Faroese phonology

The phonology of Faroese has an inventory similar to the closely related Icelandic language, but markedly different processes differentiate the two. Similarities include an aspiration contrast in stop consonants, the retention of front rounded vowels and vowel quality changes instead of vowel length distinctions.

Vowels



 * and appear only in loanwords.
 * The long mid vowels tend to be diphthongized to.
 * According to the mean formant values of the native vowels (so excluding and ) in, cited in :
 * are more open than the corresponding tense vowels, with being the most open of the three  and having the same F1 value as the back . The F2 value of  is closer to that of, which means that it is a front vowel.
 * and especially are more open than the phonetically close-mid  (, often diphthongized to ). Both  and  are more open than the corresponding short vowels; in addition,  is more central than any of the mid front vowels, including, whereas  is the most front of the mid vowels. This suggests that they are best transcribed  and  in narrow transcription, at least in the case of the monophthongal variants (Árnason reports opening diphthongs  and  as one common type of realization of  and . Those diphthongs have considerably more close starting points).
 * The F1 value of is just slightly higher than that of, suggesting that it is a near-open vowel. In addition, its F2 value is closer to  than , which suggests that it is a near-open near-back vowel.
 * is considerably more close than but not as close as . It is more front than, which suggests that it is a mid front vowel.
 * has the same F1 value as, which suggests that it is also true-mid . The remaining short mid is more open than those two, suggesting  as the best narrow transcription.

As with other Germanic languages, Faroese has a large number of vowel phonemes; by one analysis, long and short vowels may be considered separate phonemes, with 26 in total. Vowel distribution is similar to other North Germanic languages in that short vowels appear in closed syllables (those ending in consonant clusters or long consonants) and long vowels appearing in open syllables.

Faroese avoids having a hiatus between two vowels by inserting a glide between them.

There is considerable variation among dialects in the pronunciation of vowels.

The only unstressed vowels in Faroese are short ; these appear in inflectional endings: áðrenn (e.g. 'before'). Very typical are endings like -ur, -ir, -ar. The dative is often indicated by.
 * – bátar ('boats'), kallar  ('[you] call')
 * – gestir ('guests'), dugir  ('[you] can')
 * – bátur ('boat'), gentur  ('girls'), rennur  ('[you] run').

In some dialects, unstressed short is realized as  or is reduced further to. goes under a similar reduction pattern as it varies between so unstressed  and  can rhyme. This can cause spelling mistakes related to these two vowels. The following table displays the different realizations in different dialects.

Skerping
The so-called "skerping" ( 'sharpening') is a typical phenomenon of fronting back vowels before and monophthongizing certain diphthongs before long. Skerping is not indicated orthographically.
 * Jógvan (a form of the name John), gjógv  ('cleft')
 * kúgv ('cow'), trúgva  ('believe'), but: trúleysur  ('faithless')
 * heyggjur ('high'), but heygnum  ('high [dat. sg.]')
 * nýggjur ('new [M.]'), but nýtt  ('New [Nn.]')
 * beiggi ('brother')
 * oyggj ('island'), but oynna  ('island [acc. sg.]')

Consonants

 * are normally labiodental, but may sometimes be bilabial . Intervocalic is normally an approximant, whereas word-initial  varies between an approximant  and a fricative.
 * is dental, whereas vary between being dental  and (less commonly) alveolar.
 * Initial is dental  or alveolar . Postvocalic  may be more of a postalveolar lateral, especially after back vowels.
 * assimilates to nearby palatals, resulting in the variants ( occurring when  is devoiced): kjálki  ('jaw'), telgja  ('to carve'). Pronunciation of initial  varies situationally between the sequence  and a palatal lateral  or, possibly the most common realisation, a palatal approximant.
 * are palato-alveolar, and vary between stops and affricates.
 * are velar, whereas is glottal.

There are several phonological processes involved in Faroese, including:


 * Liquid consonants are devoiced before voiceless consonants
 * Nasal consonants generally assume the place of articulation and laryngeal settings of following consonants.
 * Velar stop consonants palatalize to postalveolar affricates before.
 * becomes devoiced to before voiceless consonants
 * before another consonant becomes after
 * becomes before  (but in morphological forms often  word internally, i.e. elski  'I love')
 * retroflexes itself as well as following consonants in consonant clusters, yielding the allophones while  itself becomes, example: $⟨rd⟩$ ; preaspirated consonants devoice the rhotic: example: $⟨rt⟩$ ; $⟨rs⟩$ is usually  (only in some loanwords ). Voiceless  is usually realised as.
 * Pre-stopping of original $\langlell\rangle$ to and $\langlenn\rangle$ to.
 * Intervocalically the aspirated consonants become pre-aspirated unless followed by a closed vowel. In clusters, the preaspiration merges with a preceding nasal or apical approximant, rendering them voiceless, example: $⟨nt⟩$

Omissions in consonant clusters
Faroese tends to omit the first or second consonant in clusters of different consonants:
 * fjals ('mountain's') instead of  from  (NOM). Other examples for genitives are: barns  ('child's'), vatns  ('water's').
 * hjálpti ('helped' PAST SG) instead of  from hjálpa . Other examples for past forms are: sigldi  ('sailed'), yrkti  ('wrote poetry').
 * homophone are fylgdi ('followed') and fygldi ('caught birds with a net'):.
 * skt will be:
 * in words of more than one syllable: føroyskt ('Faroese' N.SG); russiskt  ('Russian' N.SG); íslendskt  ('Icelandic' N.SG).
 * in monosyllables: enskt ('English' N.SG); danskt  ('Danish' N.SG); franskt  ('French' N.SG); spanskt  ('Spanish' N.SG); svenskt  ('Swedish' N.SG); týskt  ('German' N.SG).
 * However in: írskt  ('Irish' N.SG), norskt  ('Norwegian' N.SG)