--- In norse_course@..., "John G." <jg2010@...> wrote:

> How similar are modern Icelandic and Faeroese, particularly in terms

of phonetics? Which is closer to Old Norse?

Well... that's a tough one :)

On the whole, I suppose we could say Icelandic sounds closer to ON
than Faroese does; I wouldn't argue that very far, though. The fact
is, both languages have undergone alot of sound changes, so that
neither of them sounds much like ON probably did.

Continental Scandinavian generally seems to be much closer to ON in
pronunciation (excluding Danish, though); their inflectional system
has, however, undergone vast simplification.

The thing with Icelandic sound changes is that there have been few
merges (where two formerly different sounds become the same, typically
of a third value), and most sound changes have been complete (i.e.
affected all the relevant sounds, not leaving some with the old value
and others with the new one). This characteristic of the development
enables the Icelanders to retain the old orthography almost as it was.

If we take for example an ON word and its Icelandic counterpart:

(using SAMPA transcription)

ON: full (full; fem sg, nom-acc/neut pl, nom-acc)
pronounced something like [PUll]
MI: full (full; fem sg, nom-acc/neut pl, nom-acc)
pronounced [fYtl_0]

The two forms have the same meaning, and same "position" within the
declension; but their pronunciation is markedly different.

[P] is a so-called "bilabial fricative"; it is very close to the [f]
that we know, but pronounced without the tongue touching the teeth (as
it does in [f], which is therefore called a "labio-dental fricative").

AFAIK, Faroese would have the following counterpart:

full (full; fem sg, nom-acc/neut pl, nom-acc)
pronounced [fUtl_0]

I.e. the vowel like that of ON, the consonants like MI.

Generally, though, Faroese has departed most in its vowel system; <u>
is one of the few that still has a value similar to that of ON ([U],
as above). The differences between Faroese and Icelandic are
especially in their vowel systems. It is two much for me to detail
here, really.

The general tendency in all the descendants of ON has been to make
diphthongs out of the former long vowels. Thus, ON <ae>, <oe>, <é>,
<á>, and <ó> have all become diphthongs of some sort in Icelandic. In
Faroese, those, and <ú>, <í>, and <ý> have also become dipthongs. The
values of the new dipthongs are quite different between Icelandic and
Faroese, and also different between the various dialects of
continental Scandinavian.

Icelandic and Faroese have more in common in the developments
of the consonant system. They share their treatment of <ll> (to [tl]),
<nn> (to [tn]), and pre-aspiration as well. In both countries, ON <hv>
has generally become [k_hv] (pronounced somewhat like English <qu> in
<quick>), though some Icelandic dialects have a value closer to the ON
one.

In Faroese, however, <kj>, palatalized <k>, <tj>, and <hj> have all
become an aspirated affricate [t_hS] (as English <ch> in <chill>),
quite unlike Icelandic. Likewise, <gj> and palatalized <g> have become
[tS] (unaspirated <ch>). Faroese has also lost their "ð" [D] (though
the orthography retains it), and the old "þ" [T] has changed to either
a "t" [t_h] or "h" [h] (Far <Hórur> = ON <Þórr> = Thor, the
Thundergod).

Finally, I should note that the Faroes have a great variety of
dialects (unlike Iceland)

As I said, it's a tough question, as there is so much to explain;
perhaps I could provide more understandable answers to less open
questions :)

Óskar