Previous installments: Occitan, Luxembourgish, Catalan
We've ended up in the North Atlantic for this week's language of the week: Faroese.
Faroese is a Germanic language, or more specifically a West Scandinavian language, spoken primarily on the Faroe Islands and by Faroese expats in Denmark (The Faroe Islands is an autonomous region of Denmark). There's also a sizable minority of Faroese-speakers on Iceland. All told, about 80.000 - 90.000 people world wide speak Faroese.
Thanks to the remote location of the Faroe Islands, the Faroese language has evolved quite differently than mainland Danish, Swedish or Norwegian from the (now extinct) old Norse language, which was the common ancestor language spoken in Scandinavia during the Viking ages. Faroese grammar is relatively similar to Icelandic and old Norse, although the three are quite different when spoken. The same also holds true for the nynorsk dialect of Norwegian.
Although Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are pretty much mutually intelligible, this does not extend to Icelandic and Faroese, and Icelandic and Faroese are not typically mutually intelligible either.
For further reading, check out the English Wikipedia entry, or the Faroese one if you feel so inclined.
