Variation in Faroese and the development of a spoken standard: In search of corpus evidence

Although Faroese exhibits extensive linguistic variation and rapid social change, the language is near-uncharted territory in variationist sociolinguistics. This article discusses some recent social changes in Faroese society in connection with language change, focusing in particular on the developm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nordic journal of linguistics 2014-05, Vol.37 (1), p.87-105
Main Author: Knooihuizen, Remco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Corpus linguistics
Dialects
German language
Language acquisition
Language change
Linguistics
Morphology
North Germanic languages
Phonology
Respondents
Social change
Sociolinguistics
Variationist linguistics
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Summary:Although Faroese exhibits extensive linguistic variation and rapid social change, the language is near-uncharted territory in variationist sociolinguistics. This article discusses some recent social changes in Faroese society in connection with language change, focusing in particular on the development of a de facto spoken standard, Central Faroese. Demographic mobility, media and education may be contributing to this development in different ways. Two linguistic variables are analysed as a first step towards uncovering the respective roles of standardisation, dialect levelling and dialect spread as contributing processes in the formation of Central Faroese: morphological variation in -st endings and phonological variation in -ir and -ur endings. The analysis confirms previously described patterns of geographically constrained variation, but no generational or stylistic differences indicative of language change are found, nor are there clear signs that informants use Central Faroese. The results may in part be due to the structure of the corpus used.
ISSN:0332-5865
1502-4717
DOI:10.1017/S0332586514000079