Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Qupperneq 46

54
Hví hevur nekarin fepur?
Svabos færøske visehaandskrifter, Samfund til Udgivelse af gammel nor-
disk Litteratur, nr 59, utg. av Chr. Matras, København 1939. (SFVH).
Telefonverk Føroya Løgtings, Telefonbók 1976, Tórshavn.
Varðin, Føroyskt tíðarskrift, 1921 ^—. Tórshavn.
Zachariasen, Ulf, Munurin millum Suðuroyarmál og føroyskt annars, Fróð-
skaparrit 16, Tórshavn 1968.
SUMMARY
The present article is a study of bilingualism and interference. The
principal aim is to point out certain structural differences between Danish
(Da.) and Faroese (Far.), and to demonstrate how Da. loanwords in Far.
are transformed in accordance with the morphological and phonological
structure of Far.
Only two types of words are discussed, viz. those with a single plosive
after a long stressed vowel or diphthong in the same morpheme in Far.,
and those with the suffix -er in Da. In the headline »Hví hevur nekarin
fepur?« (Why has the negro got a fever?) the two types are demonstrated;
Da. neger and feber have been transformed in Far. to nekari and fepur.
In the former part of the article the postvocalic plosives are discussed.
Both Da. and Far. have two series of plosives, fortes (p, t, k) and lenes
(b, d, g), but the distribution of the plosives differs on an important point
in the old common vocabulary of the two languages. Whereas postvocalic
Old Norse p, t, k are still pronounced as plosives in Far. — e. g. in
grípa, eta aka — the consonants are weakened in Da., first to lenes —
gribe, æde, age — and later, as for d and g, to fricatives, [ð] and [y].
In Far. there is regional variation in the pronunciation of postvocalic plo-
sives. In Vágar, Nólsoy and in large parts of Streymoy and Eysturoy they
are clear fortes, in other parts of the islands as a rule voiceless lenes.
There is no opposition between fortis and lenis in this position in Far.
A typical case of phonological interference in Faroese Da. (»gøtu-
danskt«, i. e. »street Danish«) is the pronuciation of postvocalic d and g.
The fricatives [ð] and [y] do not exist in the phonological system of Far.,
and in Faroese Da. these sounds are identified with the corresponding
plosives and pronounced as such. As plosives in this position are spelt p, t,
k in Far., loanwords with b, d, g are in conflict with Far. linguistic struc-
ture. There is a strong tendency to integrate loanwords phonetically, mor-
phoiogically and graphematically. In the article different degrees of inte-
gration are discussed and demonstrated.
A characteristic group are nekari, jekari, leytari, tikari; Da. neger,
jæger, lejder, tiger (negro, hunter, ladder, tiger). From older sources —
among others Føringatíðindi 1890 and Jakob Jakobsen’s biography of