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 and long vowels appearing in open syllables. provides the following alternations: 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. es The only unstressed vowels in Faroese are short ; these appear in inflectional endings: áðrenn. Very typical are endings like -ur, -ir, -ar. The dative is often indicated by.
– bátar , kallar
– gestir , dugir
– bátur , gentur , rennur .
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 tabledisplays the different realizations in different dialects.
Word
Borðoy Kunoy Tórshavn
Viðoy Svínoy Fugloy
Suðuroy
Elsewhere
gulur
gulir
bygdin
bygdum
Skerping
The so-called "skerping" is a typical phenomenon of fronting back vowels before and monophthongizing certain diphthongs before long. Skerping is not indicated orthographically.
: Jógvan , Gjógv
: kúgv , trúgva , but: trúleysur
: heyggjur , but heygnum
: nýggjur , but nýtt
: beiggi
: oyggj , but oynna
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 alveolar.
Initial is dental or alveolar. Postvocalic may be more of a postalveolar lateral, especially after back vowels.
retroflexes itself as well as following consonants in consonant clusters, yielding the allophones while itself becomes, example: ; preaspirated consonants devoice the rhotic: example: ; is usually . Voiceless is usually realised as.
Pre-stopping of original to and 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:
Omissions in consonant clusters
Faroese tends to omit the first or second consonant in clusters of different consonants:
fjals instead of from . Other examples for genitives are: barns , vatns .
hjálptipast sg. instead of from hjálpa. Other examples for past forms are: sigldi , yrkti .
homophone are fylgdi and fygldi :.
skt will be:
# in words of more than one syllable: føroysktrussiskt , íslendskt .
