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.
Faroese is not remotely close to having a standard and difference between dialects are very marked. When diving into the specifics, this article primarily discusses Tórshavn varieties, as it is the biggest city on the islands and where most academics have a pied-à-terre.
Vowels 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.
There is considerable variation among dialects in the pronunciation of vowels.
Monophthongs
+ Faroese vowels Front Central Back unr. rnd. short long short long short long short long Close () Mid Open ()
and appear only in loanwords. The long mid vowels tend to be diphthongized to . Those diphthongs tend to have noticeably closer starting points. conducted preliminary acoustic studies in fall 1997 on unknown informants, giving insights on the precise acoustic of native vowels (so excluding and ): are more open than the corresponding tense vowels, with being the most open of the three () and having a smaller F1 difference with as with (and an even smaller F2 one). The F2 value of is a flick higher than 's (). has the same F1 value as , which in turn serves as middle point between and this suggests true-mid opening (it is also, as common for "-type" vowels, slightly more central than but not as much as ). Meanwhile, the F2 of is remarkably close, standing on a median line between and ; this points to the narrow transcriptions , . 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 right between that of and , which suggests that it is a near-open near-back vowel . are very close to the value usually denoted by such symbols. Of anecdotal importance is that is closer than (as much as is than ). Also is somewhat backer than , comparable to the difference between and ().
Diphthongs
+ Faroese Diphthongs /-i/ /-a/ /-u/ /ʏ- ~ ʊ-/ /ɛ-/ /œ-/ /ɔ-/ /a-/
Árnason observes that the rounding of the first element in is variable. This is reminiscent of the fronting in some dialects of English (although English took it step further and can have it totally unrounded). In the north (cf. isogloss map) native has merged with . can be pronounced a variety of ways. In addition to the diphthong nominally transcribed as , it can be an unrounded monophthong of variable backness (up to true front), a trait said to belong to the northern and eastern islands. citing In the North and the West (cf. isogloss map) the first element of is central, its roundedness being another variable, some varieties even making it identifiable as . This creates a possible merger between , . It is also possible for dialects which have a back to make it alternate with instead of (as is the case in Tórshavn). Short is a debatable entity (as otherwise only i-diphthongs would appear in short/long pairs). A lot of native speakers pronounce words like as and does not occur in roots, which would prevent any such analogies. Other instances like and sound are unhelpful; the former often falls under secondary stress, where vowel duration is less prominent and the latter can be considered an unadapted borrowing. In the dictionaries published by Sprotin, are documented 1) a less pronunciation 2) in the case of , an assimilated pronunciation . Sequence pronunciations like also occur. Even less common are , , divides diphthongs into falling, further subdivided into i- and u-diphthongs and hovering diphthongs for which it is impossible to determine which part is the most prominent. He also gives insight into the acoustic of them (long): starts heavily front (on par with ) () whilst starts as central as and as close as to end up as front as and negligeably more open than () starts where all other i-diphthongs end to itself end at cardinal (). 's onset is on par with and fronter than (i.e. true central) to end at the openest mouth position of the inventory being in the meantime as back as (). , written on the charts, shares its F2 value with but is more open by a large margin (i.e. close-mid) () is a bit closer than , as it is closer to the F1 of and almost as central as the former is (), ditto for the first element, halts its opening at the level of but backer, on par with (). is a schwa plus an offglide (). was not included in the study but stems from an a sequence plus offglide, labialised velar or weak (non-velarised) fricative.
Faroese vowel alternationsMonophthongsLong vowelShort vowel ilinur 'soft' lint 'soft (N.)' efrekur 'greedy' frekt 'greedy (N.)' ymytisk 'mythological' mystisk 'mysterious' øhøgur 'high (M.)' høgt 'high (N.)' ugulur 'yellow' gult 'yellow (N.)' otola 'to endure' toldi 'endured' aKanada 'Canada' land 'land'DiphthongsLong vowelShort vowelíhvítur 'white (M.)' hvítt 'white (N.)' eydeyður 'dead (M.)' deytt 'dead (N.)'eifeitur 'fat (M.)' feitt 'fat (N.)'oygloyma 'to forget' gloymdi 'forgot' aspakur 'calm (M.)' spakt 'calm (N.)' ávátur 'wet (M.)' vátt 'wet (N.)' úfúlur 'foul (M.)' fúlt 'foul (N.)' ótómur 'empty (M.)' tómt 'empty (N.)'
Faroese marginal diphthongs Long vowelShort vowel ev fevna 'to embrace, to fathom 'fevnt '' øv svøvnast 'to get sleepy'svøvnd 'sleepiness' ov ovna 'stove, radiator' av javnur 'even (M.)'javnt 'even (N.)'
