Gøtudanskt accent

Gøtudanskt/Dano-Faroese (pronounced [ˈkøːʰtʊ.taɲ̊kst], Faroese for "Gøta Danish" or alternatively "street Danish") is a name for the Danish language as spoken in the Faroe Islands. Its intonation and pronunciation are influenced by Faroese.

Etymology

Poulsen (1993) attributes the term to a teacher (1850–1930) from the small village of Gøta on Eysturoy who spoke Danish with a lot of Faroeisms.

Definition of Gøtudanskt

Gøtudanskt/Dano-Faroese is highly proficient (L2) Danish spoken mainly as the written Danish standard by Faroe Islanders with Faroese interference at all levels of language processing. It is characteristic for the elder generation. The younger generation usually has a proper Danish pronunciation.

This is also how the term is understood by people in general, as the following quotation from the Net shows:

‘Tú hevur rætt, at enskt er gott at duga, heimsborgari, men danskt er eisini hent at duga, tá ið tú ert í Flatlondum. Tað ber eisini til at duga gøtudanskt, tí tað líkist øllum teimum norðurlendsku málunum sum danskt, norskt og svenskt. Men gott er at duga rætt danskt nú á døgum, so danir betur skilja okkum, og tað er í longdini eitt sindur vánaligt ikki at duga danskt. Gøtudanskt er líkasum ov lætt, tí tú sigur alt beint fram.’ (www.uf.fo/forum...019403).

Approximately: You are right, World-Citizen, that it is good to know English, but it is good for us to know Danish when we go to Denmark. It is also possible to know Gøtudanskt, because it is so like all the Mainland Scandinavian languages, like Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. But it is good to know correct Danish nowadays, because that makes it easier for the Danes to understand us, and in the long run, is it a bit of a defeat not to know Danish. Gøtudanskt is almost too easy, because you just speak straight out.

A nice example of Gøtudanskt is the jingle children use when sledging: Væk af vejen! Konge skrejen. ‘Away from the road! The king is sledding’, where skrejen comes from the Faroese verb at skreiða ‘to sled’. Another is from Poulsen (1993): De store for flesen, de kan brække traver, where for flesen corresponds to Far. fyri flesini and traver to Faroese tráður, ‘The big ones (coalfish) outside the skerry can break fishing rods’.

Characteristic of Gøtudanskt are:[1]

det var faktisk meget spændende, man får et upplivilsi (Intra-Sentential).
men min far, [TP hann [T' livdi [AdvP ikke så godt... (Embedded Island).
Vi var ude at høste, ude i marken, og så kommer der sådan noget [en flyvemaskine], og min farmor, hun var bleven gammel, os så siger hun, ja, 'nu skal I,' du ved, ja' nú skulu tit signa tykkum, eg veit ikki hvad det kaldes på dansk, ja, nu skal de signa tykkum for jeg tror det er verdens ende.
denne her pige hos min bror = henda gentan hjá beigga mínum; jeg har prøvet at arbejdet indenfor... = eg havi prøvað at arbeitt innanfyri....
som modpregver evolutionsteorien.
så købte vi en anden slåmaskine, og hun var meget bedre.
og hun sagdede, at du upplever meget..., with Danish head lever.
englænderne, de havde børser (bøsser : byrsur).

Týr's songs Ramund Hin Unge on the album Eric the Red and Sinklars vísa on the album Land are sung in Gøtudanskt.

See also

References

  1. Data from the Faroese-Danish Hamburg-Database on Bilingualism. University of Hamburg. Or The K8-Corpus, as prepared by the linguist Hjalmar P. Petersen
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