcribed and in narrow transcription, at least in the case of the monophthongal variants (Árnason reports opening diphthongs and as one common type of realization of and . Those diphthongs have considerably more close starting points).
** The F1 value of is just slightly higher than that of , suggesting that it is a near-open vowel. In addition, its F2 value is closer to than , which suggests that it is a near-open near-back vowel .
** is considerably more close than but not as close as . It is more front than , which suggests that it is a mid front vowel .
** has the same F1 value as , which suggests that it is also true-mid . The remaining short mid is more open than those two, suggesting as the best narrow transcription.
As with other Germanic languages, Faroese has a large number of vowel phonemes; by one analysis, long and short vowels may be considered separate phonemes, with 26 in total. Vowel distribution is similar to other North Germanic languages in that short vowels appear in closed syllables (those ending in consonant clusters or long consonants) and long vowels appearing in open syllables.
Faroese avoids having a
hiatus between two vowels by inserting a
glide between them.
There is considerable variation among dialects in the pronunciation of vowels.
The only unstressed vowels in Faroese are short ; these appear in inflectional endings: ''áðrenn'' (e.g. 'before'). Very typical are endings like ''-ur'', ''-ir'', ''-ar''. The dative is often indicated by .
* – ''bátar'' ('boats'), ''kallar'' ('
oucall')
* – ''gestir'' ('guests'), ''dugir'' ('
oucan')
* – ''bátur'' ('boat'), ''gentur'' ('girls'), ''rennur'' ('
ourun').
In some dialects, unstressed short is realized as or is reduced further to . goes under a similar reduction pattern as it varies between so unstressed and can rhyme. This can cause spelling mistakes related to these two vowels. The following table displays the different realizations in different dialects.
Skerping
The so-called "skerping" ( 'sharpening')
[Þráinsson et al. use the term "Faroese Verschärfung"] is a typical phenomenon of
fronting back vowel
A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...
s before and
monophthongizing certain
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s before long . Skerping is not indicated orthographically.
*: ''Jógvan'' (a form of the name John), ''
gjógv'' ('cleft')
*: ''kúgv'' ('cow'), ''trúgva'' ('believe'), but: ''trúleysur'' ('faithless')
*: ''heyggjur'' ('high'), but ''heygnum'' ('high
at. sg.)
*: ''nýggjur'' ('new
.), but ''nýtt'' ('New
n.)
*: ''beiggi'' ('brother')
*: ''oyggj'' ('island'), but ''oynna'' ('island
cc. sg.)
Consonants
* are normally
labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labi ...
, but may sometimes be
bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlin ...
(). Intervocalic is normally an approximant , whereas word-initial varies between an approximant and a fricative .
* is dental , whereas vary between being dental and (less commonly) alveolar .
* Initial is dental or alveolar . Postvocalic may be more of a
postalveolar lateral , especially after back vowels.
* are
palato-alveolar, and vary between stops and affricates .
* are velar, whereas is glottal.
There are several
phonological processes involved in Faroese, including:
*
Liquid consonants are
devoiced before
voiceless consonants
*
Nasal consonants generally assume the
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
and
laryngeal settings of following consonants.
*
Velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s ()
palatalize to
postalveolar affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
s before .
* becomes devoiced to before
voiceless consonants
* before another consonant becomes after
* becomes before (but in morphological forms often word internally, i.e. ''elski'' 'I love')
*
retroflexes itself as well as following consonants in
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fi ...
s, yielding the allophones while itself becomes , example: ;
preaspirated consonants devoice the
rhotic: example: ; is usually (only in some loanwords ). Voiceless is usually realised as .
*
Pre-stopping of original to and to .
* Intervocalically the
aspirated consonant
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with t ...
s become
pre-aspirated unless followed by a
closed vowel
A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of th ...
. In clusters, the preaspiration merges with a preceding nasal or
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
, rendering them voiceless, example:
Omissions in consonant clusters
Faroese tends to omit the first or second consonant in clusters of different consonants:
* ''fjals'' ('mountain's') instead of from (). Other examples for genitives are: ''barns'' ('child's'), ''vatns'' ('water's').
* ''hjálpti'' ('helped' ) instead of from ''hjálpa'' . Other examples for past forms are: ''sigldi'' ('sailed'), ''yrkti'' ('wrote poetry').
*
homophone are ''fylgdi'' ('followed') and ''fygldi'' ('caught birds with a net'): .
* skt will be:
*# in words of more than one syllable: ''føroyskt'' ('Faroese' .); ''russiskt'' ('Russian' .); ''íslendskt'' ('Icelandic' .).
*# in monosyllables: ''enskt'' ('English' .); ''danskt'' ('Danish' .); ''franskt'' ('French' .); ''spanskt'' ('Spanish' .); ''svenskt'' ('Swedish' .); ''týskt'' ('German' .).
*#* However in: ''írskt'' ('Irish' .), ''norskt'' ('Norwegian' .)
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Faroese Phonology
Phonology
Germanic phonologies