A brief history of the Faroese language (by a native speaker) 

It's not a paid ad, but there's a guy on RU-vid named Jackson Crawford who is an old norse specialist. He has a lot of videos about norse languages and dialects with details. If someone is curious.

Hey, Heri! I'm a linguistics grad student studying Germanic languages. I just wanted to say that you did a great job on this video!

Oh man, thanks for this! I really had a great time watching this video! I was a Týr fan for a while but unfortunately I haven't listened to your stuff as of late (will get back into it!) I saw your name and my ears perked; I knew I would enjoy this. I had an online friend from the Faroes who helped me with a strange project.. I had a base knowledge of Icelandic, and I happened to love the song Norðlýsið - Byrta. It was quite the interesting time where I would have an Icelandic dictionary and using what little skills I had to get the "translation", but he had a wild time just laughing how different it was. Got the translation and that was my first experience to Faroese. Quite the amazing time hahaha Coming from Australia, where we don't really get a second language until high school (in many cases), I'm really happy that even through colonization with the Danish; everyone maintained Faroese, and you're all keeping the language strong. Thank you so much for everything you're doing and also passing along the knowledge to all of us who are interested! x

Very well explained! I myself have studied Scandinavian studies here in Belgrade (I took Swedish as my main language) and while I'm familiar with the history of continental Scandinavian languages and some basic history and rules of Icelandic, I have very little knowledge of Faroese. It was barely mentioned at all during my studies, which is really a shame since it has a lot to offer, especially in terms of comparative linguistics. And I've listened to Týr the most when I was at the University so you can imagine my frustration haha :D During the years I've tried to crack the rules of reading in Faroese but since there are very few sources on the internet in hasn't been that easy. Men jag hoppas på att höra lite mer om detta fantastiska spårk från dig snart! :)

I discovered TYR a little over a year ago and since then I've been inspired to take up Norwegian (my late grandmother's first language) through Duolingo, and I have more recently acquired a book on reading Old Norse. With any luck I will one day have an understanding of Faroese as well, so I can make sense of the various kvaeði I've found online. Thanks for awakening my inner Viking, Heri.

I guess I am a bit of a language nerd. I found this fascinating. Thanks for the lesson!

The part where you read the same sentence in each Norse language was fascinating, especially how words with similar or identical spellings were pronounced so differently. I'd love to hear more sentences read and compared like that.

Oh yeah, language nerds are really happy now! Thanks for such an interesting video!

I first got curious about Faroese from Týr's music over a decade ago - I've now come full circle as I'm planning to stay there for a few months and wanted to check some basic language stuff, funny that it's your videos that crop up. I know some Norwegian and it looks like there's enough crossover in the basic words, but I love some of the different pronunciations

The sentence in Norwegian nynorsk: God dag. Eg bur på Færøyene. Her regner det ofte.

Hey, Heri, great video. Faroes' culture and history videos are always really interesting (as well as Nordic culture in general). I wish you the best and all the success of the world with the next album.

More of these, I love this. \,,/

thank you heri for informing us on the differing styles and history of the scandinavian language as a pagan myself i have greatly enjoyed this. skal from norway.

Heri fra tyr?! Stor fan!

Great video, very informative. Can´t wait to hear the next TYR album.

Thank you Heri! Wonderful. It was a pleasure to learn. I hope that you teach us more.

Thanks! I'll share this with my dad, he's a fan, too. Love the waterfall at end as well.

Thanks man, really enjoy your videos, especially learning about your nations culture and history. Love your music and your educational videos. One day, hopefully I will get to visit your beautiful country. Cheers from Singapore.

Heri you are a true god amongst men. You are also my favorite musician and just now became my favorite teacher as well. Thank you and please never stop practicing either one of those lol i LOVE youuu mannn (fire and flame is absolutely insane btw I literally can’t wait till march)

This was amazing! Thanks for the short lesson :)

Eg royni at læra føroyskt, og eg eri her for at læra føroyskt. Tað ert gott stað at læra føroyskt. Eg havi lært tað í næstan 18 dagar, proces! Klassi video!

Cool cool! Never knew that the Greenlandic settlers developed their own dialect, or that Norn lasted so long. Thanks Heri!

This is great video! I'm currently working on a Faroese music video and this helped me understand the history and language a lot better!

Tusen takk Heri. :-)

I had no idea you did linguistic videos. I'm hooked!

Thanks for your brief but clear explanation about your language. Now I know a bit more about it.

Thank you for making this! I've been wanting to learn a little Faroese in order to learn some of your songs. It is such a beautiful language, and so closely related to Norwegian that I can understand a lot of it.