Length
Vowel length in Faroese is determined by the syllable structure of the simplex word such that the stressed vowel in: Long vowels are so because they take the entire lengthening potential of a stress on them (highly variable duration). are long because they aren't any following closing consonant. are long because the following consonant is syllabified as onset to the next syllable (or isn't allowed to form a coda because a lack of following onset). Short vowels are so because a following consonant takes a moraic slot; such syllables tend to be slightly longer. are short because a coda is allowed by a following onset. are short because the following consonant is long. are short because they stem from older fricatives and they tend to be analysed cross-linguistically as codas. are short because they were historically followed by geminates.
Hiatus phenomena
Mending During its history Faroese has deployed an array of processes to mend for hiatus. Inherited hiatus were handled by the process of skerping (and as such have a short stressed vowels). Meanwhile, those created by the loss of medial voiced fricatives and morphological analogy (thus with long vowels) received the following treatment:
1) High vowels (long and i- & u-diphthongs) are followed by a glide, whether it is inserted or already present is a debatable matter. E.g. , ; , , . 2) When followed by (near-)close , they have an epenthetic lenis continuant (respectively: ) separating them. E.g. ; 3) When followed by (near-)open , no instertion takes place and the hiatus stays. E.g. (Southern) ; ;
Being still present in the consonant system, is able to break the regularities described above. Firstly, it has a privileged position in not having taken part in the deletion before . Secondly, -a being a common nominative ending and -u a common accusative desinence, there is a lot of room for analogies to take place and borrowing the glide from one form to another. doesn't hold the monopoly on analogies e.g. from like is from .
Árnason considers the hiatus to be non-phonemic in forms like 1) and 3) : "But this [hiatus/plosive alternation of the type faðir V.S. fedrar ] would hardly motivate the construction of synchronic rules (or input–output relations) to mirror the loss of the fricatives and the development of stops before sonorants. Phonologically speaking the hiatus forms are 'primitive' and should appear as such in the lexical representation." but the numerous analogies prevent saying the same about situations in 2). : "Th[e] analogical levelling [...] shows that the insertion of [ʋ] according to (5.13b) is opaque (and neutralizing) and cannot be classified as a purely phonological rule or constraint."
Smoothing
A-diphthongs are smoothed when followed by . Smoothed diphthongs lose their glide and can have various affectation on their onsets, but the result invariably stays disyllabic. The textbook affectation is a mid onset, in slight contrast with close-mid forms ( (Southern) VS ) but the onset can even be or .
Unstressed vowels
The only unstressed vowels in Faroese are short ; these appear in inflectional endings and reduced syllables áðrenn (e.g. 'before'). Very typical are endings like -ur, -ir, -ar. The dative is often indicated by . – bátar , kallar – gestir , dugir – bátur , gentur , rennur .
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.
+Unstressed and in dialectsWordBorðoyKunoyTórshavnViðoySvínoyFugloySuðuroyElsewhere(etymological)gulur 'yellow'gulir 'yellow 'bygdin 'town'bygdum 'towns .'
Consonants Labial Coronal Dorsal Glottal Dental /Alveolar Retro-flex Palatal Velar Plosive /Affricate () () () Continuant () () () Sonorant () () () () () () () ( )
are labiodental, albeit "not as clearly labiodental as in English" according to Kristján Árnason. Intervocalic is usually an approximant , whereas word-initial varies between an approximant and a fricative . ranges from (post-)alveolar to retroflex, and from a trill (only in elderly speech) to an approximant, fricatives being the predominant allophones. Taps regularly occur in stressed syllables onsets, especially after un(post)aspirated . 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. assimilates to nearby palatals, resulting in the variants ( occurring when is devoiced): , . Pronunciation of initial varies situationally between the sequence and a palatal lateral () or, possibly the most common realisation, a palatal approximant (). are palato-alveolar, and vary between stops and affricates . is the vocalised allophone of in coda position. Such sequences are treated as diphthongs, as they can be either long or (although marginally and in spurious cases) short. Also, is the only native source of , e.g. , . Vocalisation is not the only option as and ~ (Suðuroy) show it. are highly marginal allophones of only reported to have occurred before another plosive. is treated by Árnason as voiced. frequently occurs in stressed syllable with an "empty" onsets. In this position, its most notable feature is its blocking of vowel elision: .
There are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including:
Liquid consonants are devoiced before voiceless consonants Nasal consonants generally assume the place of articulation and laryngeal settings of following consonants, especially . This includes , hansara Velar stop consonants () palatalize to before . Alveolar stops () also palatalize to before . becomes devoiced to adjacent to voiceless consonants, represent the palatal after and another consonant within the same simplex word. As in hvíld , pískari becomes before (but in morphological forms often word internally, i.e. elski )