Soffía's Icelandic log

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Sep 18, 2016 9:12 am

Soffía wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:Good going with the Hobbit!

I'm curious, what aspect of La Vuelta interests you soffía?

Thanks!

I started watching the Tour de France this year because I thought I might enjoy the scenery... the joke was on me, as I found myself becoming a fan of pro cycling. Since then I've been watching most of the major races, though La Vuelta was a particularly suspenseful one.

I keep thinking the Tour de France might be a good motivator to learn French (not so interested in Spanish), but we'll see...


I've been watching Le Tour de France for over 2 decades and love it for the scenery, the fact that it's France, and the cycling. I've only recently begun watching the Giro d'Italia as well and keep meaning to watch La Vuelta but keep missing it. I have howerver been watching the odd one day Belgian and Dutch classic rides and Paris-Roubaix. I suggest you get on to watching them yourself if you're enjoying the cycling aspect of these races. Thanks for sharing :) and hope you keep enjoying the riding and the beautiful countryside where these rides take place. Keep up the good language study too of course ! ;)
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Elsa Maria
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Elsa Maria » Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:30 pm

I have been reading through your log, and found some inspiration there :) In just a few short weeks, I will no longer live in Denmark and will transition my Danish study approach to lots and lots of reading. I had hoped to visit the Faroe Islands, but never got there. I am sure it was amazing!
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Sat Sep 24, 2016 6:08 pm

Elsa Maria wrote:I have been reading through your log, and found some inspiration there :) In just a few short weeks, I will no longer live in Denmark and will transition my Danish study approach to lots and lots of reading. I had hoped to visit the Faroe Islands, but never got there. I am sure it was amazing!


Thank you! I wish you the best of luck with your reading and hope that you make it to the Faroes eventually.
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:51 pm

Currently reading "Krabbaveislan" by Hlynur Níels Grímsson. Really interesting darkly cynical look at modern medicine (the narrator is an oncologist) and modern Icelandic society. It's a short book with short chapters, but very much not an easy read. It's extremely stream-of-consciousness so you can get halfway down a page and realise that you're still on the same sentence.

My comprehension is... patchy. It's right at the limit of my abilities, as The Hobbit was last year, but there's no harm in fighting onwards. I can always come back to it for a re-read another day. I'm mildly impressed that I'm able to parse the syntax at all.

In other news, Faroese Online has landed! https://faroeseonline.com

So far it's only the "survival course," which is a bit basic for me, but probably worth doing in order to grasp the pronunciation and a few basic differences in vocabulary. I don't expect to work through it in an organised way, unless/until I decide to go back to the Faroes. (In which case I'll probably do it as a bit of a crash course.)
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:04 am

Soffía wrote:
In other news, Faroese Online has landed! https://faroeseonline.com

So far it's only the "survival course," which is a bit basic for me, but probably worth doing in order to grasp the pronunciation and a few basic differences in vocabulary. I don't expect to work through it in an organised way, unless/until I decide to go back to the Faroes. (In which case I'll probably do it as a bit of a crash course.)


It's great to see new resources for learning minority languages. I hope it's a sign of the health status of such languages. You've been to the Faroe Islands... How was it? Is all the population fluent in the local tongue from your observations/understandings? Or is it a minority language which has been persecuted and thus still trying revive it's status?

Edt: Just did some reading on Wikipedia about the islands and the language... interesting, so how did you find your visit there?
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:16 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:It's great to see new resources for learning minority languages. I hope it's a sign of the health status of such languages. You've been to the Faroe Islands... How was it? Is all the population fluent in the local tongue from your observations/understandings? Or is it a minority language which has been persecuted and thus still trying revive it's status?


Faroese is in amazingly good health given the years of Danish rule, when Danish was the language of church, school, law, politics, literature and pretty much everything else. Faroese only returned to being a written language in the mid-nineteenth century (hence the wacky orthography): the first notable novels seem to be from the 1930s, and the Bible wasn't fully translated until 1949!

But Faroese is absolutely the language of daily life in the Faroes. Apparently 5% of people have Danish as a first language but this wasn't something that I noticed. All the signs, brochures, menus, announcements are in Faroese. Everyone started off speaking to me in Faroese (which would have been great if I had any speaking/listening skills....) It has a thriving little literary scene, and a radio station, and a TV station I guess although the broadcasting hours seem to be very restricted.

You can definitely see the difference in cultural production between the Faroese and Iceland. As an independent nation with a population of 300k rather than 50k, Iceland puts out much more material in terms of books, films, TV, newspapers. You could quite happily read Icelandic literature all year, unless you were a very voracious reader, whereas the selection in Faroese was limited and dominated by translations. Most of the books in the bookstore were Danish.