A beautiful language thankyou for sharing this. Would love to visit these islands one day!👍👍

Very informative, thank you.

Nice video! Really informative

Excellent video, thank you very much!

Here we go! This is really cool to see and hear about! Thanks Heri!👏😍

Cool, from Canada.

i love it when you have this knowledge of our roots and our history 🖤

I’ve studied swedish for some time and have always been interested in Norse languages. Really enjoyed this video.

This is great!! I love the sound of Nordic languages and It's exiting and super interesting seeing how those evolved in what they are nowadays.

Excellent video!

Very informative! I love language lessons

So fascinating! Thank you

your norwegian pronounciation is spot on. i live on the south west coast of norway and i feel the dialect we speak here is more similar to faroese than what bokmål is, but bokmål is like 80% danish (written) so it only makes sense. I can easily pick up 30-50% of individual words when i hear faroese, but it's often very difficult to understand the whole meaning unless it's a short sentence. cool video, see you at karmøygeddon :)

Very interesting history and language history! Very unique sounding language. I really love songs in faroese Something that may interest you are the "dialects" of swedish which is more of a language really called Gutamål, Gutiska/Gutnish which is an old dialect of Gotland. Another unique sounding dialect is Älvdalska/Elfdalian

Nice one mate; from the Outer Hebrides.

Þakka þér fyrir myndbandinu þínu. Mér finnst spenanndi færeyska tungumálið. Ég er að læra íslensku í 3 ár og kann að lesa dálítið færeysku, en þú hefur rétt, færeyska er mjög erfitt að skilja af því að það er borið fram allt öðruvísi en það er skrifað. Takk fyrir á ný.

Thanks for posting

An Old English translation of the first 3 verses of “Ramund Hin Unge”. The language is over 1500 years old and amazingly similar to its Germanic predecessors and descendants (including Faroese). 90% of it should be understandable! ----------------- Ramund wolde habban gewesan anen bēteran mann, ƿenn he hæfde bēteran clāðu Seo cwen gıfede to hım clāðu þæt wæron gedōn fram blue yarn, bast and læðer “Iċ wille ne þas clāðu”, sagede Ramund “Hie ne ƿyrċan for me”, sagede Ramund se ġēong Ramund farede by þæm saltygan strant-syte, and þıðer he sēede seofon riseu standan “Iċ wılle niman Ramund on mınem lȳtelest hande, and wılle weorfan hine feor fram þæm lande” “Þu cannst ne dōn þæt alōn”, sagede Ramund “For þæt, all seofon of eow scealaþ cuman”, sagede Ramund se ġēong Ramund nimede ut sınem dīerean sweorde, se he hæfde gehātan “redan doƿel” He sclagede þa seofon riseu at þæm samod-tım mıd sınet waffonæt And hie blōdedon tıl dēaþ “And þıðer hie lıċġan, all seofon of him”, sagede Ramund “Ac iet Iċ stande hier”, sagede Ramund se ġēong

love these types of videos, would love to see more. Hold the Heathen Hammer High!

Very interesting!!

Herri thanks again for your videos all these Germanic languages are kind of easy for you guys to learn as you show us examples here and like you said a bit of time and there you are knowing another Germanic language it’s like the Romance languages if you know one the others are easy to learn because they all come from Latin

Can't believe my favourite band is so keen to their cultural roots. I am truly mesmerized. Takk fyrir!!!

Very interesting! I am studying Faroese and love it!

Heri,,þetta var mjög góð lýsing á því hvernig þjóðir okkar hafa þróst,, takk :)

Ill be damned if i dont going to row to færøyene before i die it has always been a dream of mine . Hilsen Morten fra Tustna

Thank you for this explanation :)

I love your superb explanation. Smá athugasemd varðandi íslenskuna :-) . Icelandic is not only so archaic because we had such a rich written history. I guess Iceland is the only country where the clock was turned back a few hundred years with respect to the language. The independence movement cleaned the language from Danish influence and reinstated Icelandic as it had been centuries before. Imagine the Germans deciding to go back to Mittelhochdeutsch... If I remember right does Norsk Bokmal trace its roots to Danish and is classified as part of the East-Norse languages, while Nynorsk is the old Norwegian and is part of the Western Norse languages or Island-Norse. (Not Iceland-Norse) ;-) Or mabe I just have a bad memory. I understand your "Chinese" comment very well. I do not understand Faroese unless spoken very slow. I grew up with German and speak it like a native. Years later I moved to Zurich. Same here I understood nothing, but after 6 months the dialect opened up like a window. Same thing. Takk fyrir!

