Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb
Encyclopedia
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Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
Lutheran minister
Church of Denmark
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, Church of Denmark or Danish National Church, is the state church and largest denomination in Denmark and Greenland...
who established the modern orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
of Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, the language of the Faroe Islands
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
, based on the Icelandic language
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, which like Faroese derives from Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
.
Background
Hammershaimb was born in SandavágurSandavágur
The town of Sandavágur lies on the south coast of the Faroese island of Vágar, and has been voted the most well-kept village in the Faroes twice. The name Sandavágur means sandy creek and refers to the beach down by the inlet. From one point in Sandavágur you can get a view of all the southern...
on the island of Vágar
Vágar
Vágar is one of the 18 islands in the archipelago of the Faroe Islands and the most westerly of the large islands. With a size of 178 km² , it ranks number three, behind Streymoy and Eysturoy....
in the Faroe Islands
Regions of the Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are divided into six regions, seven constituencies and 30 municipalities. The region of Streymoy is composed of two constituencies. Each region has one sheriff....
. He was a Lutheran parish priest in Kvívík
Kvívík
Kvívík is a village on the west coast of Streymoy in the Faroe Islands, in the eponymous municipality of Kvívík.The village is on both sides of a narrow bay and the small river Stora....
and a rural dean
Rural Dean
In the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, a Rural Dean presides over a Rural Deanery .-Origins and usage:...
in Nes
Nes, Eysturoy
Nes is a Village and Municipality on the southwest coast of the Faroese island of Eysturoy. Beside Nes two other towns Toftir and Saltnes are part of Nes Municipality, which has a total population of 1.267 .-Overview:...
, on the Faroese island of Eysturoy
Eysturoy
Eysturoy means East island and is the second-largest of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, both in size and population. It is separated by a narrow sound from the main island of Streymoy. Eysturoy is extremely rugged, with some 66 separate mountain peaks, including Slættaratindur, the...
, before settling in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in 1878. In addition to his contributions to the written standard of Faroese, he was also a known folklorist. During the years 1847–48, and again in 1853, he returned to the Faroes to study the dialects and to collect the native ballads and folklore, which he published in 1851–55 under the title of Færöiske Kvæder. In 1854, he published a grammar of Faroese.
Faroese language
At one point, the language spoken in the Faroe Islands was Old West Norse, which Norwegian settlers had brought with them. Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved, although it was still intelligible to speakers of Old West Norse. It would have been closely related to the Norn languageNorn language
Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in Shetland and Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland, and in Caithness. After the islands were pledged to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century, it was gradually replaced by Scots and on the mainland by Scottish...
of Orkney and Shetland. However, for some 300 years until the 19th century, under the dual kingdom of Denmark–Norway
Denmark–Norway
Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for a former political entity consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the originally Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
was the language of religion, education, and administration in the Faroe Islands.
Hammershaimb created his spelling system for Faroese in 1846. It was etymological, with the vowels based on written Icelandic, rather than phonetically descriptive (as in for example Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
.) For instance, the letter Eth
Eth
Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese , and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line through the vertical stroke...
(Ð) has no phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s attached to it. In this Hammershaimb had accepted the advice of the Icelandic independence leader Jón Sigurðsson
Jón Sigurðsson
Jón Sigurðsson was the leader of the 19th century Icelandic independence movement.Born at Hrafnseyri, near Arnarfjörður in the Westfjords area of Iceland, he was the son of a pastor, Sigurður Jónsson. He moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1833 to study grammar and history at the university there...
, who had seen the manuscript for his "Bemerkninger med Hensyn til den Færøiske Udtale" (Notes with Respect to Faroese Pronunciation); Hammershaimb considered that despite its artificiality, this was the only approach that would overcome the problems of differing dialects in the islands. Hammershaimb's orthography met with some opposition for its complexity. In 1889 Jakob Jakobsen
Jakob Jakobsen
Dr. phil. Jakob Jakobsen, , was a Faroese linguist as well as a scholar of literature. He was the first Faroese person to earn a doctoral degree...
proposed modifying Hammershaimb's system to bring it closer to the spoken language, but a committee charged with considering the proposal in 1895 advocated only minor revisions, and Hammershaimb's orthography remained in force. In 1886–91 Hammershaimb published his principal work, Færøsk Anthologi; it incorporated an account of the islands and their inhabitants, a variety of prose and verse in the Faroese language, and a grammar, and in the second volume a lexicon by Jakobsen.
Literature in Faroese
A new, national written literature in Faroese became possible only after the language’s orthography was normalized. Its development was promoted by nationalist agitation, which hastened the restoration of the Faroese ParliamentLøgting
Løgting is the unicameral parliament of the Faroe Islands, a self-ruling dependency of Denmark.The name literally means "Law Thing" - that is, a law assembly - and derives from Old Norse lǫgþing, which was a name given to ancient assemblies. A ting or Þing has existed on the Faroe Islands for over...
in 1852 and the end of the Danish royal trade monopoly in 1856. During the late 19th century modern Faroese literature began to appear and the first Faroese newspaper, Føringatiðindi, appeared in 1890. Faroese literature came into its own after the turn of the 20th century. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Faroese became the official language of the Faroe Islands.
Works
- "Færøiske Sagn" and "Bemerkninger med Hensyn til den Færøiske Udtale". Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1846, pp. 358-365.
- Færöiske Kvæder. 2 vols. Det Nordiske Literatur-Samsfund. Nordiske Oldskrifter 12, 20. Copenhagen: Berlings, 1851, 1855
- "Færøisk Sproglære". Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1854
- Færøsk Anthologi. 2 vols. Volume 1 Tekst samt historisk og grammatisk Indledning. Volume 2 Ordsamling og Register, ed. Jakob JakobsenJakob JakobsenDr. phil. Jakob Jakobsen, , was a Faroese linguist as well as a scholar of literature. He was the first Faroese person to earn a doctoral degree...
. Samfund til Udgivelse af gammel nordisk Litteratur 15. Copenhagen: Møller, 1886, 1891.
Other sources
- Lockwood, W. B. An introduction to modern Faroese. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1964
External links
- Færöiske Kvæder, ed. V.U. Hammershaimb, online at GoogleBooks
- Færøsk Anthologi by V.U. Hammershaimb (2 volumes, Volume 2 ed. Jakob Jakobsen), online at GoogleBooks