Having said that, Iceland's second language is clearly English whereas in the Faroes it's clearly Danish, so this may make some difference in the long run. Most of the Faroese seem to be fluent in Danish, whereas the Icelanders are required to learn it in school but never seem to manage. I found it funny that there were no Icelandic books on sale in the Faroes: the written languages are mutually intelligible, so you would think they would take advantage of the literary output there, but no.

So Faroese is technically a minority language – and likely to remain so, I'd imagine, as the islands are just too small to go it alone – but it doesn't feel like one when you're in the Faroes.
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:23 am

In terms of documenting and teaching Faroese to non-native speakers, a lot of the work seems to have been done by one very energetic professor at the University of the Faroe Islands (founded 1965). Hjalmar P. Petersen led the production of the online course, co-wrote a very thorough beginners' coursebook, co-wrote a very thorough grammar in English (far better than any grammar of Icelandic in English), and seems to be responsible for the university's summer course in Faroese.

If anyone wants to learn more about the language, his publication list would be the place to start:
http://setur.fo/en/university-of-the-fa ... -petersen/
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:11 am

Soffía wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:It's great to see new resources for learning minority languages. I hope it's a sign of the health status of such languages. You've been to the Faroe Islands... How was it? Is all the population fluent in the local tongue from your observations/understandings? Or is it a minority language which has been persecuted and thus still trying revive it's status?


Faroese is in amazingly good health given the years of Danish rule, when Danish was the language of church, school, law, politics, literature and pretty much everything else. Faroese only returned to being a written language in the mid-nineteenth century (hence the wacky orthography): the first notable novels seem to be from the 1930s, and the Bible wasn't fully translated until 1949!

But Faroese is absolutely the language of daily life in the Faroes. Apparently 5% of people have Danish as a first language but this wasn't something that I noticed. All the signs, brochures, menus, announcements are in Faroese. Everyone started off speaking to me in Faroese (which would have been great if I had any speaking/listening skills....) It has a thriving little literary scene, and a radio station, and a TV station I guess although the broadcasting hours seem to be very restricted.

You can definitely see the difference in cultural production between the Faroese and Iceland. As an independent nation with a population of 300k rather than 50k, Iceland puts out much more material in terms of books, films, TV, newspapers. You could quite happily read Icelandic literature all year, unless you were a very voracious reader, whereas the selection in Faroese was limited and dominated by translations. Most of the books in the bookstore were Danish.

Having said that, Iceland's second language is clearly English whereas in the Faroes it's clearly Danish, so this may make some difference in the long run. Most of the Faroese seem to be fluent in Danish, whereas the Icelanders are required to learn it in school but never seem to manage. I found it funny that there were no Icelandic books on sale in the Faroes: the written languages are mutually intelligible, so you would think they would take advantage of the literary output there, but no.

So Faroese is technically a minority language – and likely to remain so, I'd imagine, as the islands are just too small to go it alone – but it doesn't feel like one when you're in the Faroes.


Thank you for sharing Soffía. It's nice to hear their language is in a healthy state. Strange though, that they don't take much to Icelandic books as you mentioned. The place looks very different to any place I've ever visited. Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to set foot on these interesting islands and explore it, as well as hear the language first hand.

Edit: this also makes me think that, any minority language promoted thoroughly through education and other means can absolutely be revived if the majority of the population in question is included in bringing back the language as the main language of the people in every day communication and usage
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:17 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:Edit: this also makes me think that, any minority language promoted thoroughly through education and other means can absolutely be revived if the majority of the population in question is included in bringing back the language as the main language of the people in every day communication and usage


I was probably a bit unclear here. When I said "and pretty much everything else," what I meant is that Danish was the language of power and learning in the Faroes. However, as most people had neither power nor learning, Faroese was always the language of everyday communication and usage. (I don't mean this in a derisive way, but it was very much a subsistence-level culture. Even commercial fishing doesn't seem really to have taken off until the early-to-mid-twentieth century... Heðin Brú's Feðgar á ferð is a novel about the cultural shifts that resulted.)

For most people I suspect that hearing Danish at church didn't have that much impact... after all, there are a lot of branches of Christianity where the language of church isn't the language of the people.

So it wasn't a matter of reviving Faroese so much as developing the possibility of its being a literate, educated language as well as an everyday language. Your statement may be right, but Faroese probably isn't the language to illustrate it.
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Soffía
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Re: Soffía's Icelandic log

Postby Soffía » Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:22 pm

Just finished "Krabbaveislan" and enjoyed it a lot. As previously said, my comprehension was more than a bit patchy, but as long as I'm still finding it entertaining, I feel I'm getting something out of it.

Now I'm taking in a few interviews with the author:
http://www.ruv.is/sarpurinn/klippa/krab ... s-grimsson
http://www.laeknabladid.is/tolublod/2015/04/nr/5474

Next I'm going to give "Bítlaávarpið" another shot. Certainly it's a much easier read, although I strongly suspect (this is my third try) that I just dislike the book.
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