Outstanding! Great overview plus the ending with a phrase in all those languages makes it so obvious! Icelandic and Faroese are similar vs Swedish Norwegian and danish Are similar. Two groups though they share commonalities

Woah! This is a great one 👍 for a beginner like me 🙂 takk fyri

Languages and the history of languages never cease to fascinate.

As a Norwegian who is a language nerd, I understand Icelandic, and fluent in Swedish and Danish by default, I always thought it had a Celtic relation due to the weird sounds. But it actually comes from Swedish and Danish? And if Norwegian hadn’t been influenced by Lower German, Dutch and Danish we’d probably still sound and write as in Icelandic. I understand Farose easier than Icelandic as most do since it’s ckoser to Norwegian even though the Icelandic vikings came from Sogndal on the western Coast called Vestlandet in Norwegian. Also all Icelanders are part Celtic due to brining female slaves from Dublin Ireland as no Norwegian women at the time wanted to come with. My bf is Icelandic and has Irish/Scottish ancestry as well as Celtic skin type. His dad is a redhead and mother has black hair. Also all Irish and Scots has as much as 40% Norwegian DNA due to the Norwegian Vikings settling in Ireland and Scotland and they never left, but assimilated.

Tanks Hery Es un gusto sabér de donde viene nuestro lenguaje un beso \m/

For eit stilig språk 👌

Sad about the Norse settlers of Greenland....is there...anyone..on Greenland ? Haha thank you for this video. I'm obsessed with the North Germanic/Scandinavian languages.

Thank you 🙏 And please teach us to speak Faroese 🙏

We fell down an internet rabbit hole looking at European languages we'd never heard before. Thank you for your clear explanation! I love seeing the sentences placed next to each other so you can really see how related all these languages are.

Áta khilí! Philámayaye. 😁 >>>---------> Awesome! Thank you.

Well done! Very interesting. Eg bugvi i Olympia, Washington. Her regnar ofta. Cool foul weather gear (jacket) you are wearing! It appears to be tough as Hel. May I ask what brand it is?

I read that at one time the language in Shetland and the Faroe Islands was the same.

that's awesome! I never thought I would hear a person speaking old norse! do you know it well? I would love if you and the band made a song with old norse lyrics

Awesome !

Flexing those Nordic languages lol! Very good, Herr Joensen!

Thanks for sharing. Very informative. I was wondering. If I were to learn the Norwegian language, will I be able to understand and speak the Faroese language?

Norse Languages' similarities are just like those between Romance Languages (except Romanian). French would be equivalent to Danish (weird pronunciation). Icelandic would be something really close to Latin itself (which does not bear resemblance with modern romance languages). Italian, Portuguese and Spanish are really similar to each other, just like Norwegian and Swedish.

Very interesting video. The connections between languages have always fascinated me. I've often wondered why English is nearly useless for understanding any other language. Dutch and German share connections. The Romance languages share similar structures such that learning one goes a long way toward learning another. Czechs and Poles can make each other at least somewhat understood. Even Finns and Estonians can get some communication going. But English... seems pretty isolated and silly. And sadly, it's the only language I know well.

Shame that Norn died out, but if you speak to a native shetlander their accent is hard to understand even for mainland scottish people. They still use words more likely taken from Norn at some point.

Frábært!

Isn't Norwegian Bokmål close to Danish? I think it would be worth to point this out, because then it would be more like a descendant of East Norse (through Danish). Also, I miss a Norwegian Nynorsk example (which should be a proper descendant of West Norse), and I also miss any mention to Elfdalian and extinct Gutnish being descendants from East Norse.

Do you have more videos about the Faroese language on Patreon?

Swedish by comparison sounds so singsong-y. A weirdly bouncy language

eh, I believe, one day Faroese will be added to the Google Translator (to understand, I normally use Icelandic translator and dictionaries).

Hei igjen Heri Joensen, Unskyld men dette er noe privat. Er det noen på Færøyene jeg kan kontakte for å kjøpe en færøisk til engelsk ordbok? Jeg bor i Australia. Mvh, Odd Steinar

I’m sure I’m not the first to have asked this, but would you be willing to teach us to swear in Faroese? :)

Hey you pagans I got a question: If you can't wait for a new Tyr album and them to do a tour for the new album, gimme a HAIL ODEN!

Ironically Swedes and Norwegians can understand each other rather freely however not so between Swedes and Danes.

Norwegian Nynorsk: God dag. I bur på Færøyane. Her regnar det ofte. Alternatively more traditional: God Dag. Eg bur på Færøyom. Her regnar det ofta.

So man kann siga at Vencil dugdi at brúka pensil

Nahhh u faroese speak like this because we dropped u off the boat on the way to Iceland because u were too drunk! And u continued to speak like that to this very day ;)