Faroese: A Little Known Relative of English

In the North Atlantic lies a group of islands called the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands are a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but they have been self governing since a short time after World War Two ended. The population is "about" 50,000. There is more than a 600 mile distance between the islands and continental Denmark. The language of the Faroe Islands is not Danish, but rather "Faroese," a language from the North Germanic branch of the Germanic language family, with its closest linguistic relative being Icelandic, and Danish being a somewhat more distant linguistic cousin. Of course Faroese is related to the other Germanic languages, including English, although I would guess many English speakers, especially those outside of the British Isles, have no idea that such a language even exists. Like its close cousin Icelandic, Faroese has not had as many influences from other languages; thus, it has remained somewhat more consistent over time. "The Oxford Companion to the English Language" makes note that English and Faroese have not had much influence on one another.

Here are a few numbers in Faroese: ein (one), fýra (four), seks (six), hundrað (hundred), túsund (thousand).  

* "The Oxford Companion to the English Language," edited by Tom McArthur, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England; American edition printed in the United States in New York, 1992

The flag of the Faroe Islands ...

  

WORD HISTORY:

Meadow (Mead, not the drink 'mead,' which is unrelated to 'mead,' meaning meadow or pasture)-"Meadow/Mead" are closely related forms related to "math" (NOT the shortened form of "mathematics," rather as in the second part of "aftermath") and to "mow" ("to cut grass"), both from the Germanic roots of English. They go back to the Indo European root "me" (not the same as our word "me" today), with the notion of "cutting down grass or grain," with the suffixed form "met/maet." This gave Old Germanic "maetha," meaning, "place of mowed grass, place to be mowed;" thus, "grassy area;" thus, "pasture, meadow." This produced West Germanic "medwo," meaning, "meadow, pasture." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "mæd," which meant, "meadow, grassy area."^ This then became "mede," before the "mead" spelling. The accusative/dative form of Old English "mæd" was "mædwe," which came to stand on its own and then morphed into "meadow." Relatives in the other West Germanic languages: German has "Matte," meaning "highland meadow, pasture," which, like its close English cousin "mead," tends to be used more in high style writings and poetry in modern times; Low German (in Old Saxon) once had "matha/maða" ('ð' essentially=th), but this doesn't "seem" to have been a stand alone word, but rather it was used in geographical names. It's unclear to me exactly what happened with forms in Low German, as "mede" seems to be the last trace of the word, and that's been more than a couple of centuries ago; Dutch had "made/mede" up until a couple of hundred years ago, but I cannot a form in modern Dutch; West Frisian doesn't "seem" to have a stand alone word anymore, but it does have "miede" as part of a compound, and it means, "(grassy) field."     

     
^ The Old Germanic form also gave Old English the noun "mæþ," which meant, "grass that has been cut, crops that are cut down;" thus also, "harvested food produce."